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of the cause of democracy to unite efficiently in a policy of "non-consumption, non-importation and non-exportation?" Would they be willing to abandon a profitable trade and deny themselves some of the necessaries, and nearly all the luxuries to which they were accustomed? The Congress had taken a fateful step in issuing the association, and the fate of the American cause hung on the value of this administrative measure.

As New York and Georgia alone neglected to ratify the agreement, the response was assuring. New York refused chiefly because of factions within the colony, and Georgia because as yet the patriots had not been able to organize. The Connecticut assembly exemplified the attitude of other assemblies by instructing the towns in the colony to comply with all the recommendations of Congress. The execution of the agreement must depend upon public opinion. If this was strong in its favor, as in Massachusetts, then the Committees of Inspection, appointed to carry out the details of the act, would be supported and its purposes realized. But over against zeal in support of the agreement was the covert, equally intense and hostile opposition of many merchants and planters; and it seemed, for a time, that the people of North Carolina were not willing to suffer, in their private estates, for the support of their political sentiments. The account of the manner in which the association was carried out belongs rather to the economic than to the constitutional history of the country, but the Committees of Inspection were police agents appointed by the Committees of Safety to give practical effect to the resolutions of Congress, and therefore, they were an important civil element in the evolution of democracy. At a time of profound excitement, such as now befell American society, no other organization was needed, but, for times of civil order, it must soon

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follow that a regular organized police system could alone give effect to such a covenant.

Because the association put the selfish interests of Americans to the test and soon proved that they were willing to make sacrifices in support of their political principles, it can be said that our nationality began with the signing of this agreement. Its execution proved that to the political elements, which democracy was already utilizing, another element had been added. Town meetings, County Conventions, Provincial Congresses, Committees of Correspondence, the Sons of Liberty and the Continental Congress were organic parts of a political machine in the hands of a liberal party which had now gained a foothold in continental affairs. Having gained control of local interests, it would not be long before it would demand control of continental administration, and this demand must take some form of union. The course of events in Massachusetts concentrated continental thought, and, at this time, the history of American democracy is best exemplified in the history of this province.

A similar agitation was in progress in other colonies, for the Revolution was not carried on for the sole benefit of any colony, but at this time the character of the American people was well displayed in the conduct of the inhabitants of Massachusetts. There, where the printing press had long been recognized as an agency in the political estate, it was now actively employed in giving expression to what, in the most common phrase of the day, was called "the rights of man." The Revolution got into print in New England, and particularly in Massachusetts, and can be followed there, step by step, as in no other part of the country.

The three Provincial Congresses which met in Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775 gave expression to the idea

of the rights of man.1 Parliament might decree the reorganization of civil government in the colonies on a military basis, but it must reckon with the people. Ignoring the ministerial scheme, they organized a representative government by choosing delegates to a local Congress, which, responsive to its instructions, conformed to the legal privileges of the violated charter of 1692, and based its work really upon the more liberal charter of 1629, which that of sixty years later had supplanted. This local Congress prepared the way for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and its records and the support which the people gave it prove that public opinion had reached a settled state. The political theories advocated by Otis, ten years before, had been corrected by swift and hard experience, and their administration in democratic form was now attempted. Taxes were collected and the treasury organized. In times of revolution, the seizure of the treasury is usually proof of a change in government. The willingness of the people of Massachusetts to pay their taxes to a treasurer appointed by the Provincial Congress proved that the first battlefield of the Revolution had been won; Lexington and Bunker Hill followed, but only made good the claims of the Congress, that the revenue should no longer be paid to the Crown. The functions of this Congress were in fact more than local, as it initiated that co-operation with the Congress of all the colonies which foretold a continental organization of representative government. The people of Massachusetts were thus the first to marshal our civil events on the way to national union.

A people less accustomed to orderly ways and less obedient to laws, would have attempted to set up an inde

1 See their Journal already cited.

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pendent government. The Massachusetts Congress would have been helpless, however, without the support of the Committees of Correspondence and Inspection. These, organized in every town, kept public opinion steady; and were, in fact, the great executive power of the local Congress. They were the police of the province, though as yet there was no serious interruption with the course of justice, and, indeed, it must be said, that throughout the Revolution, though litigation was at times interrupted, justice was not denied. The courts were open, and there was needed only a more perfect organization of representative government to bring the judiciary into functional relations with the legislative power. The executive was as yet the discordant element. General Gage, in his double capacity as military commander and civil governor, exemplified all the invasions of right which King and Parliament were accused of making. Between this quasi-governor and the Congress there could be no compromise, for this would have violated the principle which the Continental Congress had lately set forth in its address to the people of Quebec, that the three powers of the state must be kept separate.

The association was strictly enforced in Massachusetts, whose local Congress, on the eighth of December, 1774, earnestly recommended its people to improve their breed of sheep, to use only native woolens, and, if merchants, to ask only reasonable prices for their goods. Hemp and flax should be raised more freely, and as more flaxseed was on hand than was needed for sowing, the surplus, with great advantage, could be manufactured into oil. The public was urged to engage in the manufacture of nails, steel and particularly of tin plate. Fire-arms of home manufacture were to be preferred to imported, and,

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as saltpetre was an "article of vast importance," its manufacture was earnestly advised. As every man who loved his country would desire an ample supply of powder, factories or powder-mills in the province, many of which were in ruins, should be restored and set to work as soon as possible. A generous price should be paid for rags and the people should save them carefully and thus enable the paper-mills to start. Glass, buttons, wool-combs and stockings should be made at home, and the manufacture of salt was urged as an article necessary in the fisheries. In order to carry these recommendations into effect, the local Congress urged every town to form societies for the encouragement of the manufacture of all these articles, but the inhabitants should not discriminate against the manufactures of other colonies: a direct nullification of the English law on the subject. Goods from other colonies should be preferred to imports from abroad.

These recommendations, which were faithfully carried out through the Committees of Inspection, if more elaborate than those made by other assemblies, expressed perfectly the general sentiments of the continent. Everywhere the Loyalists complained of the acts of the Committees of Inspection, and in many places began suits against them in the courts. The assurance that these would go hard with the inspectors only served to sharpen their zeal in executing the duties entrusted to them. With few exceptions, the clergymen of the country of all sects supported the policy of the Continental Congress, and proved an important help at this critical time. In those colonies in which the established church predominated, there was some apathy among the clergy toward the liberal cause, yet among its most conspicuous supporters