Reign of George III. (Continued.) page 4

The revolutionary party in New York determined to carry them, and the revolutionary party in Pennsylvania the same, right or wrong. In Pennsylvania delegates insisted that those of their colleagues who were averse to the declaration should absent themselves, and those favourable to it should attend and vote. From Delaware, one single delegate, Caesar Rodney, voted and decided the question in that province. The New York assembly only nominally reconstructed its provincial congress. Instead of calling the electors together, as recommended by the report of the 28th of May, some of the freeholders and voters declared such of the old members as were willing to vote for the declaration re-elected; and this irregular and clearly unconstitutional body attended and voted for the declaration. Thus a body, chosen by a very small minority, contrary to the law they had themselves established, set aside the plain will of the majority; for, since the arrival of Howe at Sandy Hook, the royalists came forth again, and were as resolute against separation as ever. Even of the number of delegates thus sent up in violation of all rule, one of them, John Alsop, refused to vote for the declaration, and, after making a solemn protest, quitted the congress. Some other delegates - amongst them, John Dickenson, of Pennsylvania - staid, and protested totally against the whole proceeding, declaring they would never sign the declaration.

By these violent, arbitrary, and unprincipled means was at length passed the famous Declaration of Independence. The original motion for such a declaration, on the 8th of June, had only been supported by a bare majority of seven. states to six; and now the whole thirteen states were said to have assented, though it is a notorious fact that several signatures were wanting, and were not supplied till months afterwards by newly-chosen delegates.

Besides Alsop resigning as delegate of New York, Dickenson, Andrew Allen, late chief justice of Pennsylvania, and others who voted against the declaration, were recalled, and Andrew Allen's brother William threw up his commission of lieutenant-colonel in the continental army.

It may be truly said, that never had a country a more righteous cause than North America, and never was one carried by means less commanding our respect. A certain number of men, violent and regardless of the voices or rights of others, domineered over the majority by the same hardy insolence as the southern states now domineer over the northern ones. They had not faith enough in the nobility of their cause to allow righteous principles to operate unchecked until their triumph, but attempted to force the course of events, irrespective of truth and justice, whilst seeking victory. That trickiness, now grown to its height under the name of Yankeyism, shows its slimy trail even on the broad and thickly-signed sheet of the Act of Independence. The declaration once engrossed on parchment and signed, the arbitrary spirit of the republican party appeared more undisguised. All who continued of the royalist party were menaced with fines and punishments. " Very serious," says their own historian, Hildreth, " was the change in the legal position of the class known as tories, in many of the states a large minority, and in all respectable for wealth and social position. Of those thus stigmatised, some were inclined to favour the utmost claims of the mother country; but the greater part, though determined to adhere to the British connection, yet deprecated the policy which had brought on so fatal a quarrel. This loyal minority - especially in its more conspicuous members - as the warmth of political feeling increased, had been exposed to the violence of mobs, and to all sorts of personal indignities, in which private malice, or a wanton and insolent spirit of mischief, had been too often gratified, under the disguise of patriotism."

" The barbarous and disgraceful conduct of tarring and feathering, and carting tories - placing them in a cart and carrying them about as a sort of spectacle - had become, in some places, a favourite amusement. To restrain these outrages, always to be apprehended in times of tumult and revolution, congress had especially committed the oversight of tories and suspected persons to the regularly-appointed committees of inspection and observation for the several counties and districts. But even these committees were not always very judicious or discriminating in the exercise of despotic powers implied in that delicate trust.

" 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 were exposed to severe penalties, confiscation of property, imprisonment, banishment, and, finally, death. The new governments, however, were slow in resorting to extreme measures. The most obnoxious tories had already emigrated; and, for the present, the new governments contented themselves with admonitions, fines, recognisances to keep the peace, and prohibitions to go beyond certain limits. To many of the more ardent leaders, this leniency appeared dangerous. 'Can we subsist? ' wrote Hawley to Gerry; 'did any state ever subsist without exterminating traitors? '"

In these facts, stated by their own historians, we have the germs of the present character of the Americans. The disregard of personal right in asserting the general right; the domination over all liberty of private judgment; the adoption of any trick or stratagem to insure their objects; the looseness of conscience in their pursuit of a determined end, are but to-day more prominently forced on the eye, in the recklessness of American speculation, in their caucuses, and intimidations in elections, in their gasconading of their excellencies and bravery, in their readiness to insult their own mother country solely for their own electioneering purposes, in their proneness to repudiation of their obligations, in their arbitrary resentment against the expression of opinions disagreeable to them, however just; and, above all, in their hugging of slavery, with all its demoralising consequences. We look in vain for the original source of these characteristics in their English forefathers, or their English contemporaries; but whencesoever they accrue, they were unquestionably not merely existent, but rife, at their revolution.

The admission of slavery into their new constitution, in direct and shameless violation of the very first clause of their declaration of rights, " that all men are born equally free, possessing certain natural rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive their posterity," was such a thing, done in the face of all nations, as argued a fearful callousness to the touches of a noble shame. This odious feature of their constitution was originally omitted in the draught of the act of union, but was conceded to the southern states in order to insure the accomplishment of the union. By a remarkable Nemesis, it is now the menacing cause of a final rupture of that union. Jefferson says, that " not only the south, but our northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under these censures, for, though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been considerable carriers of them to others."

