not every colony, nay, every
county, city, hundred, and town upon the whole continent adopt the
measure as if it had been a revelation from above? Look over the
resolves of the colonies for the past year; you will see that one
understanding governs, one heart animates the whole."[398]

Such were the sentiments and feelings of America in resisting the
innovations upon their rights of a British Ministry, while they denied
the idea of separation from the mother country as a calumny; and such
were the grounds on which millions in England and Scotland, in and out
of Parliament, supported them.[399]

"Though that measure (independence), a few months before, was not only
foreign from their wishes, but the object of their abhorrence, the
current suddenly became so strong in its favour that it bore down all
opposition. The multitude was hurried down the stream; but some worthy
men could not easily reconcile themselves to the idea of an eternal
separation from a country to which they had long been bound by the most
endearing ties." (Ramsay's History of the United States, Vol. II., pp.
161, 162.)

When, therefore, the Congress at Philadelphia voted, by a majority of
one or two, but declaring that their vote should be published as
unanimous, to renounce all the professions of the past of connection
with the mother country, to declare her their enemy, and to avow eternal
separation from her, it may be easily conceived how a large portion of
the colonists would feel that their confidence had been betrayed; that
the representations they had made to English statesmen would bear the
stamp of untruth; that their hopes had been blasted, and that they were
now to be treated as rebels and traitors for adhering to the faith of
their forefathers; for, as Mr. Allan remarks, the Declaration of
Independence "left no neutrals. He who was not for independence,
unconditional independence, was an enemy."[400] Thus the many tens of
thousands of colonists who adhered to the faith of their forefathers,
and the traditions and professions of their own personal history, were,
by a single act of Congress, declared "enemies" of their country,
"rebels," and even "traitors," because they would not renounce their
oath of allegiance, and swear allegiance to a self and newly-created
authority, to relinquish the defence of the rights of Englishmen for the
theory of republican independence, adherence to which had been advocated
by the Chathams and Burkes in th