Show THE FIRST declaration OF independence prom from an article in the new york times magazine we learn that no sufficient reason now exists for questioning the proud boa boast q of the citizens of mecklenburg county in north carolina that they were the first to declare their independence from british rule it seems to be proven beyond any doubt that they did fling defiance in the face of great britain in the form of a declaration of independence pen dence just thirteen months and fifteen days before uie the continental congress in philadelphia saw fit to make the same decisive move the date was may 20 1775 the place was charlotte N C and the immediate provocation af pf action wa was the arrival of the express with the news of the shooting down of capt john parkers minute men by british regulars under major pitcairn on lexington common it was in 1819 that a newspaper reprint of what was said to be the declaration itself a document containing several of the phrases of his on famous paper was called to the attention of thomas jefferson by john adams writing to adams from monticello ti jefferson said he be believed it spurious because up to that moment he had never heard of it though he be lived in the adjoining state of virginia he called attention also to the circumstances t that the wi witnesses lt nesses appealed to were most of them dead however hov ever jefferson was careful to add that he based his opinion on negi neg i active evidence which positive evidence was perfectly competent to overthrow assuming that the evidence supporting the boast is sufficient which according to the quoted article it is the story of what happened becomes a part of a well nel connected series of events in the provinces whose position between two ostentatiously aristocratic neighbors has sometimes it is said deprived her of due consideration in march 1774 governor josiah martin had dissolved an unruly assembly of the county in august of that year a convention had met under the governors nose in new berne beme and sent delegates to the continental congress for the rest of that year the separate counties h had ad been busy busy with meetings and preparations and in april 1775 the assembly which met by the authority of the crown the last one was also a convention of the people they transformed themselves from time to time into one and then the other so governor martin who was as a soldier said and thus as doctor morrison Mor ripon sees it strained the british constitution to the utmost or in other words the breaking point at the same asani time a certain col richard henderson and his associates all north carolinians had formed a company with daniel boone for field leader and set up a government in a tract of land which they had bad bought f from mm the cherokees without royal warrant that land which they named transylvania and which included a great part of tennessee and kentucky they had practically proclaimed to be independent not only of great britain but of north carolina and virginia as well they asked indeed to have it acknowledged by as the fourteenth province of the confederation obviously the north carolinians were not in submissive moode when the news of the first blood shed in the north arrived what happened at anson county courthouse when the messenger rode into that place is recorded in a certain family bible to which doctor henderson has had access the writer is a young man named morgan brodnan brown Brow nan an eyewitness he says that the messenger found the county court in session and the magistrates some of whom were tories on the bench the people forced the court to adjourn without the form fonn of doing it in the kings name then they rushed out bearing the sheriff with them leaving the tory magistrates still sitting on the bench afterwards the people consented for them to meet and close some unfinished abed business upon condition that it should not be called in the kings name or that the words god save the king should be added by the crier for said they hey we will have nothing done in the name of a king who ibo has his troops slaughter our citizens and thus ended the royal authority for the court after closing their record never sat again at Cli charlotte arlotte some fifty miles away the messenger appears to have found an assembly of the leading citizens of mecklenburg summoned from the various companies throughout the gunty county by a colonel commandant thomas polk according to the received chronology the messenger arrived may 10 13 and threw the ga gathering catherin therin 9 into a fever the secretary john mcknitt alexander says they sat in the courthouse all night neither sleepy nor hungry nor fatigued and in the morning passed a letof set of resolutions prepared by ephraim brevard in the resolutions occurred the following declarations resolved that we dissolve sol ve us with the mother country and absolve ourselves from allegiance to the british crown and resolved that we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people that we are and of right ought to be a sovereign and self gov arning people under the power of god I 1 and the general congress it should be noted that the text is s taken from judge francois X martins his history tory of north carolina which text is supposed to be the same that IV was as printed in the lost cape fear mercury for even the more ardent north Carolini carolinians arus do not deny that the original document was destroyed in 1800 when ale alexanders canders house was burned returning again to the story these resolutions were read to the people outside the courthouse by colonel polk and received with shouts and buzzas in accordance with a provision in the resolutions themselves they were transmit transmitted eted to the continental congress where the persons approached said that the subject of the resolutions was as premature to be laid before the congress at that time the cooler heads beads still hoped to compose matters with the mother country without an actual breach the strongest statements of the colonists determination not to submit to coercion or to what they regarded as the abridgment of their liberties as subjects of the british crown were coupled with expressions of loyal loyalty to the crown itself indeed among americans who were far from being tories there were many who were proud of their own connection with britain and reluctant to sever it george washington himself about that period as archibald henderson reminds us abhorred independence which meant that he desired to be a good virginian Virgini anand and still remain a good englishman As a matter of fact even jefferson at this date was not an open advocate of independence nor did patrick henry in his ringing resolutions as jefferson called them adopted in virginia after the lexington bloodshed take so rash a stand the sum of the matter is that the declaration of independence which mecklenburg INT C issued one year ahead of time and the revolution which virginia started a century ahead of time had each to wait vait till 1 the country at large was ready f for or the real thing they were dramatic gestures not things accomplished nevertheless the virginia affair cost many lives of patriots and some of those who were not so counted and tons of ink have been spilled over the north carolina outbreak |