Texas Review of Law & Politics, Volume 19, Number 1, Fall 2014 Page: 44
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Texas Review of Law & Politics
That our Ancestors, when they left their native Land, and
setled in America, brought with them ... the Civil-Constitution
and Form of Government of the Country they came from; and
were by the Laws of Nature and Nations, entitiled to all it's
Privileges, Immunities and Advantages; which have descended
to us their Posterity, and ought of Right to be as fully enjoyed,
as if we had still continued within the Realm of England.'04
Thirty other counties in Virginia did likewise, as did counties
throughout the Colonies.105 Unity is the only strategy, they said;
the troubles of one are the troubles of all.106 "Join, or die."'7
Benjamin Franklin had famously cartooned this intensely local
slogan in 1754, urging colonial support of Britain in the French
and Indian War.108 To unite the Colonies against England, Paul
Revere co-opted the message in his engraving for a Boston paper
on July 7, 1774.109
Local action became the tentative first steps of truly national
action in September 1774, with the First Continental Congress
organized in the wake of these resolves."0 The next month, the
Continental Congress issued its own Declaration and Resolves to
speak in solidarity-if not quite yet nationally-to the Crown."
It called for the repeal of a host of laws and set out ten
resolutions declaring that American colonists had the same
rights as all English citizens: entitlement to life, liberty, and
property; participation in legislation; protection of the common
law and trial by jury; and peaceable assembly and petition."2
CONSTITUTION, supra note 37, at 633, 633.
104. Id. at cl. 1.
105. SOURCES OF OUR LIBERTIES, supra note 3, at 272-73.
106. For instance, a merchant committee from New York responded this way to an
appeal from Boston merchants to halt trade with England: "As a sister colony, suffering in
defense of the rights of America, we consider your injuries as a common cause, to the
redress of which it is equally our duty and our interest to contribute." A Proposal for a
Continental Congress (1774), reprinted in 2 THE ANNALS OF AMERICA: 1755-1783,
RESISTANCE AND REVOLUTION 254, 254 (Mortimer J. Adler ed., 1968).
107. See Benjamin Franklin, Join or Die, PA. GAZETTE, May 9, 1754, at 2; see also
Benjamin Franklin.. .In His Own Words: Join or Die, LIBR. OF CONGRESS (Aug. 16, 2010)
www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/franklin-cause.html [perma.cc/BPH5-7DDF].
108. See Franklin, supra note 107; see also GORDON S. WOOD, THE AMERICANIZATION
OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 72-78 (2004).
109. Paul Revere, Unite or Die, MASS. SPY, July 7, 1774, at 1; see also A More Perfect
Union: Symbolizing the National Union of the States, LIBR. OF CONGRESS,
www.loc.gov/exhibits/us.capitol/sl.html [perma.cc/34Q6-7Y9U] (last visited Dec. 31,
2014) (entry for "Paul Revere Adopts Snake Device").
110. SOURCES OF OUR LIBERTIES, supra note 3, at 272-73.
111. CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, DECLARATION AND RESOLvES (Oct. 14, 1774), reprinted
in 1 THE FOUNDERS' CONSTITUTION, supra note 37, at 1.
112. Id. at nos. 1, 4, 5 & 8, at 2.44
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University of Texas at Austin. School of Law. Texas Review of Law & Politics, Volume 19, Number 1, Fall 2014, periodical, Autumn 2014; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth638673/m1/58/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.