The aristocratic Kichard Henry Lee was in harmony « ith hini ; but the democratic elem,ent of the Congress was widely opposed to him, in all his fundamental propositions.

4 Vide the extracts from Galluway".'- Eyoiiiiiiiitivu, Bancroft's Histunj of the Vidted Htules, and Frothingliani's Uise of the llepnblk; in Note 1, page 34, above.

from the censures of history and to regard him as peculiarly pure and virtuous, as a man and as a politician ; but, as has been well-said by another, " there '' are no tricks in plain and simple faith."

It will not be improper to notice, also, in this connection, that the proceedings and the recommendations of the Congress were not, by any means, unanimously accepted and approved, either by the several Colonial Assemblies, or by the several Towns throughout the Colonies, or by the Inhabitants of the Towns, individually ; and th^t, in many instances, that dissent was made known to the world, in terms which could not be mistaken. Indeed, no intelligent person can arise from a careful and dispassionate examination of the unquestionable authorities which have come down to us, concerning the origin of that Congress, the expressed purposes for which it was called, its organization, the extent of authority which was delegated to the several Delegations of which it was composed, and the action of those Delegations, within the Congress, without having been entirely convinced that the Congress was not a legally constituted body, created in pursuance of Law, and entitled to recognition, in law or in fact, by any individual Colonist or hy any legally organized body, of any class ; ^ that, on the contrary, it was nothing else than a voluntary association, in which, every member acted entirely on his individual responsibility, without possessing or acquiring the slightest right, in law, to exact obedience from any, beyond what each, for himself, had already specifically consented to yield ; that it was j^roposed and organized only for consultation and advice and united action, within the well-defined limits of the Law of the Land ; that no authority was vested in it, by its several constituencies, to assume and exercise any legislative functions whatever, to ])ublish decrees ecpiivalent to Statutes, to require obedience to such decrees, nor to order the infliction of penalties w'here there should be any disobedience to its enactments ; that, to the extent of its action beyond the letter of the authority which had been delegated to it and as far as that action was in violation of existing Statutes, it acted in open violation of the clearly expressed loyalty of its several constituencies, of its own ostentatious pretensions of fealty to the Sovereign, and of that obedience to the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom, an alleged violation of wliich fundamental Laws, by the Parliament and the Ministry, constiiuted the gravamen of its denunciations of the Government, and the spirit of its own exis ence ; that, to that extent, also, it was revolutionary ; and, to that extent, therefore, it gave reasonable cause for discontent, and dis-