Edward Dumbauld, The Declaration of Independence (1950)

Edward Dumbauld (1905–1997) was a Princeton graduate, a Harvard graduate, an author, and a legal scholar of the highest calibre (Wikipedia here). He had also studied at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and became a special assistant to the Attorney General of the United States. President John F Kennedy appointed Dumbauld as a Senior Judge in 1961.

Dumbauld's 1950 book, The Declaration of Independence and What It Means Today, has many superb references to the 1688 Glorious Revolution:

"...Jefferson's own first version of the Declaration was not the fruit of mere ratiocination, although he asserts that he "turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it. " It followed familiar precedents.

It invoked the hallowed heritage of English constitutional history. It voiced the doctrines of accepted political philosophers, particularly John Locke, whose writings were esteemed as authoritative expressions of established principles. It recapitulated the substance of previous state papers, some of them drafted by Jefferson himself, in which the American contentions had been formulated during the course of the prolonged dispute with England.

Jefferson was unquestionably familiar with the Stamp Act resolutions, the Massachusetts circular letter of February II, 1768, to the assemblies of the other colonies, the resolutions, petitions, and addresses of the Continental Congress, the declaration on taking up arms, the replies to Lord North's conciliatory motion, and similar utterances which would inevitably leave their trace upon a document intended to be an authentic "expression of the American mind."

Particularly significant, it seems to me, are two sources upon which Jefferson manifestly drew when drafting the Declaration: his Summary View of the Rights of British America, published in I774, and his preamble to the Virginia Constitution of 1776. In each of these is contained a recital of grievances which closely parallels the Declaration of Independence.

The catalogue of charges against George III in Jefferson's preamble to the Virginia constitution strongly indicates, by its rhythm and phrasing, that it was patterned upon passages in the English Bill of Rights where the people of England were enumerating the reasons which justified their choice of new rulers in place of James II. The misdeeds of that monarch were there itemized in a fashion strikingly similar to Jefferson's impressive indictment of George III.

To the men of 1776 the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 in England was a vivid and thrilling reality. It had occurred less than a century before; it was a living and vital force in their daily conduct and thinking; for them it had not become what it is to us today, a dimly remembered story of ancient events in the history of a foreign nation, buried in obscure chronicles of the past, and familiar only to historians. Americans resisting what they regarded as infringements of their constitutional rights conscientiously studied the precedents and principles enshrined in English history. They felt themselves to be following in the path of Coke, Pym, Hampden, Eliot, Milton, Algernon Sidney, and the patriots who decapitated Charles I in 1649 and deposed James II in 1689 for violations of the compact between king and people…

Jefferson's use of the Bill of Rights as pattern for his preamble makes it evident that in his judgment George III could rightfully be "deposed from the kingly office" by Americans because the situation was identical, constitutionally, with that which had existed when James II was lawfully ousted by English patriots. The same inference may be drawn from those passages in the Declaration of Independence which show the influence of Locke, for that philosopher's political treatises were written as a defense of the revolutionists who placed William and Mary on the throne "abandoned" by James II.

Besides inspiring the American votaries of liberty in 1776, the English Bill of Rights proclaimed in 1689 was the pattern and prototype for the constitutional safeguards added a century later to the Constitution of the United States at the insistence of Jefferson and other friends of democratic government.”

Thomas Jefferson and King James II

The more you read the more you find. Here is Thomas Jefferson in later life, writing his autobiography, and comparing the context of 1776 with that of 1688, and of King George III's actions with King James II –

"...the question was not whether, by a declaration of independence, we should make ourselves what we are not; but whether we should declare a fact which already exists:

That as to the people or parliament of England, we had always been independent of them, their restraints on our trade deriving efficacy from our acquiescence only, & not from any rights they possessed of imposing them, & that so far our connection had been federal only & was now dissolved by the commencement of hostilities:

That as to the King, we had been bound to him by allegiance, but that this bond was now dissolved by his assent to the late act of parliament, by which he declares us out of his protection, and by his levying war on us, a fact which had long ago proved us out of his protection; it being a certain position in law that allegiance & protection are reciprocal, the one ceasing when the other is withdrawn:

That James the IId. never declared the people of England out of his protection yet his actions proved it & the parliament declared it:

No delegates then can be denied, or ever want, a power of declaring an existing truth..."

• From Thomas Jefferson's autobiography, 1821 (online here)

The 1689 Glorious Revolution in New England – account by Daniel Neal (1720)

 

Published in 1720, this is a superb source for early New England history. Daniel Neal's (Wikipedia here) summary of the 1689 Boston Revolt and Glorious Revolution is concise and punchy – it's in Chapter 10, starting with the second paragraph on page 429 (online here).

