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27. [Anonymous], The Alarm: or, an Address to the People of Pennsylvania on the Late Resolve of Congress
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PolWritV1_301-350.indd 321 2/21/12 10:06 AM [27} [ ANONYMOUS ] The Alarm: or, an Address to the People of Pennsylvania on the Late Resolve of Congress PHILADELPHIA, 1776 The Americans of the founding era were a highly politicized people. Even in the midst of their most serious crisis, every action was subject to debate. The Continental Congress had passed a resolution for the separate colonies to write new constitutions commensurate with their independent statehood. It had called upon the respective state legislatures to draft the constitutions, and in this essay the author argues that constitutions should not be written by legislatures but by special conventions elected for that purpose. While that has become common practice in the United States, few of the more than two dozen state constitutions adopted by r8oo were written by special conventions. The legislature tended also to adopt the new constitutions, and only twice before r8oo did a state both elect a special convention and submit the document to the people for adoption, the Massachusetts Constitution of q8o being the first. The long continued injuries and insults, which the Continent of America hath sustained from the cruel power of the British Court, and the disadvantages, which the several provinces in the mean time labour under from the want of a permanent form of government, by which they might in a proper constitutional manner of their own, afford protection to themselves, have at length risen to such an height, as to make it appear necessary to the Honourable Continental Congress to issue a Resolve, recommending it to the several Colonies to take up and establish new governments "on the authority of the people," in { 32 I } PolWritV1_301-350.indd 322 2/21/12 10:06 AM [ 322} PHILADELPHIA, 1776 lieu of those old ones which were established on the authority of the Crown. This, Fellow Countrymen, is the situation we now stand in, and the matter for your immediate consideration, is simply this: Who are, or who are not, the proper persons to be entrusted with carrying the said Resolve into execution, in what is the most eligible mode of authorizing such persons? for unless they have the full authority of the people for the especial purpose, any government modelled by them will not stand. Men of interested view and dangerous designs may tell you, The House of Assembly: But be not deceived by the tinkling of a name, for either such an House does not now exist, or if it does exist, it is by an unconstitutional power, for as the people have not yet, by any public act of theirs, transferred to them any new authority necessary to qualify them agreeable to the sense and expression of Congress, which says, "on the AUTHORITY of the PEOPLE, " they consequently have none other than what is either immediately derived from , or conveyed to them in consequence of, the royal charter of our enemy, and this, saith the Honourable Congress, "should be totally suppressed". Wherefore, in compliance with this advice and recommendation of Congress, it is proposed to enter a public protest, in order to suppress it, for legislative bodies of men have no more the power of suppressing the authority they sit by, than they have of creating it, otherwise every legislative body would have the power of suppressing a constitution at will; it is an act which can only be done to them, but cannot be done by them. Were the present House of Assembly to be suffered by their own act to suppress the old authority derived from the Crown, they might afterwards suppress the new authority received from the people, and thus by continually making and unmaking themselves at pleasure, leave the people at last no right at all. The power from which the new authority is to be derived, is the only power which can properly suppress the old one. Thus, Fellow Countrymen, you are called upon by the standing law of nature and reason, and by the sense of the Honourable Congress, to assert your natural rights, by entering your protest against the authority of the present House of Assembly, in order that a new government, founded "on the authority of the people," may be established. Until the authority of the Crown, by which the present House of Assembly sits, be suppressed, the House is not qualified to carry [44.202.209.105] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 14:03 GMT) PolWritV1_301-350.indd 323 2/21/12 10:06...