Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/214

 190 SKETCHES OF THE

Immediately upon his resignation, lie was elected a delegate to the convention for the county of Hanover. The session of that body, which was now coming on, was pregnant with importance. Dunmore had abdi- cated the chair of government, and tlae royal authority in the colony was seen and felt no longer, but in acts of hostility. The king had declared, from his throne, that the colonists must be reduced by force, to submit to the British claim of taxation; and the colonists, on their part, had vowed that they never would submit to this prostration of their rights; but on the contrary, that they would hand down to their children, the birth-right of liberty which they had enjoyed, or perish in the attempt. On this quan-el, arms had been taken up on both sides, and the appeal had been made to the God of battles. The war had assumed a regular and settled form; blood had been profusely shed in various parts of the continent, and reconciliation had become hopeless.

The people being tlius abandoned by their king, put out of his protection, declared in a state of open rebel- lion, and treated as enemies, the social compact which had united the monarch with his subjects, was at an end; the colonial constitution, which could be set and kept in motion only by the presence and agency of the king or his representative, was of course dissolved; and all the rights and powers of government, reverted of necessity, to their source, the people. These causes produced the convention. It was the organ by which the people chose to exercise the fundamental rights thus thrown back upon them, by the dissolution of the regal government. It was the substitute for the whole government which had been withdrawn, legislative, executive, and judiciary. It represented the whole

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