Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/129

 bound by no law, nor regard the constitutional rights of his majesty's subjects, whenever they interfere with the plan he has formed for oppressing the good people of the Massachusetts Bay; and therefore, that the exe- cuting or attempting to execute, such proclamation, will justify resistance and reprisal.'^

On the fourth of September 1774, that venerable body, the old continental congress of the United States (towards whom every American heart will bow with pious homage, while the name of liberty shall be dear in our land) met for the first time, at Carpenter's Hall, in the city of Philadelphia. Peyton Randolph, of Vir- ginia, was chosen president, and the house was organiz- ed for business, with all the solemnities of a regular legislature,*

The most eminent men of the various colonies, were now for the first time, brought together. They were known to each other by fame; but they were personally strangers. The meeting was awfully solemn. The object which had called them together, was of incalcul- able magnitude. The liberties of no less than three millions of people, with that of all their posterity, were staked on the wisdom and energy of their councils.

a short and animated picture of their Roman ancestors, which, with the change of a single word, {libertate for imperio) describes so happily our old continental congress, that I am sure I shall gratify the classical reader by its insertion.
 * Salliist, in his second oration to C. Ccfsar, Be Repnblica OrcUiianda, gives

" Itaque majores nostri, cum bellis asperimis premerentur, equis, viris, pecunia amissa, nunquam defessi sunt armati de libertate contendere. JVon inopia ararii, non vis hostium, non adversa res, ingeiitem eorum aniimims^ibegit : qiiem, qux virtiUe ceperant, simnl cum avima retinerent. Atque ea, magis fortibus consiliis, quam bonis pr?eliis, patrata sunt. Qu'ippe apud illos, una respubiica erat; ei consulebant,- f actio, contra hostts parabatuv; rnrpv.s atqite in-^ genium, patiiiC, 11971 sniie, quisqiie potentioe exercitabat."

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