The Virginia committee system and the American revolution

Front matter

Class Book

PRKSENTEI) BY

THE VIRGINIA COMMITTEE SYSTEM AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Contents

Pack

Introduction vii

Chapter I. Committees of the House of Burgesses ii Chapter II. The Committee of Correspondence... 59

Introduction

This study of the Virginia committee system in its relationship to the American Revolution has been made in the main from source material, much of which has been utilized by writers who have studied these committees as isolated units rather than as parts of a well developed system. The author believes that an institutional and historical continuity runs through the committee system of the Virginia legislature, and that these committees are connected in a vital and intimate way with the so-called revolutionary committees of the transition period from colony to commonwealth. To show the continuity, to explain the organization of the committees of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and to show their part in the calling of the first Continental Congress is the purpose of this study. It was at first intended to include the results of an investigation of the so-called revolutionary committees (the Virginia Committee of Safety and the local committees) ; but any adequate treatment of these organizations would have carried this study far beyond the usual limits of a dissertation. I have followed out the activities of these committees and hope soon to publish my findings as a continuation of this study.

The opening chapters are devoted to the organization of the Virginia House of Burgesses and its method of carrying on the legislative work by means of standing committees. Special attention has been given to the committee of correspondence, 1 759-1 770, which was chosen for the purpose of communicating with the colonial agent, and the relationship existing between this committee and the House of Burgesses, as well as the law governing its appointment and functions, has been carefully examined. It is this committee, I believe, which developed into the committee for intercolonial correspondence; and in order to understand viii INTRODUCTION

clearly the relationship of the legislative committees to the people at large, the representative system and the election laws of the colony have been brought into the discussion.

A comparison of the committee of correspondence of 1759, chosen for the purpose of communicating with the agent in England, with the committee of correspondence of 1773, chosen for intercolonial communication and for correspondence with an agent in England, brings out important results. By close examination of the organization, personnel, and activities of these committees I have reached conclusions somewhat different from those long held regarding their operation. The continuity of personnel in these committees seems to me to be especially significant, and is a feature which, so far as I have been able to determine, has never before been pointed out.

I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to several friends whose assistance has proved invaluable at various stages of the work. To them whatever of good there may be in the study is largely due, while in no way are they responsible for any inaccuracies it may contain. To Professor James Curtis Ballagh, formerly of the Johns Hopkins University, now of the University of Pennsylvania, and to Professors John Martin Vincent and John Holladay Latane of the Johns Hopkins University I am especially indebted. The study was undertaken at the suggestion of Professor Ballagh. Not only am I indebted to him for a dissertation subject, but without his scholarly suggestions and careful criticisms in its early stages the work would not have been possible. To Professor Vincent I wish to express my gratitude for careful training in research methods and for valuable assistance at various stages of the work. To Professor Latane, under whose direction and in whose seminary the study was completed, I am under many obligations. It is no less a pleasure because it is also a duty to thank him for cheerful assistance, scholarly direction, and helpful criticism, which have proved well-nigh invaluable.

In the collection of material I have been aided and my

INTRODUCTION IX

labors have been greatly lightened by the courtesy and kindness of the staffs of the various libraries in which I have worked. To Mr. Gaillard Hunt and Mr. J. C. Fitzpatrick of the Library of Congress, to Mr. W. G. Stanard of the Virginia Historical Society, to Dr. H. R. Mcllwaine, Dr. H. J. Eckenrode, and Mr. Earl G. Swem of the Virginia State Library I am very grateful for courtesies extended to me during my work in their respective libraries.

J. M. L.

THE VIRGINIA COMMITTEE SYSTEM AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Chapter I

That the Virginia House of Burgesses, the first legislative assembly to meet in America, should have transacted business along lines of procedure similar to, if not identical with, those followed in the British House of Commons before the development of the cabinet or ministerial form of government, is not at all strange. Virginia was first settled almost entirely by British people, and it is only natural that they should have brought with them to America a deep love for the mother-country and for her institutions. When Governor Yeardley, in June, 1619, summoned the Assembly to its first meeting, he called together a body of men who had no legislative precedents to follow save those derived from English parliamentary procedure. In its governmental institutions the infant colony was largely influenced by English experience, throughout its various branches of government English institutions served as models, and it was upon an English basis that the structure of colonial government was built. However, these English institutions were soon modified to meet colonial needs, and gradually there grew up in the Virginia House of Burgesses a committee system of legislative procedure that has entered into the very warp and woof of our governmental fabric. A system of English legislative committees, transplanted from the mother-country during a long period, took on new forms and added importance in legislating for the colony, and it has become the very groundwork of the

American legislative system. In England the committee system gradually narrowed down and lost in importance with the rise of the ministerial or cabinet form of government ; in America the same system took on new functions and increased in importance, developing into a congressional or committee form of government.