In Volume I, Neal dedicated both volumes (online here) to Governor Samuel Shute, who had of course famously been written to by Ulster Presbyterians in 1718 in their "Shute Petition".

Neal appealed to Governor Shute that:

"it will be a noble design, and worthy of men in your station, to preserve New England a pleasant habitation to its present possessors, and a blessed retreat for oppressed Protestants in all parts of the world."

Here's the text, from page 429 onwards –

p. 429

Things went on after this manner till the news of the Prince of Orange's expedition into England reached Boston, which spread an universal joy throughout the whole country. The Governor took all imaginable care to conceal the success of it from the people; he imprisoned the man that brought over a copy of the Prince's Declaration, and published a Proclamation, requiring all persons to use their best endeavours to hinder the landing of any whom the Prince might send thither; but the hearts of the people were turned against him, his army deserted him, and his counsellors began to think of shifting for themselves, rumours were spread about the town of unintended massacre, and several murthering engines were said to be in the Rose frigate, one of the King's ships then in the harbour. The people hereupon both in

p. 430

town and country gathered together in clubs, and resolved to stand by one another with their lives and fortunes; the wiser and more considerate gentlemen were for letting things go on in the present course, till they should receive orders from England how to behave themselves, but the common people and several gentlemen who were animated with a zeal for the recovery of their ancient liberties, resolved to follow the example of England, and put an end to the arbitrary Government they had so long groaned under. Accordingly, on the 18th of April, 1689, about 8 o'clock in the morning a report was raised at the South End of the town of Boston, that at the North End, the people were all in arms, and the like report was at the North End with respect to the South, whereupon Captain George was immediately seized, and about 9 o'clock the drums beat through the town, and an ensign was set up upon the Beacon; then Mr. Bradstreet, Mr. Dantfort, Major Richards, Dr. Cook, and Mr Addington, were conducted to the Council-House by a company of soldiers under the command of Captain Hill; In the meanwhile, the people seized upon Justice Bullivant, Justice Foxcroft, Mr. Randolph, Sheriff Sherlock, Captain Ravenscroft, Captain White, Farewell, Broadvent, Crafford, Larkin, Smith, and several others, and put them into gaol. They likewise turned out Mercy, the gaol-keeper, and put Skates, the bricklayer, into his place.

 

About noon, the following message was sent by Mr. Oliver and Mr. Eyres to Sir Edmund Andros, who kept himself shut up in the Fort.

 

Inserted here is the text of the broadside 'At The Town-House, Boston, April 18, 1689'

 

p. 432

Sir Edmund did not think fit to obey the gentlemens summons at first, but sent to the frigate for fire-arms, hand-grenadoes, and match, but the boat that was bringing them was seized by the soldiers in the town. After which Mr. John Nelson at the head of the soldiers, demanding the Fort a second time, the Governor came down and surrendered himself and the Fort into their hands, He was first conducted to the Council-House, and afterwards confined with Lieutenant-Colonel Ledgett in the Fort till he was sent home to England, where instead of suffering for the many irregularities of his government, he made a shift to justify his conduct to the mild and gentle administration of King William and Queen Mary, so far as to be intrusted with the government of Virginia in the year 1692, where after some years he died. Mr. Fairweather, Mr. West, Mr. Graham, Mr. Palmer and Captain Tryfoye were imprisoned in the Castle; Mr. Dudley was then out upon the Circuit, but was seized at Major Smith's at Narrhaganset and brought a prisoner to Boston.

 

The whole town of Boston was now in arms, and the country came in so fast that there were 20 companies of soldiers in the town, besides above a thousand at Charles-town, that could not get over the ferry. To this vast concourse of people the gentlemen in the Council-Chamber, who were at the Head of the Revolution, ordered the following Declaration to be read out of the Gallery.

 

Inserted here is the text of the broadside 'The Declaration of the Gentlemen, Merchants, and Inhabitants of Boston, and the Country adjacent, April 18, 1689'

 

p. 442

The Government being thus dissolved, the Gentlemen in the Council-Chamber agreed to call a General Assembly to meet as soon as possible, and in the meantime took the Government into their own hands, under the character of A Committee of Safety. The Assembly met towards the latter end of May, and after many debates what form of Government to set up, they resolved at length to resume their Charter, as appears by the following Declaration, published at Boston, May 24, 1689.

 

Inserted here is the text of the broadside 'At A Convention of the Representatives of the several Towns and Villages of the Massachusetts Colony in New England, May 24, 1689'

 

p. 447

‘Tis hard to determine whether the Assembly was right in this vote; if indeed their Charter had been taken from them without Form of Law they might have resumed it, as the colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island did, but when after a legal Tryal Judgement had been given against them in the Court of Chancery, none but the highest powers in the nation could reverse it, which certainly were not the assembly at Boston, but the parliament of England. 

