The same writer describes these Resolutions, after the rhetorical flourish, concerning the author of them, which we have elsewhere quoted, as " calling upon the Freeholders and Electors of the Colony to confer " on the Deputies whom they were about to choose full powers of admin- " istering Government, framing a Constitution, and deciding the great 11 question of Independence," (Mistory of the United States, original edition, viil., 44(1; the same, centennial edition, v., 305.)

The venerable author saw nothing of that absolute despotism, involving " every question whatever," civil or ecclesiastical or military, affecting not only individuals but the aggregate body of the inhabitants of the entire Colony, which those Resolutions clearly and definitely established ; and his eyes saw nothing whatever of that Agreement which was appended to them, which entirely dispose of his rhetoric, and, as we shall presently see, present John Jay in a somewhat different light.

2 Vide pages 167-171, ante.

" be postponed until after the Election of Deputies ''with powers to establish a new form of Govern- " ment " 3 -- that is to say, they were not to be made known to the Freeholders and other voters, until after the Election at which the subject of the proposed Independence, was, by virtue of these Resolutions, to be submitted to the Electors, at the Polls, should have been held.

A reference to the Resolutions will show to the reader that, although the question of Independence formed the basis as well as the top-stone of the structure, they were so contrived that, notwithstanding that question seemed to have been submitted to the judgment of the Electors, at the Polls, that grave subject was really made dependent, among the various other matters of government of which the Electors were audaciously asked to divest themselves, on the unrestrained, despotic will of the Provincial Congress itself; and, at the same time, the entire subject was made '' a rider,'' as parliamentarians call such motions, which was to be " saddled " on an Order which had been already made, for an Election, and for an entirely different purpose.