As Virginia was the first colony in America to establish a representative legislature, so she was the first to develop a system of standing legislative committees for the transaction of business. 1 It is in the development of this system that the government of the United States has found its most distinctive legislative peculiarity — a peculiarity that has given to our congressional system a characteristic individuality. So important is an understanding of these committees to a proper conception of the American Revolution and the later establishment of the United States that their rise and development in the Virginia House of Burgesses should be examined with care.

The first meeting of the House of Burgesses was held at Jamestown, then called James City, July 30, 1619, and a record of the proceedings has come down to us in a "reporte" from the speaker, John Pory. 2 This document,

1 J. F. Jameson, " The Origin of the Standing-Committee System in American Legislative Bodies," in Political Science Quarterly, vol. ix, pp. 262-263.

2 This paper is in the British State Paper Office, America and West Indies, Virginia, and is endorsed " Mr. Pory owt of Virginia, The Proceedings of the First Assembly of Virginia, July, 1619." This interesting document was discovered by Mr. George Bancroft and published in 1857 in the Collection of the New York Historical Society, second series, vol. iii, pp. 329-358, with an introduction by Mr. Bancroft. Of its discovery he says: "Having, during a long period of years, instituted a very thorough research among the papers relating to America in the British State Paper Office, partly in person and partly with the assistance of able and intelligent men employed in that Department, I have at last been so fortunate as to obtain the ' Proceedings of the First Assembly of Virginia.' The document is in the form of ' a reporte ' from the Speaker ; and is more full and circumstantial than any subsequent journal of early legislation in the Ancient Dominion.

" Many things are noticeable. The Governor and Council sat with the Burgesses, and took part in motions and in debates. The Secretary of the Colony was chosen Speaker, and I am not sure that he was a Burgess. This first American Assembly set the precedent shows that twenty-two members composed the first Assembly, that John Pory, the secretary of the colony, was chosen speaker, and that John Twine was made clerk. Among other business recorded in the proceedings as having been transacted was the reading by the speaker of the commission for establishing the Council of State and the Assembly. The charter which Yeardley had brought out from England was read and referred to several committees for examination, in order that if they found anything therein "not perfectly squaring with the state of the colony, or any law pressing or binding too hard," the Assembly might petition for its redress, especially since they looked upon this great charter as destined " to bind us and our heirs forever." After due inquiry had been made the burgesses from Martin's patent were excluded, and the Assembly humbly demanded of the Virginia Company an interpretation of that clause in Martin's patent allowing him to enjoy his lands as amply as any lord of a manor in England. " The least the Assembly can alledge against this clause," said the Burgesses, " is, that it is obscure, and that it is a thing impossible for us here to know the prerogatives of all the manours of Englande." They prayed that the charter clause guaranteeing equal liberties and immunities to grantees might not be disregarded, and that the Board " would be pleased to

of beginning legislation with prayer. It is evident that Virginia was then as thoroughly a Church of England colony, as Connecticut afterwards was a Calvinistic one. The inauguration of legislative power in the Ancient Dominion preceded the existence of negro slavery which we will believe it is destined also to survive. The earliest Assembly in the oldest of the original thirteen States, at its first session, took measures ' toward the erecting of ' a ' University and Colledge.' Care was also taken for the education of Indian children. Extravagance in dress was not prohibited; but the ministers were to profit by a tax on excess in apparel. On the whole, the record of these Proceedings will justify the opinion of Sir Edward Sandys, that 'they were very well and judiciously carried.' The different functions of government may have been confounded, and the laws were not framed according to any speculative theory; but a perpetual interest attaches to the first elective body representing the people of Virginia, more than a year before the Mayflower, with the Pilgrims, left the harbor of Southampton, and while Virginia was still the only British Colony on the whole continent of America."

remove any such hindrance " as might " diverte out of the true course, the free & publique current of justice." 3

Certain of the instructions sent out from England were " drawn into laws " regulating intercourse and trade with the Indians. To pay speaker, clerk, sergeant, and provostmartial for their respective services a pound of the best tobacco was levied from every male in the colony above sixteen years of age. No counties having been laid off at this time, representatives were elected from the several towns, plantations, and hundreds, styled boroughs ; hence the assembly was known as the House of Burgesses and the members as burgesses. Even after the division of the colonies into counties these names endured, and up to the formation of the state government in 1776 they remained in common use. 4