 

‘Tis certain the Massachusetts Province had hard measure in the loss of their Charter and harder yet in not having it restored at the Revolution but whether they were in the right in attempting to do themselves justice before they had tried all methods for a legal recovery of their Charter, is what I will not venture to affirm; nor was the Assembly itself fully satisfied with their own vote, for when the anniversary election of magistrates for the following year came about, they had not the courage to proceed to a choice, but agreed to let things continue as they were ‘till they should receive directions from the King and Queen of England.

 

In this uncertain state of things, people imagined the Government to be dissolved, and that there was no legal authority to punish them for their crimes, which gave occasion to innumerable disorders, the mob met together in a riotous and tumultuous manner, plundering the favourers of the late Government, and committing robberies in divers places; the poor Indian converts could hardly escape their insults for a party of English attempting to carry off some sheep from a little island near Martha's Vineyard, in the possession of the Indian converts, under pretence of their being stole from them; the inhabitants drove them off the island and to prevent any false impressions that the Governour might receive from the report of this scuffle. The Sachem sent him the following handsome manifesto.

 

Inserted here is the text of the Manifesto

p. 449

But at length a Letter arrived from the King and Queen of England, bearing Date August the 12th, 1689; wherein their Majesties were pleased to testify their Allowance and Approbation of their late Proceedings, and to authorize the present Magistrates to continue the Administration of the publick Affairs... 

 

 

The first printers' proof of the Declaration of Independence – with Thomas Jefferson's inverted commas!

Great story here of how, on the evening of 4 July 1776, John Dunlap's type compositors were hyper-accurate in recreating the handwritten manuscript by Thomas Jefferson, which Charles Thomson had brought to the print shop, reproduced his "double diacriticals" as inverted commas.

Click here for the Library of Congress webinar by Patrick Hastings, Curator, Rare Book and Special Collections Division - jump to 10 minutes in to see the inverted commas.

"The United States of all British America" – 1774

Happy 250th birthday to my friends and readers in the United States of America. It was spring 1775 when the 13 British colonies, meeting together as the Second Continental Congress, first decided to to describe themselves as "United Colonies". That term did the job for almost a year.

Of course, on our side of the Atlantic there was the United Kingdom, the United Provinces of Holland, and the United States of Sweden.

On 2 January 1776,  Stephen Moylan from Cork was George Washington's secretary and is said to have been first to write the term "United States of America" in a letter to Joseph Reed (article about the letter is online here).

However, digitised newspapers make it easy to text-search and to find sources from long ago.

Rev. Edmund Marshall (1730-1797) was the Church of England clergyman of St Peter and St Paul Parish Church in Charing in Kent. He wrote articles about history and current affairs commentary in the Kentish Gazette newspaper, under the name 'Candidus on American Affairs'. Here's an extract from one of his articles which was published on 16 November 1774:

"On the other hand, you have the United States of all British America, a people numerous, warlike, virtuous, firm, sagacious, and, what is more, our own Christian Protestant brethren, descended from the same common stock, and leagued together in the sacred cause of what they esteem their common inheritance, the right of taxing themselves - the basis of liberty."

 

Mark Skousen on "Socrates in the City" podcast - "the Americans are being true to the British Constitution, and the Parliament and King George III are not being true to it"

From 25:50 here:

"there are so many great members of Parliament, obviously Edmund Burke and William Pitt, who really understand that the Americans are right, they are correct, they are in a sense being true to the British Constitution, and the Parliament and King George III are not being true to it..."

From "The New Eclectic History of the United States" (1890) - "governments exist for the benefit of the people, and not for the selfish advantage of their rulers"

The New Eclectic History of the United States (1890) was a standard popular history book, laid out in tiny, punchy stories – not unlike Twitter / X in our era. All of this stuff was once well-known – so much of today is a Nehemiah-like rebuilding of the walls which interim generations have shamefully neglected and allowed to crumble.

.........................

141. Monmouth's Rebels —The Duke of Monmouth rebelled against King James II, and tried to seize the crown. The movement was put down and its leader beheaded, but a cruel vengeance was taken upon all who were suspected of having part in it. Hundreds were sold as servants to work in the tobacco fields of Virginia, and their wealth, with the price paid for them, went to enrich the king's courtiers. But Virginia was more merciful than her sovereign. In 1689 these exiles were set free, and many of them became honored citizens of the colony.

