Political Sermons of the American Founding Era: 1730–1805: In Two Volumes

9. An Humble Enquiry [1769]

- - 9 - AN HUMBLE ENQUIRY John Joachim Zubly SAVANNAH[?] I 7 6 9 JoHN JOACHIM ZUBLY (1724-178I). Born and educated in St. Gall, Switzerland, Zubly was ordained at the German Church in London in I744 and went to South Carolina the same year to join his father. After preaching in various churches in South Carolina and Georgia, he became pastor in I76o of the Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah. Fluent in six languages, Zubly was widely read; John Adams called him a "learned man." The College of New Jersey gave him an honorary A.M. in I77o and a D.D. four years later. He took an early lead in representing the dissenting denominations against the threat of Anglican tyranny. During the Stamp Act crisis he was a powerful voice for American rights. A delegate to the Georgia Provincial Congress in r 775, he was soon thereafter elected one of the colony's five representatives to the Continental Congress, where he took a prominent role. Although, by fall of that year, it had become clear that independence was in the air, Zubly did not favor that course. After being denounced by Samuel Chase (perhaps for asserting in Congress that republics are "little better than government of devils"), Zubly abruptly departed Philadelphia on November Io, 1775. In I777 he was banished from Georgia as a Tory, and half his property was confiscated. He found shelter for a time with friends in South Carolina. When royal government was reestablished in Georgia , he was able to return and partially resume his pastoral duties in Savannah. The leading spokesman for Georgia in the dispute with Great Britain , Zubly is regarded as an impressive literary figure of the time. His An Humble Enquiry, published pseudonymously (1769), presents a powerful constitutional argument against the 1766 Declaratory Act in response to Parliament's Townshend Acts. A N' HUMBLE ENQUIRY I N T 0 The NATURE of the DEPENDENCY of the AMERICAN COLONIES upon the PAR-: LlAMENT of GREAT-BRITAIN.. A N D The RIGHT of PARLIAMENT to lay TAXES on the faid COLONIES. By a FREEHOLDER of SOUTH-CAROLINA. A Houfe divileJ againff itfelfoannot.flancl. When people' heard l'hlp money demal!ded 111 ts rig6t, and found it by fwona judges of the law adjudged fo, upon f11ch gro11nds and reafons as eve9' ilanderby wa• able to fwear was r.ot law, and fa had loll the pleafure and dehght of bein ~ kind and dutif~l to the King, and, inftead of GIVING, were required to PAY, and hr a lcgick tbqt ltft no man any thing that he might call his OWiloc they-no more lo"k' d upcn it as the cafe of l'ne man, bu• the cafe of the kingdom, nor aF an impofiticm laid upon tl•.em by the King, but by the jJdges, which the}' thought themfdve~ bound in publick judice not to fubmit to. 1t wu an obfer. ution 'ong ago of 'llruc;•didu, " That men are much more patlionate for injutlice " than for violcmce, b~caufi· (faith he) the oneproc~eding a• from an. equai fecms •• rapir;e, when the other proceedirg from a !i:ranger is but the eJfctl of neceffity.•• -Wi-en they faw reafon of lbte ucrged as elemeuts of law,judges as fharp.flghied· as fecretar:es of ftate, j11dgment of law grounded u.poa matter of faCl of which. therewa• neither enquiry.nor proof, and no rea.fon-given for the payment but what indodPd all the etl:ates of the flanders. by, they had no reafon to hope that do6riae, or the promoters of it, would be contained within any bounds; and it is no wond