The plan of appointing committees, more or less permanent, to transact with greater facility the business of a legislative body is not an unnatural device, and one is not surprised to find this first Virginia Assembly submitting the charter to committees. From special committees to do certain specific things, after which the committees were discharged, to permanent standing committees, with wider but equally definite functions, was a process of evolution accomplished in the period between 1619 and 1693. In the House of Burgesses for the session of December, 1655, we find a committee for revising the laws, consisting of a chairman and three members, and a committee for private causes composed of a chairman and seven members. 5 In the session of March, 1658, the committee for revising the laws presented their work to the Assembly, by whom their revisal was adopted on March 31 of that year. 6 Again in

3 Collections of the New York Historical Society, second series, vol. iii, pp. 334-358; C. Campbell, History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia, pp. 138-142.

4 Collections of the New York Historical Society, second series, vol. iii, pp. 334-358.

5 W. W. Hening, The Statutes at Large, vol. 1, pp. 421, 422.

6 Ibid. Hening quotes from the Randolph MS., p. 238, as follows : " This day all the former acts haveing been perused by the committee for viewing and regulateing them were by the said coMmittee the session of March, 1659, there were named committees for private causes and " for review and regulation of the Acts, and to make Report of the inconveniences or requisite alterations." 7 From this date down at least as far as 1680, when the method of appealing to the king in council began to be used, are found committees for private causes. 8

In 1660 the Assembly appointed a " committee of audit," whose duty it was to check up the accounts of the " collectors of two shillings per hhd." This committee was empowered to examine witnesses, administer oaths, and use all other legal means to determine the accuracy of such accounts. 9 In 1661, 1662, and 1663 there were "publique committees" appointed to sit for the transaction of business with the governor and the Council during the recess of the House. 10 In 1661 the Assembly named Colonel Francis Morrison and Henry Randolph, the clerk of the House of Burgesses, as a recess committee for a revisal of the laws ; and in 1699 there was a joint recess committee, consisting of three members of the Council and six burgesses, appointed for the same purpose. Six of this committee was a quorum, but it was specified that there should be not less than two from the Council nor four from the House of Burgesses present to constitute such a quorum. 11

In 1663, just after the system of standing committees in the English House of Commons assumed its final form, the Virginia House of Burgesses had a committee of elections, with functions closely resembling those of the English cornpresented to the house, where being read and seriously discussed they were approved of in the House and a coMmittee appointed to present them to the Governour and Councill, and to advise with him and his councill about the explanation or alteration of any seeming difficulties or inconveniencyes, Yet with this lymitation not to assent to anything of consequence without the approbation of the House."

7 Hening, vol. i, p. 512.

8 Jameson, The Origin of the Standing-Committee System, pp. 262-263.

10 Jameson, The Origin of the Standing-Committee System, pp. 262, 263 ; Hening, vol. ii, pp. 31, 32, 147, 199.

mittee of privileges and returns ; 12 and from a clerk's petition of the year 1677 we find that there was in the same body a committee of propositions and grievances, whose clerk drew a salary of fifty pounds sterling. The same committee appears again in 1684. A committee of public claims is mentioned in 1677 and again in 1679, 1691, and 1697. 13 In the single early manuscript journal that has been preserved, that of the session of 1693, there appears the committee of public claims, along with the committee of elections and privileges and the committee of propositions and grievances. These three are noted from 1696 to 1698 as constituting the usual system. 14

During the session of 1 702-1 703 the journal of the House of Burgesses records the appointment of three standing committees ; namely, public claims, elections and privileges, and propositions and grievances. 15 On March 29, 1703, Messrs. Bland, Marable, Ashton, and Turberville, members of the House of Burgesses, were named by that body a committee to inspect and examine the treasurer's accounts. 16 On March 22 it was ordered that each of the standing committees "has power to adjourn themselves de die in diem and to send for persons records Journalls and other papers " which they might have occasion to use. Some idea of the importance of these committees may be gathered from the fact that the clerk of the House was ordered to post a notice of their place of meeting. 17

12 Jameson, The Origin of the Standing-Committee System, pp. 262, 263.

13 Hening, vol. ii, pp. 405, 421, 455; vol. iii, pp. 43, 44; Jameson, The Origin of the Standing-Committee System, pp. 262, 263.

14 Jameson, The Origin of the Standing-Committee System, pp. 262, 263 ; Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1695-1702, pp. 4, 6, 45, 47, 58, 61, 120, 123, 133, 142, 182, 208, 212, 248, 341.

