Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/13

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

was a member of the house of burgesses for the college of William and Mary at the as- semblies of 1766-1768, 1769, and 1769-1771, when he resigned to become clerk of. the council. In the convention of May, 1776, he again represented the college, and was a member of the committee which in June, 1776, reported the declaration of rights and state constitution. Upon the establishment ot the judiciary he was elected judge of the general court, of which he became chief jus- tice, and in 1780 a judge of the high court of t hancery. He was a member of the conven- tion, at Philadelphia, in 1787, which framed the Federal constitution, voting for its adop tion, and subsequently for its ratification in the state convention of 1788. In 1789, by appointment of Washington, he became a justice of the United States supreme court, and held his seat until 1796, when he re- signed. He died at Williamsburg, August 31, 1800. Among the minor offices held by him was that of bursar of the college.

Bland, Richard, son of Richard Bland, of ••Jordan's Point," Prince George county, and Elizabeth Randolph, his wife, was born in Williamsburg, May 6. 1710. He was edu- cated at William and Mary College and at the University of Edinburgh, and for many years after 1748 was a leading member of the house of burgesses. In 1753 he con- demned Governor Dinwiddic's attempt to impose a pistole for land grants as taxation without the people's assent, and in 1757 was the author and champion of the Two Penny Act, which, in claiming for Virginians the right of controlling their own taxation, was the great preliminary step to the formal measures of the American revolution. In 1764 he wrote a pamphlet defensive of his

cause entitled "the Colonels Dismounted," in which he asserted the exclusive authority of the general assembly of Virginia over all matters of domestic concern. When the Stamp Act was proposed the same year, he opposed it with great zeal upon the floor of the house of burgesses and was one of the cc«mmittee of nine which, in December. 1764, prepared the memorials to King, lords and commons. He. nevertheless, opposed the resolutions of Patrick Henry in May. 1765, on the ground that the British governmeni had not been given sufficient time to re- spond to the previous protest. In 1766. he showed, however, that his opposition to the r.ritish scheme of taxation was not dimin- i.^hed by publishing his pamphlet entitled an "Enquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies." In this he emphasized the views expressed in his •^Colonels Dismounted." taking the ground that Virginia was an in- dependent kingdom, under no subjection to parliament, and only connected with Eng- land by the tie of the Crown. The doctrine thus advanced was considered a "prodigious innovation" in most parts of the country, though in course of time the patriots came very generally to rest their cause upon it. His knowledge of history exhibited in the pamphlet gained for him the appellation of "The Virginia Antiquary."

After the repeal of the Stamp Act, Bland took equally strong grounds against the Revenue Act of 1767. He was chairman of the committee of the whole house which re- ported the resolutions of April 7, 1768, pro- testing against the act; and when the gov- ernment of Great Britain demanded the ar- lest of the patriots of Masschusetts he was one of the leading spirits of the legislature

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