Slavery once admitted soon showed its diabolical influences. It undermined the morality of government, of religion, and of a large bulk of the community; it compelled slave-holders to imitate popery, in suppressing the Bible amongst the black population; it taught ministers of the gospel to falsify the gospel, and to overturn all the principles of morality, justice, and truth; to make the word of peace, and liberty, and mutual equity, speak the most terrible blasphemies of the God " who made of one blood all the nations of the earth;" it taught sensuality to break down all the boundaries of purity and personal sanctity which Christ had set up, and led to the commission of a crime almost exclusively American - the selling your own offspring, the trading in your own flesh and blood, in your own image, as well as the image of the common Father.

This signal surrender of principle to expediency in the case of slavery has, no doubt, yet to be avenged, in national calamities and disruptions, to a degree frightful to the imagination; but it immediately tended to aggravate beyond everything else those features of American character, the brutalities of duels with rifles and bowie knives, the knocking one another down on the floor of congress, the cudgelling of senators for the independent expression of their opinions, and the monstrosities and murders at sea, now so frequently disgracing their mercantile navy. These things are too notorious to be denied; but, that we may not be accused of injustice in stating them on this necessary occasion, we shall add the observations of one of their own most esteemed writers, Dr. Channing, in a letter to Mr. Clay in 1837, since which time such features have become still worse: -

" I cannot do justice to this topic without speaking freely of our country - as freely as I should of any other; and, unhappily, we are so accustomed, as a people, to receive incense, to be soothed by flattery, and to account reputation a more important interest than morality, that my freedom may be construed into a kind of disloyalty. But it would be wrong to make concessions to this dangerous weakness.

" Amongst us a spirit of lawlessness pervades the community, which, if not repressed, threatens the dissolution of our present forms of society. Even in the old states, mobs are taking the government into their hands; and a profligate newspaper finds little difficulty in stirring up multitudes to violence. When we look at the parts of the country nearest to Texas, we see the arms of the law paralysed by the passions of the individual. Add to all this the invasions of the rights of speech and of the press by lawless force, the extent and toleration of which oblige us to believe that a considerable portion of our citizens have no comprehension of the first principles of liberty. It is an undeniable fact that, in consequence of these and other symptoms, the confidence of many reflecting men in our free institutions is very much impaired. Some despair. That main pillar of public liberty, mutual trust amongst citizens, is shaken. That we must seek security for property and life in a stronger government, is a spreading conviction. Men who, in public, talk of the stability of our institutions, whisper their doubts - perhaps their scorn - in private."

When we add to these melancholy features of American character a treatment of free men and women of colour which scandalises the whole civilised world, we may truly say that, when they admitted black slavery into their act of independence, they gave a very black complexion to that document. The declarations contained the following assertions of freedom: - 1. That all men are born equally free, possessing certain natural rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive their posterity. 2. That all power is vested in the people, from whom it i3 derived (but it was voted in congress the blacks made no part of the people). 3. That they have an inalienable, indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish their form of government at pleasure. 4. That the idea of an hereditary first magistrate is unnatural and absurd.

The Americans did not make their declaration of independence till they had assurances from France that the French king was prepared to support them with men, money, and arms. The English government, as lord North publicly declared in parliament, had long heard of American emissaries at Paris seeking aid there. We have this statement, again, from governor Morris, in congress; and John Jay, in his " Life and Opinions," published by his son, not only gives a circumstantial account of this assurance of French aid, but adds that it had the effect of inducing the congress to take the decisive step of making the declaration. This is Jay's account: - " Some time in the course of this year, 1775, probably about the month of November, congress was informed that a foreigner was there in Philadelphia who was desirous of making to them an important and confidential communication. This intimation having been several times repeated, a committee, consisting of Mr. Jay, Dr. Franklin, and Mr. Jefferson, was appointed to hear what the foreigner had to say. These gentlemen agreed to meet him in one of the committee rooms in Carpenters' Hall. At the time appointed, they went there, and found already arrived an elderly, lame gentleman, having the appearance of an old wounded French officer. They told him they were authorised to receive his communication, upon which he said that his most Christian majesty had heard with pleasure of the exertions made by the American colonies in defence of their rights and privileges; that his majesty wished them success, and would, whenever it should be necessary, manifest more openly his friendly sentiments towards them.

"The committee requested to know his authority for those assurances. He answered only by drawing his hand across his throat, and saying, 'Gentlemen, I shall take care of my head.' They then asked what demonstrations of friendship they might expect from the king of France. 'Gentlemen,' answered the foreigner, 'if you want arms, you shall have them; if you want ammunition, you shall have it; if you want money, you shall have it.' The committee observed that these assurances were indeed important, but again desired to know by what authority they were made. 'Gentlemen,' said he, repeating his former gesture, lI shall take care of my head;' and this was the only answer they could obtain from him. He was seen in Philadelphia no more. It was the opinion of the committee that he was a secret agent of the French court, and directed to give these indirect assurances, but in such a manner that he might be disavowed, if necessary.' "

In consequence, Mr. Jay says, a secret committee, of which he himself was a member, and which had Thomas Paiue for its secretary, was appointed to correspond with the friends of America in Great Britain, Ireland, and other parts of the world. Encouraged by the assurances of Prance, the secret committee was soon converted into a public one, and agents were sent off to almost every court of Europe to solicit aid of one kind or another against the mother country, not omitting even Spain, Naples, Holland, and Russia. Silas Deane was dispatched to Paris in March of this year, to announce the almost certainty of a total separation of the colonies from Great Britain, and to solicit the promised co-operation.