17 Ibid., pp. 9, 10. " Ordered That the Clerk of ye House publish ye latest time set by ye House for receiving propositions Grievances & publick Claims during this Session by Setting up a fair Copy of ye Resolve of ye House in that behalfe at ye Colledge door Ordered That ye the Clerk of ye House publish the place where ye Comittee of Grievances & Propositions, and the Comittee of publick Claims are to sitt, vizt in ye upper Rooms of ye Colledge where they for-

COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES I 7

A perusal of the journal for the first session of the Assembly of 1 702/3-1 705 shows that the three standing committees of this time — for public claims, consisting of ten members ; for propositions and grievances, made up of ten members ; and for elections and privileges, with five members — were already performing much of the routine work of the House of Burgesses. So important was their work that to each was assigned a clerk, whose duty it was to keep a record of its proceedings. Their findings were reported to the whole house, which considered and voted upon the reports. The frequency with which the committee of the whole accepted their reports seems to argue well both for the effectiveness of their work and for the faith of the Burgesses in their committees. Indeed, the cases in which their resolutions were rejected or even amended by the House seem to be the exceptions to the rule of reliance on their good judgment.

During the general Assembly of 1702/3-1705, with its four sessions, that of 1 705-1 706, which had only one session, and that of 1710-1712, of two sessions, the work of the committees seems to have undergone little change. In all of these sessions, except the one-day session of April 20, 1704, the shortest ever held by the House of Burgesses, the standing committees of elections and privileges, propositions and grievances, and public claims were regularly appointed. 18 As regards the number who served on these committees there seems to have been no material variation. During these sessions the membership of the committee of elections and privileges was never smaller than four nor larger than five; the membership of the other two varied between ten and twelve. Each of these committees had a chairman and a clerk, and their work seems to have been of great importance.

merly sat', by Setting up a Certificate therof at ye Colledge door." On account of a fire which had destroyed the state house at Jamestown, October 31, 1698, this session of the Assembly was held in the College Hall of William and Mary at Williamsburg.

Not all of the work of the House of Burgesses, however, was done by these committees. We have already noted the important recess committees for revising the laws, and one cannot fail to be impressed by the vast amount of work accomplished by the revisal committee of 1699 as evidenced in the thirty-nine bills reported by it to the General Assembly, by which they had to be passed before they could take the form of acts. 19 While not one of the regular system of standing committees, this revisal committee was both a standing committee and a recess committee. The work of the revisal committee appointed in April, 1699, included only the laws passed up to the time of its appointment. The laws passed between that date and the session of 1 705-1 706 were, however, provided for by order of the House of Burgesses which referred them first to the committee of public claims and then to the committee of propositions and grievances ; and they were revised by these committees just as the older laws had been by the committee of revisal. 20

At the beginning of each General Assembly, as soon as the speaker had been chosen, a committee was usually appointed to notify the governor, and to find out when it would be his pleasure for the House to present their newly chosen head. 21 This committee seems to have been a purely temporary one appointed to perform a single specific function, the performance of which discharged it from further duty. Another committee which appeared with great regularity in most of the sessions is the one for receiving, inspecting, and examining the treasurer's accounts — a committee whose work was somewhat important if we can judge from the regularity of its appointment and the nature of the subject with which it had to deal. 22 During all the sessions of the General Assembly from 1702 to 171 2, whenever a conference was desired by either the Council or the House of Burgesses, the House appointed a committee to

20 Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1702/3-1712, pp. 189, xxix.

meet with the council committee, in case the conference was decided upon. 23 These committee-men from the House were termed " Managers " of the conference for the House, while the committee-men of the Council were known as " Managers " for the Council. However, the House of Burgesses could refuse to confer with the Council if in their judgment they thought it was the intention of that body to make the Burgesses yield in any matter that would establish a bad precedent. Especially as regards money measures were differences likely to arise ; and here, as in England, the Lower House claimed the right to originate all money bills, guarding this right jealously whenever it was called into question. 24

In the session of October, 1705, a committee was appointed " to Enquire into The practice and Behaviour of the Attorney-Generall." This committee, which seems to have been very closely akin to the investigating committee of modern legislative bodies, was composed of six members, with the power of adjourning from day to day and of sending for such persons and such records, journals, and other papers as they should, from time to time, have occasion to use in their investigation. 25 The result of their findings was to be reported to the committee of the whole house.

