Continuation of the Proceedings

AMERICAN REVOLUTION ADAMS John HANCOCK John ADAMS Samuel HUTCHINSON Thomas

Verlag: Erscheinungsdatum: 1770

"(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (HUTCHINSON, Thomas) (ADAMS, John) (ADAMS, Samuel) (HANCOCK, John). A Continuation of the Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay, Relative to the Convening, Holding, and Keeping The General Assembly at Harvard-College, in Cambridge. Published by Order of the House of Representatives. Boston: Edes and Gill, 1770. Slim octavo, period-style full tree calf gilt, red morocco spine label, raised bands, marbled endpapers; pp. (1-3), 4-66. $11,500.First edition of the momentous work that documents powerful legal and philosophical debates in a stand-off between Boston patriots and Hutchinson over his command to remove the Massachusetts Court from Boston amidst fury over the recent Boston Massacre, causing colonial leaders, chief among them Samuel and John Adams, to rage against "the most valuable of our Liberties from being wrested from us," this rare edition "almost certainly a major cause" of the Declaration of Independence "accusing the King of calling 'together legislative bodies at place… distance from the repository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance."On March 8, 1770, three days after the Boston Massacre, thousands of mourners attended the funerals of Crispus Attucks, James Caldwell, Samuel Gray and Samuel Maverick. That same day Lt. Governor Hutchinson, who succeeded Francis Bernard as Massachusetts' royal governor, ordered the General Court to be taken from Boston and compelled to meet in Cambridge. With that command, Hutchinson "provoked a constitutional crisis in Massachusetts and instigated a controversy which lasted for more than two years" (Calhoon & Lord, Removal of the Massachusetts General Court, in Tory Insurgents, 28). Hutchinson, whose Boston home had been nearly destroyed in the 1765 Stamp Act riots, was seen by many as "the most villainous, traitorous person in the land… he personified, they believed, all the corruption and the incipient tyranny that they were fighting against" (Bailyn, Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson, 282). While Bailyn and other historians offer a more temperate view of his legacy, Founding Father Samuel Adams bluntly called Hutchinson "a 'pimp rather than a governor'" (Calhoon & Lord), and John Adams "considered Hutchinson to be the greatest threat to American liberties" (Webking, 80).Hutchinson, who officially became Governor in 1771, is deemed "the most important figure on the loyalist side in pre-Revolutionary Massachusetts" (Wroth & Zobel, eds. Legal Papers of John Adams V1:cii). His removal of "the Court from Boston's turbulent influences" triggered a stand-off with Boston leaders who challenged "the power of the Crown to interfere in the provincial matter of calling, proroguing, and dissolving the assembly… Hutchinson knew that the removal was a risky step one which would provide his enemies with a dramatic grievance. At the same time, he was so disturbed by the erosion of royal authority in the province that he was determined to preserve one of the Crown's prerogatives from further deterioration" (Calhoon & Lord, 28). "In Hutchinson's opinion, since Boston's political problems were generated by an unhappy handful of dissidents, if Britain demonstrated a consistently firm hand most of the challenges to authority would soon disappear. As he confided to a superior in London… 'if it was not for 2 or 3 Adamses we should do well eno'" (Welmsley, Thomas Hutchinson, 123).This rare first edition of Continuation of the Proceedings begins with Hutchinson's July 25, 1770 speech at the opening of the Court's Second Session. As seen here, the Massachusetts House swiftly answered by refusing to conduct business in Cambridge, and authorized a report of its Committee of Correspondence that "introduced the strongest use of natural law yet attempted by the Court" (Calhoon & Lord, 35). That report, primarily drafted by Samuel Adams, declares: "This House has the same inherent Rights in this Province, Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 123254

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Continuation of the Proceedings
Erscheinungsdatum: 1770
Auflage: First Edition.