But having, for
our purposes in this contention, resolved that none but an obedient Assembly
should sit, the humors of the people there, finding all passage through the
legal channel stopped, with great violence broke out another way. Some provinces
have tried their experiment, as we have tried ours; and theirs has succeeded.
They have formed a government sufficient for its purposes, without the bustle of
a revolution or the formality of an election. Evident necessity and tacit
consent have done the business in an instant. So well they have done it, that
Lord Dunmore--the account is among the fragments on your table--tells you that
the new institution is infinitely better obeyed than the ancient government ever
was in its most fortunate periods. Obedience is what makes government, and not
the names by which it is called; not the name of Governor, as formerly, or
Committee, as at present. This new government has originated directly from the
people, and was not transmitted through any of the ordinary artificial media of
a positive constitution. It was not a manufacture ready formed, and transmitted
to them in that condition from England.
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