In matters that were deemed of sufficient importance the House of Burgesses often resolved itself into a committee of the whole. In such a matter the procedure was as follows : The speaker of the House left his chair and his place was taken by the chairman of the committee of the whole house. After a discussion of the question in this committee, the speaker resumed the chair and the chairman of the committee made his report of the proceedings of the committee of the whole. As an illustration of this procedure the following example will doubtless suffice. On October 29, 1705, the committee for revision of the laws reported a bill which it had prepared entitled " An Act for Establishing

the General Court and for Regulating and Setling the Proceedings Therein." This bill was read, and after its first reading was referred to a committee of the whole house, a day being then set for its consideration. After several postponements the bill was considered in the committee of the whole house on November 15, the chairman, Mr. Peter Beverly, reporting from the committee that it had made some progress in the said bill, and had directed him to move that it have leave to sit again. This leave was granted, and on November 17 the House again resolved itself into a committee of the whole, from which the bill with several amendments was reported to the House of Burgesses, who agreed to the changes and passed the bill to its second reading. 26 Throughout its entire existence the committee of the whole house played an important part in the deliberations of the Virginia House of Burgesses.

As has been already seen, the first House of Burgesses, that of 1619, was composed of twenty-two members. The records of the General Assembly of October, 1629, show that forty-six burgesses were present at that session, the Eastern Shore representatives not appearing. 27 The roster of the House of Burgesses for the session of March, 1643, shows that the ten Virginia counties were represented by twenty-seven burgesses; 28 in the session of November, 1654, sixteen counties sent up thirty-eight representatives; 29 in March, 1660, seventeen counties furnished forty-four burgesses. 30

During the period of 1619 to 1662 there seems to have been no regulation of the number of burgesses returnable from each county, some counties sending only one representative while others sent two, three, four, five, or even as many as six. In the General Assembly of March, 1662, an act was passed for regulating the number of bur-

gesses. 31 The preamble of this act states that it was passed because the " charge of assemblyes " was " much augmented by the greate numbere of burgesses unnecessary ly chosen by the several parishes." In order to correct this difficulty it was enacted that no county should send more than two burgesses, who should be elected at the county seat of each county, but it was provided that James City (Jamestown) should be allowed the privilege of electing a member to represent it in the House of Burgesses. The last clause of the act provided that every county which should lay out a settlement of one hundred acres and people it with one hundred tithable persons should have the right to elect one representative to the Assembly. That this law was not at once complied with is indicated by the fact that the counties of Charles City, James City, and Isle of Wight each sent three representatives to the General Assembly of December, 1662, while Isle of Wight elected three burgesses to the Assembly of October, 1666. 32 Hening suggests that the additional number of burgesses appearing in the representation of the above mentioned counties during these sessions was probably due to " the equity not the words of the before mentioned act of March, 1661-2." 33 The last clause of the act in question seems to conflict with its first provision.

The Assembly of October, 1669, however, passed an act which provided for the election of two burgesses to represent each county, and each county was enjoined " to returne two burgesses for the better service of the publique." 34 It

31 Hening, vol. ii, p. 106.

34 Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 272, 273. The text of the act is as follows : " Whereas severall inconveniencies have arisen by the act giveing liberty to the counties to chose one or two burgesses at discretion as the retarding the business at the house when those single burgesses are upon committees, or of any suite of their owne, or difference between diverse parishes of the counties, or have their appearance hindred by sickness or otherwise, in all which occasions the county that sends, or parte of it are deprived of their representative, // is enacted that each county after this present session shalbe enjoyned to returne two burgesses for the better service of the publique."

is interesting to note that as early as 1669 committee duties are urged as a reason for the presence of a full representation of every county in the House of Burgesses. That the problem of securing a full and regular representation of each county in the House of Burgesses was still a live issue in the session of the General Assembly of October, 1670, is evidenced by the passage of the following act : " Whereas the act for electing two burgesses for each county for want of a ffine hath not had the due observance it ought, It is enacted that every county not sending to every session of assembly two burgesses shall be fined ten thousand pounds of tobacco to the use of the publique." 35 By an act of March, 1662, all freemen failing to vote in the election of burgesses from their county were fined two hundred pounds of tobacco. 36 This provision was repeated in all of the acts for regulating the election of burgesses passed while Virginia was a British colony. 37

By the beginning of the eighteenth century the counties had begun to send up two burgesses with fair regularity, and in the General Assemblies of 1 702/3-1 705, 1705-1706, and 1710-1712 the roster of the House of Burgesses shows twenty-five counties sending up fifty burgesses, while in the last mentioned Assemblies Jamestown was represented by one burgess. No change appears in the number of burgesses until the Assembly of 171 5, when the College of William and Mary was allowed a representative, the roster for that year showing twenty-five counties with two burgesses apiece, and Jamestown and William and Mary College with one each. The number of burgesses remained at that figure until the General Assembly of 1 720-1 722, when the representatives of the newly created counties of King George and New Kent raised the number from fifty-two to fifty-six. 38 The General Assembly of 1 727-1 734 appears to have been