142. Covenanters in New Jersey — King James's persecution of the Covenanters in Scotland led thousands of worthy people to emigrate to New Jersey. Here, instead of being hunted among dens and caves of the mountains, they went to work in peace and security upon fertile fields; schools and churches multiplied, and it was soon said, "There is not a poor body, nor one that wants, in all the colony."'

145 Revolution in England — James II had been King of England only three years when the Whig or liberal party called his son-in-law and daughter, the Prince and Princess of Orange, to take his place on the throne. The accession of William and Mary was hailed with great joy by the people of New England, who hastened to throw off the hated government of Andros and resume all their chartered rights. A new charter, in 1690, made the "Old Colony " of Plymouth a part of Massachusetts, and added to the latter all the country between the eastern boundary of New Hampshire and the St. Lawrence.

149 The English Revolution established the principle that governments exist for the benefit of the people, and not for the selfish advantage of their rulers. It was a long step toward that greater revolution which made the United States independent of Great Britain; but for a time the colonies were subject to a worse despotism than before, namely, that of the English Parliament.

171 King William III was the sworn foe of Louis XIV of France, and their wars were fought out even more fiercely in American forests than on battle-fields in Europe. For here the French had savage* allies, who, falling upon the inland settlements of the English, murdered women, children, and defenseless men, with cruelties which civilized people can hardly imagine.

172. Four distinct wars between the French and English colonies are commonly named as:

King William's War: AD 1689-1697

Queen's Anne's War: AD 1702-1713

King George's War: AD 1744-1748

The Old French and Indian War: 1754-1763

These wars were ended in Europe by treaties of peace, but fighting hardly ceased on this continent at any time within the seventy-four years.

• Available here on Archive.org

* this would of course be expressed very differently today, and this specific term would not be used.

Daniel Hannan (Lord Kingsclere) - 1776 & 1688 "Declarations of Liberty"

I had the immense privilege of an almost front row seat at this event in Belfast just over a week ago. A glimpse of transatlantic liberty delivered impeccably by Daniel Hannan, now Lord Kingslere.

 

I sat there with a mental checklist of all the points I hoped he would make, and he knocked pretty much every one of them out of the park, with precision and skill. And no notes, and no Powerpoint!

Huge credit to all involved for putting together an event of such quality and international vision. The real narrative of 1688-89 is far bigger, and far more important, than we have all been led to believe.

(PS Hannan is wrong about "Scots-Irish" though. Another theme for another day)

Tad Stoermer- "Jefferson made a tactical choice in 1776 to put the blame on a single figure"

American academic Tad Stoermer has been putting out some terrific content over the past few years, almost "iconoclastic" in nature, challenging the usual mythological narratives about the Declaration of Independence. He's rapid-fire and content-rich. 

He's in blistering form in this one, showing that (contrary to what the Declaration said), it was the London Parliament that was the problem, having eroded rights and liberties over the previous 16 years. The election of 1774 made everything worse. Most political leaders in America and Britain knew that.

However, the PR campaign needed a villain, and a simple story... so they pinned it on the King. But the system was the real issue.

As Stoermer says "Jefferson made a tactical choice in 1776 to put the blame on a single figure because the patriots needed a story for two audiences who could not be sold the real one. And that choice worked..."

He also points out how institutional, corporate, history – what he calls in this video liberal nationalism - skews storytelling to comply with the cultural gatekeepers' already-defined orthodoxies. Jump to 5:55 for this section –

"...The distinction between Parliament doing the thing and the King doing the thing is the point, then and now. Pointing the patriots at the King when the problem was Parliament masked the structure of power for people who needed to see it.

Pointing you at Trump when the problem is the regime around Trump is doing the same exact thing. Misdirection then misdirection now. The harm's the same.

Can't fight a problem you've been trained not to see. Think about what got the patriots to independence. Right? It was not their first move. It was not where they started. 

For more than a decade, they tried to work in, with, through, around, and against the imperial system. Petitions, protests, boycotts, congresses, pamphlets, legal arguments, constitutional arguments, appeals to British rights, appeals to the empire's own functioning rules - now, the monarch and the monarchy (notable absences in much of that escalation after 1763). The resistance instead grew through permitted channels, until those channels stopped working and then were shut down altogether.

One of the last straws came when the patriots pinned their hopes on an election. 

The fall 1774 British general election was supposed to change everything. A hostile Parliament and ministry they hoped might be replaced. The Coercive Acts might be reversed. The empire might be pulled back from the edge. That's not what happened. The election returned Lord North and his allies with a working majority and a mandate to enforce the Coercive Acts.

Now for form, the Continental Congress sent the Olive Branch Petition directly to George III a few months later. Now he refused it, but it's not because he woke up that morning with a special hatred of the Colonies, but because by then the King, the ministry, Parliament closed ranks. The British state had chosen coercion and King George backed it because that's what he thought he was supposed to do – back parliament.

