FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149  
150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   >>   >|  
xtemporaneous debate, were not framing their ideas with the exactitude of a didactic treatise, and could little have foreseen the extraordinary use to be made of their expressions nearly a century afterward, in sustaining a theory contradictory to history as well as to common sense. It is as if the familiar expressions often employed in our own time, such as "the people of Africa," or "the people of South America," should be cited, by some ingenious theorist of a future generation, as evidence that the subjects of the Khedive and those of the King of Dahomey were but "one people," or that the Peruvians and the Patagonians belonged to the same political community. Mr. Everett, it is true, quotes two expressions of the Continental Congress to sustain his remarkable proposition that the colonies were "a people." One of these is found in a letter addressed by the Congress to General Gage in October, 1774, remonstrating against the erection of fortifications in Boston, in which they say, "We entreat your Excellency to consider what a tendency this conduct must have to irritate and force _a free people_, hitherto well disposed to peaceable measures, into hostilities." From this expression Mr. Everett argues that the Congress considered themselves the representatives of "a people." But, by reference to the proceedings of the Congress, he might readily have ascertained that the letter to General Gage was written in behalf of "_the town of Boston and Province of Massachusetts Bay_," the people of which were "considered by all America as suffering in the common cause for their noble and spirited opposition to oppressive acts of Parliament." The avowed object was "to entreat his Excellency, from the assurance we have of the peaceable disposition of _the inhabitants of the town of Boston and of the Province of Massachusetts Bay_, to discontinue his fortifications."[37] These were the "people" referred to by the Congress; and the children of the Pilgrims, who occupied at that period the town of Boston and Province of Massachusetts Bay, would have been not a little astonished to be reckoned as "one people," in any other respect than that of the "common cause," with the Roman Catholics of Maryland, the Episcopalians of Virginia, the Quakers of Pennsylvania, or the Baptists of Rhode Island. The other citation of Mr. Everett is from the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence: "When in the course of human events it becomes
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149  
150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
people
 

Congress

 

Boston

 

expressions

 

Province

 
common
 
Everett
 

Massachusetts

 
General
 

America


letter

 

Excellency

 
peaceable
 

entreat

 
considered
 

fortifications

 
ascertained
 
hostilities
 

opposition

 

spirited


readily

 

measures

 

oppressive

 

expression

 

representatives

 

behalf

 

reference

 

written

 

argues

 

proceedings


suffering

 
Quakers
 

Pennsylvania

 

Baptists

 

Virginia

 
Episcopalians
 

Catholics

 
Maryland
 

Island

 
citation

events
 

Independence

 
sentence
 
Declaration
 

respect

 

inhabitants

 
discontinue
 

disposed

 
disposition
 

Parliament