I have reasons to believe that no colony, which shall assume a government under the people, will give it up. There is something very unnatural and odious in a government a thousand leagues off. A whole government of our own choice, managed by persons whom we love, revere, and can confide in, has charms in it, for which men will fight. Two young gentlemen from South Carolina in this city, who were in Charlestown when their new constitution was promulgated, and when their new Governor and Council and Assembly walked out in procession, attended by the guards, company of cadets, light horse, etc., told me, that they were beheld by the people with transports and tears of joy. The people gazed at them with a kind of rapture. They both told me, that the reflection, that these were gentlemen whom they all loved, esteemed and revered, gentlemen of their own choice, whom they could trust, and whom they could displace, if any of them should behave amiss, affected them so, that they could not help crying. They say, their people will never give up this government. ...
139. Instructions by "State" Conventions against Independence (January-May, 1776)
Proceedings of the Conventions of Maryland in 1774, 1775, and 1776, pages 82-84, 140-142, 176.
Similar instructions were given in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
(1) In Convention, January 12th,
To the honorable Matthew Tilgham, Esq., Thomas Jefferson, Jr., Robert Goldsborough, William Paca, Samuel Chase, Thomas Stone, Robert Alexander, and John Rogers, Esquires.
The convention taking into their most serious consideration the present state of the unhappy dispute between Great Britain and the united colonies, think it proper to deliver you their sentiments, and to instruct you in certain points, relative to your conduct in congress, as representatives of this province.
The experience we and our ancestors have had of the mildness and equity of the English constitution, under which we have grown up to and enjoyed a state of felicity, not exceeded among any people we know of, until the grounds of the present controversy were laid by the ministry and parliament of Great Britain, has most strongly endeared to us that form of government from whence these blessings have been derived, and makes us ardently wish for a reconciliation with the mother country, upon terms that may insure to these colonies an equal and permanent freedom.
To this constitution we are attached, not merely by habit, but by principle, being in our judgments persuaded [that] it is of all known systems best calculated to secure the liberty of the subject, to guard against despotism on the one hand, and licentiousness on the other.