Independence was not the patriot's first move. 

It was what was left for many of them after every other move failed..."

• You can subscribe to Tad Stoermer's YouTube channel; his forthcoming book A Resistance History of the United States will be published by Penguin Random House next month.

Theology of Liberty – Richard Watson, Cambridge University: "The Principles of the Revolution Vindicated" (29 May 1776)

The dim thinkers will continue to insist that the American Revolution was about nationality, because they can't understand liberty, and that concepts of liberty might be transatlantic and transnational. You might expect the penny to drop with the line "that all men are created equal"...

There were prominent people in Britain and Ireland who supported the American colonists' cause. They understood, as this sermon title says, that there are circumstances in which revolution was vindicated.

This sermon was preached in the University of Cambridge just six weeks before the Declaration of Independence, and by the most unlikely source – Richard Watson (Wikipedia here) who was King George III's Professor of Divinity. Full text on Archive.org here

The House of Lords, the House of Commons, and the King himself - Watson blasts all of them. An extract here:

“if the Nobility, forgetting the duty they owe the people in return for the rank and distinction they enjoy above the other members of the community, should ever abet the arbitrary designs of the Crown;

if the Commons should become so wholly selfish and corrupt, as to be ready to support any Men and any measures;

if lastly, the King should be so ignorant of his true interest, or so ill advised, as to use such degenerate Parliaments as the tools of a Tyrannic Government;

then we have no doubt in asserting, that the people will have a full right to resume the reins of Government into their own hands, to lop off the rotten gangrened members, and to purge the corruptions of the body politic in any manner they shall think”

......................

From The Principles of the Revolution Vindicated: A Sermon preached before the University of Cambridge, Wednesday 29 May 1776, by Richard Watson DD FRS, Regius Professor of Divinity and Archdeacon of Ely.

(PS: 'theology of liberty' is not the same as 'liberation theology')

Theology of Liberty – Jacob Duché of Philadelphia: "The Duty of Standing Fast in our Spiritual and Temporal Liberties – A Sermon" (7 July 1775)

Jacob Duché (1737-1798) has a complex story. He was the grandson of Anthony Duché, a French Huguenot refugee who had fled the tyranny of France in 1682; one tradition says that he arrived in America on the same ship as William Penn.

Jacob attended the New London Academy founded by Donegal emigrant Rev Francis Alison, later the College of Philadelphia. Duché was a member of the Sons of Liberty, a brother-in-law to Francis Hopkinson, and was the first Chaplain to the Continental Congress from 6 July 1776. But later that year Duché's patriotic fervour began to waver.

At the height of his career, on 7 July 1775, he preached this sermon in Christ Church in Philadelphia, addressed to His Excellency George Washington Esquire, General and Commander in Chief of all the Forces of the United English Colonies in North America. It's on Google Books here.

Christ Church still exists today; its graveyard was the final resting place for five signers of the Declaration of Independence, and many other renowned historical figures, including John Dunlap the Strabane-born printer of the Declaration.

Theology of Liberty – Caleb Evans of Bristol: "British Constitutional Liberty – A Sermon" (5 November 1775)

Caleb Evans (1736-1791) was a Particular (Reformed) Baptist in Bristol, England, at Broadmead.

His sermon, preached on the anniversary of William Prince of Orange's arrival at Torbay in 1688, and with American independence on the horizon, is on GoogleBooks here. It's brilliant. It was reprinted in Belfast by James Magee in 1776.

Evans' lengthy gravestone inscription in Latin includes the words: Libertatis amore flagrans, jura hominum audacter propugnabat, which in English is: Burning with the love of liberty, he boldly defended the rights of men.

(PS 'theology of liberty' is not the same as 'liberation theology')

George Walton and the Provincial Congress of Georgia, July 1775 - "We were born free ... we are all Britons"

The Provincial Congress of Georgia met on 4 July 1775 at Tondee's Tavern in Savannah. They agreed 19 Resolves which were issued by  a few days later, on Saturday 8 July 1775 (text online here). The Secretary was George Walton, who would become one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

On the evening of 4 July, one of the delegates, Switzerland-born Rev. John J. Zubly, the Princeton-educated minister of the Independent Presbyterian Church of Savannah, preached a sermon entitled The Law of Liberty (online here) in which he said:

Detaining the inhabitants of Boston, after they had, in dependance on the general's word of honour, given up their arms, to be starved and ruined, is an action worthy of the cause, and can only be equalled by the distresses of Protestants driven under the walls of Londonderry, at which even a James relented.

and he later reiterated the point:

the like was never heard since the cruel Siege of Londonderry, and is a species of cruelty at which even that hard-hearted bigot James II relented. 

