had
been exposed to the violence of mobs, and to all sorts of personal
indignities, in which private malice or a wanton and violent spirit of
mischief had been too often gratified under the guise of patriotism. By
the recent political changes, Tories and suspected persons became
exposed to dangers from the law as well as from mobs. Having boldly
seized the reins of government, the new State authorities claimed the
allegiance of all residents within their limits, and under the lead and
recommendation of Congress, those who refused to acknowledge their
authority, or who adhered to their enemies, were exposed to severe
penalties, confiscation of property, imprisonment, banishment, and
finally death."[403]

Thus was a large minority of the most wealthy and intelligent (their
wealth and intelligence making them the greater criminals) inhabitants
of the colonies, by the act of a new body not known to the Constitutions
of any of their provinces, reduced to the alternative of violating their
convictions, consciences, and oaths, or being branded and treated as
enemies of their country, deprived not only of the freedom of the press
and of speech, but made criminals for even neutrality and silence, and
their property confiscated to defray the expenses of a war upon
themselves. Had Congress, in July, 1776, maintained the principles and
objects it avowed even in the autumn of 1775, there would have been no
occasion of thus violating good faith and common justice to the large
minority of the colonies; there is every reason to believe that there
would have been a universal rallying, as there had been the year before,
in defence of the constitutional rights of Englishmen and the unimpaired
life of the empire; there would have been a far larger military force of
enthusiastic and patriotic volunteers collected and organized to defend
those rights than could ever afterwards be embodied to support
independence; there would have been a union of the friends of
constitutional liberty on both sides of the Atlantic; good faith would
have been kept on both sides, and the "millions in England and
Scotland," sustained by the millions in America, instead of being
abandoned by them in the very crisis of the contest in the mother
country, would have achieved in less than a twelvemonth a victory for
freedom, for civilization, and for humanity, far beyond what had been
accomplished in the English Revolution of 1688.

V. The Declaration of Independen