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- Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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SOVEREIGNTY IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION: AN HISTORICAL STUDY
Claude Van Tyne
PAPHOS PUBLISHERS
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Copyright © 2016 by Claude Van Tyne
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Sovereignty in the American Revolution: an Historical Study
Sovereignty in the American Revolution:
an Historical Study
By Claude H. Van Tyne. No. 3, April 1907.
SOVEREIGNTY IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION: AN HISTORICAL STUDY
SOVEREIGNTY IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION: AN HISTORICAL STUDY
IT IS THE PURPOSE OF this paper to learn, if possible, from contemporary material just what ideas were in men’s minds during the American Revolution when they thought of Congress, of the Union, of the states and their governments, of the Confederation, and of independence, and, further, to learn their true reasons for obeying Congress or their state governments. Then with some definite conclusions based upon facts and not general impressions, I wish to examine again the much-mooted question as to whether there was an American national state in the Revolution, and whether Congress or the state governments exercised the sovereign power. As we all know, this question derives its importance from the long and bitter historical controversy over state sovereignty, nullification, and secession. Personally, I believe that the solution, either in favor of state sovereignty or of Congressional sovereignty during the Revolution, has little or no bearing in establishing the legal right of nullification or secession,[1] but so many able writers[2]have laid such stress on proving the Continental Congress sovereign that the truth is worth a search.
Since the earliest time claimed for the existence of an American national state is the time of the assembling of the First Continental Congress, I begin with a consideration of that.Story speaks[3] of this Congress as coming from “the people, acting directly in their primary, sovereign capacity, and without the intervention of the functionaries, to whom the ordinary powers of government were delegated”. The facts are that delegates from two colonies[4] were chosen by the legislatures,[5] elected by the people in the ordinary way for ordinary purposes of law-making. The delegates from Massachusetts, a third colony, were chosen by the lower house duly elected, with no special instructions to choose delegates to the Continental Congress.[6] Georgia was not represented at all, and in only six colonies were there special conventions or provincial congresses of the nature Story imagines them all to have been.
He adds to this false premise the assertion, “The Congress thus assembled exercised de facto and de jure a sovereign authority; not as the delegated agents of the governments de facto of the colonies, but in virtue of original powers derived from the people.”[7] Such a statement could come only from one who had not read the instructions of the delegates, or the journal of this Congress’s proceedings. Four delegations were instructed to procure the harmony and union of the empire,[8] to restore mutual confidence, or to establish the union with Great Britain. Three were instructed to repair the breach made in American rights, to preserve American liberty, or to accomplish some similar end. Two were to get a repeal of the obnoxious acts, or determine on prudent or lawful measures of redress. Three were simply to attend Congress or “to consult to advance the good of the colonies”.[9] North Carolina alone bound her inhabitants in honor to obey the acts of the Congress to which she was sending delegates.[10] When the Congress met, it restricted its proceedings absolutely to statements of the grievances and appeals for relief. The delegates in no way went beyond their instructions, as a careful examination of their journal will show.[11] Conservative feelings ruled, and the restoration of union and harmony with Great Britain was the prevalent desire. It is manifestly wrong, therefore, to look at the First Continental Congress as coming together because of a national feeling, because of a desire to form a national state, and therefore to ascribe to it governmental powers. It was called because a joint appeal for relief would naturally be more effective than any single petition. The colonies sending delegates to the First Continental Congress no more coalesced into a national state by that act than did the colonies which sent delegates to the Albany Congress or the Stamp Act Congress.