....................

WHEREAS, By the unrelenting fury of a despotic ministry, with a view to enforce the most oppressive acts of a venal and corrupted Parliament, an army of mercenaries, under an unfeeling commander, have actually begun a civil war in America; and whereas, the apparent iniquity and cruelty of these obstructive measures have, however, had this good effect, to unite men of all ranks in the common cause; and, whereas, to consult on means of safety and the method of obtaining redress the good people of this Province of Georgia have thought proper to appoint a Provincial Congress; the delegates met at the said Congress, now assembled from every part of the province, besides adopting the resolutions of the late Continental Congress, find it prudent to enter into such other resolutions as may best express their own sense and the sense of their constituents on the present unhappy situation of things, and therefore think fit and necessary to resolve as follows, viz.: 

Resolved, That we were born free, have all the feelings of men, and are entitled to all the natural rights of mankind. 

Resolved, That by birth or incorporation we are all Britons, and whatever Britons may claim as their birthright, is also ours. 

Resolved, That in the British Empire, to which we belong, the constitution is superior to every man or set of men whatever, and that it is a crime of the deepest dye in any instance to impair, or take it away, or deprive the meanest subject of its benefits. 

Resolved, That that part of the American continent which we inhabit was originally granted by the crown, and the charter from Charles the Second expressly makes its constitutional dependence upon the crown only. 

Resolved, That those who would now subject all America, or this province, to dependency upon the crown and Parliament, are guilty of a very dangerous innovation, which in time will appear as injurious to the crown as it is inconsistent with the liberty of the American subject. 

Resolved, That by the law of nature and the British constitution no man can be legally deprived of his property without his consent, given by himself or his representatives. 

Resolved, That the acts of the British Parliament for raising a perpetual revenue on the Americans by laying a tax on them without their consent and contrary to their protestations, are diametrically opposite to every idea of property, to the spirit of the constitution, and at one stroke deprive this vast continent of all liberty and property, and, as such, must be detested by every wellwisher to Great Britain and America. 

Resolved, That the subsequent laws, made with a view to enforce these acts, viz.: the Boston Port Bill, the Alteration of their Charter, the Act to carry beyond sea for Trial, and (what refines upon every species of cruelty) the Fishery Bill, are of such a complexion that we can say nothing about them for want of words to express our abhorrence and detestation. 

Resolved, That the loyalty, patience, and prudence of the inhabitants of New England under their unparalleled pressures, having been construed into timidity and a dread of regular troops, a civil war in support of acts extremely oppressive in themselves hath actually been begun, and there is too much reason to believe that plans have been in agitation big with everything horrible to other Provinces; plans as rash, barbarous and destructive as the cause which they were intended to serve. 

Resolved, That in these times of extreme danger, our assembly not being permitted to sit, we must either have been a people without all thought or counsel, or have assembled as we now are in Provincial Congress, to consult upon measures which, under God, may prove the means of a perpetual union with the Mother Country and tend to the honour, freedom, and safety of both. 

Resolved, That this Province bears all true allegiance to our own rightful Sovereign, King George the Third, and always will and ought to bear it agreeable to the constitution of Great Britain, by virtue of which only the King is now our Sovereign, and which equally binds Majesty and Subjects. 

Resolved, That we are truly sensible how much our safety and happiness depend on a constitutional connection with Great Britain, and that nothing but the being deprived of the privileges and natural rights of Britons could ever make the thought of a separation otherwise than intolerable. 

Resolved, That in case his Majesty or his successors shall, at anytime hereafter, make any requisition on the good people of this Province by his representative, it will be just and right that such sums should be granted as the nature of the service may require, and the ability and situation of this Province will admit of. 

Resolved, That this Province join with all the Provinces in America now met by Delegates in Continental Congress, and that John Houstoun and Archibald Bullock, Esqrs, the Rev. Dr. Zubly, Lyman Hall, and Noble Wimberly Jones, Esqrs., be the delegates from this Province, and that any three constitute a quorum for that purpose. 

Resolved, That a Committee be appointed, whose duty it shall be to see that the resolutions of the Continental Congress and Provincial Congress be duly observed, and that every person who shall act in opposition thereto have his name transmitted to the Continental Congress, and that his misdeeds be published in every American paper. 

Resolved, That with all such persons, except the indispensable duties we owe to all mankind (bad men and enemies not excepted) we will have no dealings nor connection; and we extend this out resolution also to all such persons or corporations in Great Britain who have shown themselves enemies to America. 

Resolved, That we will do what in us lies to preserve and promote the peace and good order of this Province; and should any person become an innocent sufferer on account of these grievances, we will do whatever we justly may for his relief and assistance. 

