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By Root 1978 0

in 1774 to establish an independent nation. Only a series of miscues by a poorly informed and miscalculating government in London made independence the inescapable consequence of colonial resistance. So, too, the whole idea of a written constitution as supreme law was not something that many Americans grasped or fully comprehended when they started writing new charters in 1776. In many ways, it was an accidental byproduct of the situation in which Britain had placed them, and it took the better part of a decade for Americans to think through the implications of what they were doing. The great constitutional debate of 1787 and 1788 provided the occasion for that reconsideration to take place. But that debate, too, came about only because individual states, like tiny Rhode Island, had thwarted every effort to amend the Articles of Confederation. Had any of those proposed amendments succeeded, the case for calling a special convention like the one that met at Philadelphia in May 1787 would have been far more difficult to make. Political change might then have taken a very different form, more modest and incremental.

But even the greatest historical events are often shaped by accidents and circumstances. The deeper question is this: What do those who have the chance to participate in such events do when the opportunity, accidental or not, presents itself? The documents presented in this book illustrate how the Revolutionary generation seized the day. More than two centuries later, we are still wrestling with the consequences of their decisions.

Jack N. Rakove is W. R. Coe Professor of History and American Studies and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, where he has taught since 1980. He was educated at Haverford College, the University of Edinburgh, and Harvard, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1975. He is the author of four books on the American Revolutionary era, including The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress ( 1979), James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic ( 1990, 2001 ), and Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution, which received the 1997 Pulitzer Prize in History. His edited books include James Madison: Writings ( 1999), The Federalist: The Essential Essays (2003), and The Unfinished Election of 2000 (2001). He writes frequently on issues relating to the original meaning of the Constitution.

Publisher’s Note: The editor has made no attempt to modernize the spelling or punctuation in the documents collected in this volume. When these texts were written, rules of spelling and punctuation differed from what they are today. For one, consistency was not as important: “controling” and “controlling,” “incroachments” and “encroachments,” “percieved” and “perceived” can all be found in the same document. Similarly, the word “it’s” sometimes appears as a possessive where we now use “its.” Retaining these and other odd spellings and “incorrect” punctuation preserve these important American documents in their original character.

THE IMPERIAL DISPUTE

Thomas Hutchinson: The Address of the Governor (January 6, 1773 )

PAGE 5

Benjamin Franklin: Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One (September 11, 1773)

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Thomas Jefferson: A Summary View of the Rights of British America (July 1774)

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BECAUSE THE DECLARATION OF Independence of 1776 was directed against King George III, it is often assumed that the American Revolution was a struggle against the evils of monarchy. In fact, the central dispute between Britain and its colonies was concerned with another issue entirely: Did Parliament have any authority to legislate for America, or were the colonists obliged to obey only those laws enacted by their own representative assemblies? That was the great issue that was first agitated during the Stamp Act controversy of 1765-1766 and the dispute over the Townshend duties enacted in 1767.

After the Townshend duties were repealed, this dispute largely subsided. But it was