The American Bill of Rights
VIII. Making The Constitution
How The Convention Of 1787 Drafted The Constitution Of The United States
You will remember from your study of American history that when the early colonists came to this country they settled along the Atlantic coast in many separate and distinct groups. Not all had come from the same country. Most of them were English, but there were also smaller settlements of Dutch, French, Germans, and Swedes. It was not many years until the English had taken control of all the land from Maine to Georgia, but even then not all the English were alike. There were Puritans and Cavaliers, Scotch and Irish, Scotch-Irish and Quakers. They differed in their ideas of government, religion, and education.
These colonists had come for many purposes. Some had come to make their fortune. Others because of trouble at home. Most had come to be free, to worship God in the way they chose, to form their own government, to make their own laws, to govern themselves; and in the early days, they had met with success.
But as time went on, as more people came, as ships were built, and trade and commerce increased, the government of England became more and more tyrannical. The English people may not have favored this, but they did not direct the acts of their king and his officers. Taxes were placed on the colonists without their consent. They were forced to accept laws not of their own choosing. The king refused them the right to select their own judges. They could not trade where they pleased. If you will read the [pg 067] Declaration of Independence you will see how their liberties were restricted.[41]
All this time the various colonies were as separate as so many distinct countries. They did not know each other. There was little travel from one to another. They were quite different. But they were alike in the fact that each wanted liberty, and that each was subject to oppression from the English king.
So from time to time we find them sending delegates to some common meeting place to discuss a plan of action. In 1754 a group met at Albany to suggest a plan of union. In 1765 England passed the Stamp Act which put a tax upon certain articles such as books, newspapers, and playing cards. A person could not sell one of these articles without pasting upon it one of these stamps, the money from which went to England as a tax. It was much like our war tax upon tooth paste, shaving soap, and playing cards. The difference was this. The colonists had never given the right to make this tax. It had been imposed upon them by England; and further, if a person were accused of selling a book or newspaper without this stamp, he could be severely punished.[42] This enraged the colonists, and in New York in the following year, there met a group of delegates from nearly all the colonies to discuss ways and means of meeting this.