Resolved, That in such calamitous times as the present, every possible indulgence ought to be given to honest debtors; that it would be ungenerous {unless there appear intention of fraud) in any gentleman of the law to sue without previous notice ; and any person so sued may apply to the Committee; and should it appear to them that the creditor is in no danger of losing his money, or that he can be properly secured, they shall interpose their friendly offices to persuade him to drop the prosecution; and every prosecutor that snail appear to take advantage of the confusion of the times to distress his debtor, ought to be publicly pointed out and held in abhorrence. 

Resolved, That, notwithstanding, in a late Bill for restraining the trade of several Provinces in America, this Province is excepted, we declare that we look upon this exception rather as an insult than a favour; as being meant to break the union of the Provinces, and as being grounded on the supposition that the inhabitants of such excepted Province can be base enough to turn the oppression of America into a mean advantage.

By Order of the Congress

A true Copy from the Minutes

George Walton, Secretary

Reported in the South Carolina Gazette, 1 August 1775

James Wilson: "A king of England can neither confer nor take away the rights of his subjects"

James Wilson was born near St Andrews in Fife, and emigrated in 1765. He signed the Declaration of Independence as a delegate for Pennsylvania:

"A citizen may leave the kingdom: an alien may enter it. Does the former lose?—does the latter acquire the rights of citizenship? No. Neither climate, nor soil, nor time entitle one to those rights: neither climate, nor soil, nor time can deprive him of them. Citizens, who emigrate, carry with them, in their emigration, their best and noblest birthright.

It is remarkable, however, that, in the charters of several of the American colonies, there is this declaration, “that the emigrants and their posterity shall still be considered as English subjects.” Whether the solicitude of the colonists obtained, or the distrust of the reigning sovereigns imposed this clause, it would be superfluous to inquire; for the clause itself was equally unnecessary and inefficient. It was unnecessary, because, by the common law, they carried with them the rights of Englishmen; it was inefficient; because, if such had not been the operation of the common law, the right of citizenship could not have resulted from any declaration from the crown.

A king of England can neither confer nor take away the rights of his subjects. Accordingly, the charter of Pennsylvania, perhaps the most accurate of all the charters, contains no such declaration.

When the charter of Massachusetts, soon after the revolution of 1688, was renewed by king William, he was advised by his law council, that such a declaration would be nugatory..."

The Sanquhar Declarations of the Covenanters, Scotland, 1680s

Scottish Presbyterian Covenanters also had a series of "Declarations" - the Rutherglen Declaration of 29 May 1679 (online here) and the Hamilton Declaration of 13 June 1679 just over a week prior to the Battle of Bothwell Brig, of 22 June 1679 (online here). Crushed at Bothwell, many of them continued in resistance.

Exactly a year later, they issued yet another Declaration, in the small town of Sanquhar, in the Galloway Hills between Dumfries and Ayr.

This first Sanquhar Declaration was on 22 June 1680, by Richard Cameron, which denounced King Charles II:

although we be for government and governors such as the Word of our God and our Covenant allows, yet we for ourselves and all that will adhere to us as the representatives of the true Presbyterian Kirk and Covenanted nation of Scotland, considering the great hazard of lying under such a sin any longer, do by thir presents disown Charles Stuart, that has been reigning (or rather tyrannizing as we may say) on the throne of Britain these years bygone, as having any right, title to, or interest in, the said Crown of Scotland for government, as forfeited several years since, by his perjury and breach of covenant both to God and His Kirk, and usurpation of His crown and royal prerogatives therein, and many other breaches in matters ecclesiastic, and by his tyranny and breach of the very leges regnandi in matters civil. For-which reason we declare, that several years since he should have been denuded of being king, ruler, or magistrate, or of having any power to act, or to be obeyed as such. As also, we, being under the standard of our Lord Jesus Christ, Captain of Salvation, do declare a war with such a tyrant and usurper, and all the men of his practices,

There was another at Lanark on 12 January 1682. The second Sanquhar Declaration was on 28 May 1685, by James Renwick, which denounced King James II. 

Both of the Sanquhar Declarations were regarded as treason, and both Cameron and Renwick paid the ultimate price for challenging the state's authority.

Many Covenanters came to Ireland (Renwick and Cameron had been active in Ulster and in Dublin) and many then travelled onwards across the Atlantic to the 13 Colonies.

A century after Sanquhar, their descendants opposed London governmental tyranny and were some of the first to organise against slavery.

In western Pennsylvania, in 1775, it was in the community of Hanna's Town, where 18 year old Elizabeth Craig (said to be a granddaughter of Ayrshire Covenanters) was asked to customise a Red Ensign flag for the new local civilian militia, by adding a design of a poised rattlesnake and the slogan "Don't Tread On Me".

