to what extent was the declaration of independence a turning point
The latest Georgian Lords blog by Dr Charles Littleton, Senior Enquiry Swain of the Lords 1715-90 Section, considers the origins and use of the two manuscript copies of the Declaration of Independence to be plant in the United Kingdom.
The Declaration of Independence has iconic status in the Us of America as one of the country's foundation documents and the 4th of July, the appointment in 1776 on which it was formally approved by the Continental Congress, is of course a national holiday in that country. Harvard University'south Declaration of Independence Resource Project, which is compiling a comprehensive list of all known contemporary copies of the Declaration dating from the 18th century, has recently reported an important discovery, a manuscript version of the Declaration written on parchment dating from the 1780s. This was found not in some repository in the USA but in the West Sussex Record Function in Chichester. This 'Sussex Declaration', as the Harvard projection has dubbed it, is one of only ii manuscript copies of the Declaration still to be found in the United Kingdom. The other is in the Parliamentary Archives, and can be seen on Parliament's ain website. At that place may even exist a connection between these two rare 'British' versions of this very American certificate.
The copy of the Announcement of Independence was produced for the House of Lords equally a result of the fierce partisan battles which convulsed Parliament at the time of the War of American Independence. The ministry led by Frederick North, Lord North, faced an opposition consisting of the group centred around Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd marquess of Rockingham, and their increasingly uncomfortable allies, the followers of William Pitt, earl of Chatham. On ii December 1777, in the early on days of the parliamentary session of 1777-8, Charles Lennox, 3rd duke of Richmond, a leading (if bohemian) light among the Rockinghamites, successfully moved that a large number of papers concerning the war effort in the American colonies exist laid before the House. These included the papers and correspondence of the two principal military commanders in America, Admiral Richard Howe, Viscount Howe in the Irish gaelic peerage (after created Viscount Howe in the British peerage in 1782 and then Earl Howe in 1788) and his blood brother General William Howe. Besides their military roles, these brothers had besides been deputed with powers to acquit peace negotiations with the colonists.
On 20 January 1778, 24 documents from the Howe brothers were laid before the Firm, including the copy of the Declaration of Independence. This had been copied from a version of the Proclamation, perhaps 1 of the printed 'Dunlap broadsides', which had originally been sent every bit an enclosure in a letter, dated 11 August 1776, from the commissioners to the secretary of state for the American section, Lord George Germain. Throughout February and March the Firm of Lords saw a big number of acrimonious debates on the state of the American war, when the lords present in the sleeping accommodation convened themselves over successive days into a 'Committee of the Whole House'. Dissimilar in regular debates, when the Firm sat equally a Committee of the Whole lords could speak more than once, which could often lead to personal spats between opposing peers and long-winded attacks on individual ministers. 1 peer in particular took reward of this procedural rule– the voluble duke of Richmond.
On 5 March Richmond argued in a Commission of the Whole in favour of a bill to enable the male monarch to appoint commissioners to treat with the American colonists. Perhaps using the copy that had been laid before the Business firm that Jan, Richmond:
read the declaration of American independence past the Congress; and afterwards commenting on information technology paragraph by paragraph, appealed to ministers, whether they meant to concede the several points therein set along, or subscribe to the full general assertions therein independent? This proclamation asserted, that the King was a tyrant; complained that troops had been sent and quartered among them without their consent; that the admiralty courts were a grievance; that acts suspending those of their corresponding assemblies had been passed in the British Parliament; that the King having acted tyrannically, they had justly withdrawn themselves from his allegiance; that the judges enjoying their offices during pleasure, were thereby rendered dependant on the crown, &c. …. Afterwards condemning that part of the Declaration, which branded the King as a tyrant, for whose virtues, he said, he entertained the highest opinion, his Grace proceeded to shew the reasons why so indecent and disrespectful a language was adopted by the Congress. ….. It was therefore the mirage and deceit of ministers, which the Congress in their annunciation of independence, mistakenly imputed to the King. Information technology was upon this ground that his Majesty was first dethroned from the dominion he held over their hearts and affections.
Richmond appears to have been convinced by the Lockean arguments plant in the Declaration, as he reasoned that 'in the present instance, as soon as the rex fabricated war upon the whole body of his subjects in America, they began to reason like the Whigs in England [i.e. during the Glorious Revolution of 1688]. They said, though unjustly, that he was a tyrant; that he had deserted the government, and forfeited his dominion over them as sovereign, and that of course they were at liberty to found another in its stead'. Richmond's opinion was also swayed by the seemingly hopeless armed services situation in the colonies, exacerbated by the humiliating give up at Saratoga in October 1777 and the entry of France into the conflict, allied with the colonists, from February 1778. He concluded that 'if his advice were taken, sooner than hazard a farther continuance of the war, he would recommend to declare America independent, because he feared we must consent to it at final'. [John Almon, The Parliamentary Register, vol. 10 (1778), pp. 277-280]
This was a turning point, for at present Rockingham Whigs like Richmond could envisage an independent America and even pressed for it. This opinion however carve up the opposition. Chathamites such as William Petty, 2nd earl of Shelburne, stated forthrightly that he 'would never consent that America should exist independent'. [Almon, Parliamentary Register, vol. 10, p. 287] On 7 April Chatham himself, who had been so involved in keeping the North American colonies British during the Seven Years' War, came to the House specifically to speak against Richmond'southward later motion, made on 23 March, for the removal of British troops from America. Rising to rebut Richmond's reply to his initial speech communication, he was suddenly seized by a fit, was rendered speechless and collapsed. In the resulting pandemonium, an upshot which merited a large historical painting by the Boston-born artist John Singleton Copley (which contains within information technology individual portraits of 55 members of the upper house), Chatham was carried out of the House by his peers. He died a few weeks after on xi May 1778, ending i of the about pregnant political careers in 18th-century British, and indeed imperial, history.
The recently-discovered 'Sussex Declaration', the parchment manuscript copy of the Declaration, was plant in the W Sussex Record Office, among papers that were deposited there in the nineteenth century by solicitors for the Lennox family unit, whose residence is still Goodwood House in W Sussex. Information technology appears highly likely that the duke of Richmond, the so-called 'radical duke', the most outspoken member of the Firm of Lords for the cause of the American colonists, is the link between these 2 rare manuscript copies of the Declaration of Independence still establish on British soil.
CGDL
Additional Reading:
Olson, Alison,The Radical Duke: The Career and Correspondence of Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond (Oxford University Press, 1961)
Source: https://thehistoryofparliament.wordpress.com/2017/07/04/a-turning-point-the-declaration-of-independence-and-the-house-of-lords/
0 Response to "to what extent was the declaration of independence a turning point"
Post a Comment