Founding America (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Jack N. Rakove [37]
12. That the committee of correspondence, in the respective colonies, do frequently inspect the entries of their custom-houses, and inform each other, from time to time, of the true state thereof, and of every other material circumstance that may occur relative to this association.
13. That all manufactures of this country be sold at reasonable prices, so that no undue advantage be taken of a future scarcity of goods.
14. And we do further agree and resolve, that we will have no trade, commerce, dealings or intercourse whatsoever, with any colony or province, in North-America, which shall not accede to, or which shall hereafter violate this association, but will hold them as unworthy of the rights of freemen, and as inimical to the liberties of their country.
And we do solemnly bind ourselves and our constituents, under the ties aforesaid, to adhere to this association, until such parts of the several acts of parliament passed since the close of the last war, as impose or continue duties on tea, wine, molasses, syrups, paneles, coffee, sugar, pimento, indigo, foreign paper, glass, and painters’ colours, imported into America, and extend the powers of the admiralty courts beyond their ancient limits, deprive the American subject of trial by jury, authorize the judge’s certificate to indemnify the prosecutor from damages, that he might otherwise be liable to from a trial by his peers, require oppressive security from a claimant of ships or goods seized, before he shall be allowed to defend his property, are repealed.—And until that part of the act of the 12 G. 3. ch. 24, entitled “An act for the better securing his majesty’s dockyards, magazines, ships, ammunition, and stores,” by which any persons charged with committing any of the offences therein described, in America, may be tried in any shire or county within the realm, is repealed—and until the four acts, passed the last session of parliament, viz. that for stopping the port and blocking up the harbour of Boston—that for altering the charter and government of the Massachusetts-Bay—and that which is entitled “An act for the better administration of justice, &c.”—and that “for extending the limits of Quebec, &c.” are repealed. And we recommend it to the provincial conventions, and to the committees in the respective colonies, to establish such farther regulations as they may think proper, for carrying into execution this association.
The foregoing association being determined upon by the Congress, was ordered to be subscribed by the several members thereof; and thereupon, we have hereunto set our respective names accordingly.
IN CONGRESS, PHILADELPHIA, OCTOBER 20, 1774.
Signed,
PEYTON RANDOLPH, President.
SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS
Declaration on Causes and Necessity of Taking Arms (July 6, 1775)
PAGE 53
Benjamin Franklin: Plan of Confederation (July 21, 1775)
PAGE 59
CIVIL WAR ERUPTED IN Massachusetts in April 1775, and three weeks later Congress reconvened in Philadelphia. The delegates debated whether to revise the positions they had taken the previous fall, and decided to send George III a second conciliatory petition. Their principal task, however, was to transform the Massachusetts militia who were besieging General Gage’s garrison in Boston into the Continental Army that Congress formally approved on June 14. The next day it appointed George Washington of Virginia as the army’s commander. When Washington departed on June 23, he carried with him a copy of the Declaration on Causes and Necessity of Taking Arms that Congress that Congress had adopted and that he was ordered to publish upon his arrival in Boston. The Declaration was largely the