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 JVas the Confederate Soldier a Rebel?

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impartial candor. How dare wc bequeath i that the first movement of the colonies to to them the " serpent and scorpion of old wards concerted action was an assemblage hates and blinding prejudices"? of delegates from each of them, which met The time seems at last to have arrived at New York on the seventh day of October, when we may safely ask and answer the 1765. Its object was to devise and adopt a question, " Was the Confederate soldier a plan of united opposition to the British rebel?" and in doing so bring to bear upon Stamp Act. the inquiry those frank and manly methods It was first recommended and the call peculiar to Americans. made to the colonics by the legislature of The inquiry being in the interest of truth, Massachusetts in June, 1765; the object, as must be pursued with the intention to recog stated in the call, "to consult together nize faets, and no mere opinion, nor bald as and consider of a united representation to sertion, however high the source, should be implore relief." allowed to traverse the established and au "Of the American colonies," says Ban thentic records of history. Leaving bigo croft, "Virginia rang the alarm bell, Vir try and prejudice with the sunken fleets of ginia gave the signal to the continent." He Montojo and Cervera, let us follow the in referred to the memorable philippic of Pat quiry back into the morning-dawn of our rick Henry delivered in the Virginia House liberty, and research the genesis of our fed of Burgesses, so defiant in its utterance eration. That the American colonies of that the speaker of the house cried " Trea Great Britain, prior to the Revolution, under son!" It is familiar to every school-boy, their respective charters, exercised local was delivered six months prior to the call self-government and were separate and in of Massachusetts, and was the first warning dependent of each other has never been to the colonies that the Stamp Act was an questioned. That at the close of the Revolu attack upon American liberties. Massachu tion they were independent, sovereign States setts turned the alarm to practical effect by has never been seriously denied. When, how, calling for the assembling of the Congress and under what limitations they became a at New York, James Otis being the moving nation, has been a subject of dispute as old as spirit. the Constitution. It is nevertheless the his South Carolina was the first to respond tory of an evolution which may be traced to the call. Bancroft heads a chapter, with the exactness of ascertained facts, and "South Carolina founds the American the certitude of continuous and authentic Union," and continues " Far away towards records. the land of the sun the Assembly of South The frequent infractions of the chartered Carolina was in session, and on the 25th day rights of the colonies by the mother coun of July the circular of Massachusetts was try, had long prior to the Revolution debated. It was referred to a committee of caused anxiety among the colonics, and in which Christopher Gadsden was chairman, fringement upon the rights of any one of and through his leadership South Carolina them had caused restlessness in all. Self- pronounced for the Union." He quotes preservation, a first law of nature with from the speech of Gadsden in the New States as well as men, caused them first to York Congress: "Our State, particularly at think of united action for the prevention tentive to the interests of America, was the and redress of wrongs. first, though at the extreme, and one of the Mr. Bancroft, in his " History of the United weakest, to listen to the call of our Northern States," an authority of the highest order, to brethren in distress." In this Congress whom the writer will often refer, maintains various opinions obtained as to the proper