XLIV. colony, and would readily embrace every opportu- CHAP. nity of obeying any commands from the convention." To that body were chosen more than one hundred 1776. May. and thirty of the ablest and most weighty men of Virginia. Among them were no rash enthusiasts for liberty; no lovers of revolution for the sake of change; no ambitious demagogues hoping for advancement by the overthrow of existing institutions; they were the choice of the freeholders of Virginia, and the majority were men of independent fortune or even opulence. It was afterwards remembered that of this grave assembly the members were for the most part men of large stature and robust frames, and that a very great proportion of them lived to exceeding old age. They were now to decide whether Virginia demanded independence, and if so, they were to establish a commonwealth; and in making this decision they moved like a pillar of fire in front of the whole country. When the delegates had assembled and appointed a clerk, Richard Bland recommended Edmund Pendleton to be chosen president, and was seconded by Archibald Cary; while Thomas Johnson of Louisa, and Bartholomew Dandridge proposed Thomas Ludwell Lee. For a moment there was something like an array of parties, but it instantly subsided; Virginia showed her greatness by her moderation, and gave to the world new evidence that the revolution sprung from necessity, by placing in the chair Pendleton, the most cautious and conservative among the patriots. The convention, after having been employed for some days on current business, resolved itself into a committee of the whole on the state of the colony; LXIV. CHAP. and on the fifteenth Archibald Cary reported resolutions which had been drafted by Pendleton, offered 1776. by Nelson, and enforced by Henry. They were then May. twice read at the clerk's table, and, one hundred and twelve members being present, were unanimously agreed to. The preamble enumerated their chief grievances, among others, that the king's representative in the colony was training and employing slaves against their masters; and they say: "We have no alternative left but an abject submission or a total separation;" therefore they went on to decree, "that their delegates in congress be instructed to propose to that body to declare the United Colonies free and independent states, absolved from all allegiance or dependence upon the crown or parliament of Great Britain; and that they give the assent of this colony to such declaration, and to measures for forming foreign alliances, and a confederation of the colonies: provided that the power of forming government for, and the regulation of the internal concerns of, each colony be left to the respective colonial legislatures:" This resolution was received out of doors with chimes of bells and the noise of artillery; and the British flag, which had thus far kept its place on the state-house, was struck, to be raised no more. In the following days a committee of thirty two was appointed to prepare a declaration of rights and a plan of government. Among the members were Archibald Cary, Patrick Henry, the aged Richard Bland, Edmund Randolph, son of the attorney general, who was then a refugee in England, Nicholas, James Madison, the youthful delegate from Orange county; but the man of most influence at this great LXIV. moment was George Mason, the successor of Washing- CHAP. ton in the representation of Fairfax county. He was a devoted member of the church of England; and by 1776. May. his own account of himself, which is still preserved, "though not born within the verge of the British isle, he had been an Englishman in his principles, a zealous assertor of the act of settlement, firmly attached to the royal family upon the throne, well affected to the king personally and to his government, in defence of which he would have shed the last drop of his blood; one who adored the wisdom and happiness of the British constitution, and preferred it to any that then existed or had ever existed." For ten years he claimed nothing for his countrymen beyond the liberty and privileges of Englishmen, in the same degree as if they had still continued among their brethren in Great Britain; but he said: "The ancient poets, in their elegant manner of expression, have made a kind of Being of necessity, and tell us that the gods themselves are obliged to yield to her;" and he left the private life that he loved, to assist in the rescue of his country from the excesses of arbitrary power to which a seeming fatality had driven the British ministers. He was a good speaker and an able debater; the more eloquent now for being touched with sorrow; but his great strength lay in his sincerity, which made him wise and bold, modest and unchanging, while it overawed his hearers. He was severe, but his severity was humane, with no tinge of bitterness, though he had a scorn for every thing mean, and cowardly, and low; and he always spoke out his convictions with frank directness. He had been truly loyal; on renouncing his king, he could stand justified to his CHAP. Own conscience only by the purest and most unselfish attachment to human freedom. LXIV. May. 1776. On the twenty seventh of May, Cary from the committee presented to the convention the declaration of rights, which Mason had drafted. For the next fortnight the great truths which it proclaimed, and which were to form the groundwork of American institutions, employed the thoughts of the convention, and during several successive days were the subject of solemn deliberation. One clause only received a material amendment. Mason had written that all should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion. But toleration is the demand of the sceptic, who has no fixed belief and only wishes to be let alone; a firm faith, which is too easily tempted to establish itself exclusively, can be content with nothing less than equality. A young man, then unknown to fame, of a bright hazel eye, inclining to grey, small in stature, light in person, delicate in appearance, looking like a pallid, sickly scholar among the robust men with whom he was associated, proposed a change. He was James Madison, the son of an Orange county planter, bred in the school of Presbyterian dissenters under Witherspoon at Princeton, trained by his own studies, by meditative rural life in the Old Dominion, by an ingenuous indignation at the persecutions of the Baptists, by the innate principles of right, to uphold the sanctity of religious freedom. He objected to the word toleration, because it implied an established religion, which endured dissent only as a condescension; and as the earnestness of his convictions overcame his modesty, he went on to demonstrate that "all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of LXIV. May. religion, according to the dictates of conscience." His CHAP. motion, which did but state with better dialectics the very purpose which Mason wished to accomplish, ob- 1776. tained the suffrages of his colleagues. This was the first achievement of the wisest civilian of Virginia. The declaration of rights having then been fairly transcribed, was on the twelfth of June read a third time and unanimously adopted by the representatives of the good people of Virginia, assembled in full and free convention. These are the rights which they said do pertain to them and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of government: "All men are by nature equally free, and have inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. "All power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them. "Government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit and security of the people, nation, or community; and whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such a manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal. "Public services not being descendible, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator, or judge to be hereditary. |