The Declaration: He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people

In celebration of our nation’s founding 250 years ago, Inland Empire Law Weekly is reviewing the 27 reasons for revolution spelled out in the Declaration of Independence. It hasn’t been easy. This publication has finally received three books on the topic to help.

“Today most Americans, including professional historians, would be hard put to identify what prompted many of the accusations (Thomas) Jefferson hurled against the King, which is not surprising since even some well-informed persons of the eighteenth century were perplexed,” writes Pauline Maier in American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence.

After expanding on the difficulties contemporaries had with understanding the Declaration of Independence, Maier chose not to explain the fifth complaint either.

He (the king) has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

Thankfully, Garry Wills, in Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, points to this complaint being referenced in Jefferson’s 1774 writing: A Summary View of the Rights of British America, and the 1774 petition from the First Continental Congress to King George III.

“Assemblies have been frequently and injuriously dissolved, and commerce burdened with many useless and oppressive restrictions,” the petition simply said.

The summary view offers a historical basis for Jefferson’s objection, but does not name or mention which houses were dissolved or for what reason. Jefferson’s writing will be further below.

Neither of the three books I purchased explained the historical facts of this complaint.

Thankfully, a copy of Profiles in Colonial History by Aleck Loker, hosted by Google Books said that Virginia governor Francis Fauquier dissolved the Virginia General Assembly on May 31, 1765. He did so after the assembly approved four resolutions brought by Patrick Henry, in opposition to the taxes brought by the Stamp Act. These resolutions, known as the Virginia Resolves, said that colonists had the right to govern their own affairs, and that taxation without representation was tyranny. Following Henry’s delivery of his resolution, Speaker of the House John Robinson told Henry his resolution was treason.

“If this be treason, make the most of it,” Henry replied.

The actual text of the resolution is a bit less elegant than Henry’s words, or the immortal claim that taxation without representation is tyranny:

“Resolved: That the taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know what taxes the people are able to bear, or the easiest method of raising them, and must themselves be affected by every tax laid on the people, is the only security against a burthensome (sic) taxation, and the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, without which the ancient constitution cannot exist.”

So, there it is. The Virginia legislature made a couple of formal statements, were shut down for their troubles, and a revolution was born.

In his historical analysis, Jefferson refers to the dissolution of legislature to be established as a traitorous act in English history. Copying it below for your (optional) enjoyment.

One of the articles of impeachment against (14th-Century English Supreme Justice Robert) Tresilian, and the other judges of Westminister Hall, in the reign of Richard the second, for which they suffered death, as traitors to their country, was, that they had advised the king that he might dissolve his parliament at any time; and succeeding kings have adopted the opinion of these unjust judges. Since the establishment, however, of the British constitution, at the glorious revolution, on its free and antient principles, neither his majesty, nor his ancestors, have exercised such a power of dissolution in the island of Great Britain; and when his majesty was petitioned, by the united voice of his people there, to dissolve the present parliament, who had become obnoxious to them, his ministers were heard to declare, in open parliament, that his majesty possessed no such power by the constitution. But how different their language and his practice here! To declare, as their duty required, the known rights of their country, to oppose the usurpations of every foreign judicature, to disregard the imperious mandates of a minister or governor, have been the avowed causes of dissolving houses of representatives in America. But if such powers be really vested in his majesty, can he suppose they are there placed to awe the members from such purposes as these? When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the state, and calls for an exercise of the power of dissolution. Such being the causes for which the representative body should, and should not, be dissolved, will it not appear strange to an unbiassed observer, that that of Great Britain was not dissolved, while those of the colonies have repeatedly incurred that sentence?

But your majesty, or your governors, have carried this power beyond every limit known, or provided for, by the laws: After dissolving one house of representatives, they have refused to call another, so that, for a great length of time, the legislature provided by the laws has been out of existence. From the nature of things, every society must at all times possess within itself the sovereign powers of legislation. The feelings of human nature revolt against the supposition of a state so situated as that it may not in any emergency provide against dangers which perhaps threaten immediate ruin. While those bodies are in existence to whom the people have delegated the powers of legislation, they alone possess and may exercise those powers; but when they are dissolved by the lopping off one or more of their branches, the power reverts to the people, who may exercise it to unlimited extent, either assembling together in person, sending deputies, or in any other way they may think proper. We forbear to trace consequences further; the dangers are conspicuous with which this practice is replete.

The Declaration: He has refused his assent to lawsThe first complaint against the crown was not for being oppressive or taxing, but for taking power away from colonial legislators through veto power.Inland Empire Law WeeklyAidan McGloinThe Declaration: He has forbidden his governors to pass LawsReason #2 for independence: the colonies couldn’t give women the right to sue.Inland Empire Law WeeklyAidan McGloinThe Declaration: He has refused to pass other LawsI’m on week three of my project to figure out and explain all 27 reasons for independence listed in the Declaration of Independence in celebration of its 250th anniversary this year.Inland Empire Law WeeklyAidan McGloinThe Declaration: He has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusualBoston town members wrote that the assembly being held in Harvard is “unwarrantable, unconstitutional, illegal and oppressive.”Inland Empire Law WeeklyAidan McGloin