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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO THE DUTY OF RIGHTS Eighteenth-century constitutional theory imposed duties on the British people; one was the duty to transmit, preserve, and defend rights. William Pitt, the earl of Chatham, referred to this duty when he told the House of Lords in 1774 "that the principal towns in America are learned and polite, and understand the constitution of the empire as well as the noble Lords who are in office; and consequently, they will have a watchful eye over their liberties, to prevent the least encroachment on their hereditary rights." Three months later a majority of North Carolina 's convention concluded that it was time for Americans to shoulder that duty, urging the Continental Congress "to take such measures as they may deem prudent to effect the purpose of describing with certainty the rights of Americans; repairing the breaches made in those rights; and for guarding them for the future."l We are so accustomed to thinking the North Carolina resolution representative of American thought in the age of the American Revolution that it is well to draw back and remind ourselves that what was being expressed was a hackneyed British constitutional value. '~s at present we live under a government, the most perfect in Europe," a London writer of 1766 explained in a typical example of the sentiment, "it is the indispensible interest and duty of every true Briton to maintain those privi184 THE DUTY OF RIGHTS leges, which have been conveyed to us from our ancestors, through so many generations, inviolable; upon which all our temporal (and in a great measure our eternal) happiness, safety, and well being depends." There was little to fear as long as the British people were vigilant and vigilance was their civic habit. Should they become apathetic they would cease to be British, a second London pamphlet explained three years later. "If the people of England shall ever come to be in so benumbed a state, as not to feel, and to shew they feel, any real invasion of their essential rights and privileges, the body politic must then be far advanced in a general mortification, that can end in nothing less than the death of Liberty."2 Although' not likely, it was possible for even the vigilant British to become "benumbed" by a sense of security. "The Rights of the People are never in greater danger than when they least suspect them so to be," a barrister contended in 1768. "If they are lulled into a security, the enemy is ever watchful to seize the opportunity. Commendable, therefore, is the employment of those who are upon guard, to sound the alarm whenever the enemy approaches." The message was that the constitution alone could not guarantee rights. Citizens had to mount guard and maintain a watch on the very institutions that sheltered them from arbitrariness. "From these examples," Britons were warned in 1769, "we may learn, that we shall not be secure against danger, merely by keeping up the antient form of our Government, as we received it from our Ancestors. We must retain its virtue and essence. Let us therefore contend earnestly for the constitution once delivered to us; and with its outward form, study to preserve its inward vigour, and not suffer any of our Rights to been [sic] croached upon or invaded."3 THE DUTY TO TRANSMIT The duty to defend rights was entailed on the possessors of rights not only by the tenure of ownership but by inheritance. In part, it was a matter of honoring and repaying the forebears who had bequeathed the legacy of rights. "Should we, or any succeeding age, despise our liberty, so dearly bought, what do we, but trample upon our fathers dust, and disturb the ashes of our godly ancestors, who purchased this land for us at so great expense?" Amos Adams asked, preaching the 1768 thanksgiving sermon at Roxbury, Massachusetts. The North Carolina Convention six years later thought the duty was not just to transmit, but if possible to improve and not to disgrace the heritage of those to whom so much was owed. 186 THE DUTY OF RIGHTS [I]t is the duty, and will be the endeavour of us as British Americans, to transmit this happy Constitution to our posterity in a state, if possible , better than we found it; and that to suffer it to undergo a change which may impair that invaluable blessing, would be to disgrace those ancestors, who, at the expense of their...

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