1688 and 1776 again: The Italian Prime Minister, Henry Kissinger, and the "five revolutions of world-historical importance"

Above: Francesco Cossiga and Henry Kissinger pictured in 1990.

This article was written by John O'Sullivan (Wikipedia here) during his time with National Review, for the 20 July 2009 edition which is online here. His 2009 context was Iran – very fitting for the moment in which we live now.

...........

“...This was explained, not long after the “velvet revolutions” of 1989 and 1991 [in Czechoslovakia], by the Italian president (and distinguished classical liberal) Francesco Cossiga (Wikipedia here), at a New York dinner party given by Henry Kissinger. He astonished the assembled guests, including some Wall Streeters expecting to hear a plea for greater investment in Italy, by presenting a brilliant and passionate analysis of modern history around the theme of five revolutions of world-historical importance.

He divided them into three liberal and two anti-liberal revolutions.

The first liberal revolution was England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688. This revolution was, in effect, the founding constitution of the modern British state. It defeated Stuart autocracy, established the supremacy of Parliament over the crown, and entrenched a bill of rights, habeas corpus, and the principle of no taxation without the consent of Parliament. It was a liberal rather than a democratic revolution, but it opened the way to the gradual democratic evolution of the British polity. The Glorious Revolution used to be a central episode in British constitutional self-understanding, but it is now so neglected that its tricentenary in 1988 was celebrated by Margaret Thatcher’s government as “300 years of Anglo-Dutch friendship.”

1688 may be better remembered in America—it is certainly more discussed. In particular, Michael Barone wrote, in 2007, a fresh history of 1688 with the significant title Our First Revolution. His book was widely and favorably reviewed. It argued that the American Revolution of 1776 was the continuation of 1688 and thus, as Cossiga also had argued, the second great liberal revolution. The principles and even the words of 1776 are the same liberal ones first heard in 1688—no taxation without representation, freedom from arbitrary arrest, no cruel and unusual punishment—but they are universalized as the birthright of all. 

To be sure, the 1776 revolution, though compromised by slavery, was more democratic and even more liberal that that of 1688. Its endorsement of religious toleration, for instance, included Catholics—something that would not happen in Britain’s case until decades later. The circumstances of America as an open land with more abundant economic opportunities also made it easier to fulfill the material promises of both revolutions. Essentially, however, the two revolutions are the same liberal thing.

That is emphatically not true of either the French Revolution of 1789 or the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. As Cossiga pointed out, these revolutions were anti-liberal revolutions hostile to the liberties, both real and procedural, central to 1776 and 1688. That is less clear in the case of 1789, because the early French revolutionaries thought they were introducing into France the same reforms they had admired in England and America. But as several scholars have observed, most recently Portuguese professor Joao Espada in his essay “Edmund Burke and the Anglo-American Tradition of Liberty,” very different conceptions of liberty underlay their reforms.

Whereas the Anglo-Americans saw liberty as a system of government that allowed people to pursue different ways of life, their Continental imitators saw it as a particular way of life that, if necessary, might have to be imposed on those mistakenly enslaved to tradition, religion, inequality, or whatever. Eradicating tradition, religion, inequality, or anything else to which people are strongly attached, however, requires abolishing their freedom, usually bloodily. Hence the revolution of 1789 became more plainly anti-liberal and more violent as it ground relentlessly on.

By 1917, the Bolsheviks had seen the logical necessities that flowed from imposing perfect freedom. They were anti-liberal even before the revolution began and brutally violent once in power. No system of government has ever been given such a free hand to reshape its subjects. Yet, after more than 70 years of such government, their subjects rose up in the velvet revolutions of 1989 and 1991 waving the Federalist Papers and quoting the 1688 Declaration of Rights. That was Cossiga’s third liberal revolution.

Where does the Iranian Revolution of 2009 fit into this picture? Is it liberal, anti-liberal, or in some third category we cannot now see? Ultimately these are questions that can be answered only in retrospect. But there are certain litmus tests that allow us to make an educated guess. The most important of these are violence and orthodoxy.

Both before and after taking power, anti-liberal revolutions tend to use and even to idealize violence. Robespierre, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh—the list of anti-liberal revolutionaries who gloried in violence, employing it against their comrades as well as against “enemies of society,” is all but endless. Anti-liberal writers from Sorel to Fanon justify violence on almost romantic grounds. Their regimes rely on it fundamentally, since it is required to coerce reluctant subjects to embrace their ideas. For that reason, there is no obvious stopping point for it other than the exhaustion of the ruler...”