Draft of a Resolution in Relation to British Hostilities
On March 19, 1776, George Wythe of Virginia, John Jay of New York, and James Wilson of Pennsylvania were ordered by the Second Continental Congress to draft a declaration regarding British hostilities and privateering, in response to outcries from American merchants and traders:
The Congress then resolved itself into a committee of the whole, to take into their farther consideration the memorial from the merchants, traders, and others, inhabitants of Philadelphia, the memorial from Edmund Custis, the letters from the committees of Accomac and Northampton, and the petition of Joseph Blewer and Daniel Robinson, and after some time the president resumed the chair, and Mr. Harrison reported that the committee have had under consideration the matters to them referred, and have come to sundry resolutions, which they directed him to lay before Congress,
The report of the committee being read; Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to draw a declaration pursuant to said report, and lay the same before Congress.[1]
Richard Smith, delegate from New Jersey, recorded in his diary that Wythe read his proposal before Congress on Friday, March 22, 1776:
Wyth reported the preamble about Privateering. he and Lee moved an Amendt. wherein the King was made the Author of our Miseries instead of the Ministry. it was opposed on Supposition that this was effectually severing the King from us forever and ably debated for 4 Hours when Maryland interposed its Veto and put it off till Tomorrow. Chief Speakers for the Amendt. Lee, Chase, Serjeant, Harrison, against it Jay, Wilson, Johnson.[2]
A draft of the preamble to the resolutions survives in Wythe's handwriting (in his telltale lowercase, including the spellings of "british" and "parliament," and "east" and "west"). As the manuscript ended up in a volume of documents relating to the history of Pennsylvania, Wythe may have given this copy to James Wilson.[3] A copy of the preamble also exists in the papers of Benjamin Franklin at the Library of Congress (although not in Wythe's or Franklin's writing).[4] Referring to the British, Wythe co-opts a phrase from Pliny the Elder (who was himself referring to the emperor Nero): hostem humani generis, "an enemy of mankind."
The resolutions as adopted by Congress on March 23, 1776, do not include Wythe's preamble, though some ghost of his language survives.[5]
Contents
Manuscript text, March 1776
Page 1
Whereas the
court of Great Britain habritish nation, through great corruption of manners, and extream dissipation andconfusionprofusion both private and public, have found all honest resources insufficient to supply their excessive luxury and prodigality, and thereby have been driven to the practice of every injustice which avarice could dictate or rapacity execute, and wheras, not satisfied with the immence plunder of the east, obtained by sacrificing millions of the human species, they have lately turned their eyes to the west, and grudging us the peaceable enjoyment of the fruits of our hard labour andhonestvirtuous industry, have for years past been endeavouring to extort the same from us under colour of laws regulating trade, and have thereby actually succeeded in draining us of large sums to our great loss and detriment, and wheras impatient to seize the whole they have at length proceeded to open robbery, declaring by a solemn act of parliament that all our estates are theirs and all our property found upon the sea divisible among such of their armed plunderers as shall take the same; and have even dared in the same act to declare that all the spoilings, thefts, burnings of houses and towns, and murders of innocent people perpetrated by their wicked and inhuman corsairs on our coasts,[6] and shall be so deemed, contrary to several of the commandments of God, which by this ^Act they presume to repeal, and to all theideas^principles of right, and all the ideas of justice entertained heretofore by every other nation savage as well as civilized; thereby manifesting themselves to be hostes humani generis:[7] And whereas
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as it is not possible for the people of America to subsist under such continual ravages without making some reprisals therefore resolv
See also
- Address to the Foreign Mercenaries
- Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies
- Address to the Indians
- Additional Instructions to the Commissioners to France
- Report of the Committee on the Northern Army, 28 November 1776
References
- ↑ Journals of Congress Containing the Proceedings from January 1, 1776 to January 1, 1777, vol. 2 (Yorktown, PA: Printed by John Dunlap, 1778), 96.
- ↑ Edward C. Barnett, ed. Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, vol. 1, August 29, 1774–July 4, 1776, (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution, 1921), 404.
- ↑ "38. Draft of a resolution in relation to British hostilities. (In handwriting of George Wythe) 1775." Documents, 1728-1816: Relating to the Province of Pennsylvania and to the American Revolution, American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia, 131-132.
- ↑ "Proposed Introduction to a Congress Resolution, March 23, 1776." Benjamin Franklin Papers: Series II, 1726-1818; 1774, June 10-1777, Sept. 4 (vol. 18). For a transcript of Franklin's copy, see "Proposed Preamble to a Congressional Resolution on Privateering, (before 23 March 1776)" Founders Online, National Archives.
- ↑ Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, vol. 4, January 1-June 4, 1776 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1906), 229–232.
- ↑ Franklin's copy inserts the phrase, "previous to any War declared against us were just Actions," here.
- ↑ Hostes humani generis: "Enemies of the human race." A phrase used in Pliny's Natural History, 7.45.
External links
- "Proposed Preamble to a Congressional Resolution on Privateering, (before 23 March 1776)," Founders Online, National Archives.
- Read this document in Documents, 1728-1816, relating to the province of Pennsylvania and to the American Revolution, The Revolutionary City: A Portal to the Nation's Founding.
