CONFEDERATIONS. 241
*
the king; and the king's council rejected it, as giving too
much power to representatives of the people. The plan
agreed to in convention was 'drawn up by B. Franklin.* It
was suggested and commended by the fear of invasions from
the French and Indians during the war then apprehended.
After the passage of the stamp act in 1765 a congress of
twenty-eight delegates from nine states convened in New
York and passed resolutions declaring their rights as British
subjects, and their grievances; the principal one of which
was that act itself, which taxed them without their consent
and extended the jurisdiction of courts of admiralty. The
congress agreed on a petition to the king and a memorial to,
each house of parliament
These unions and conventions, together with the joint
treaties that several colonies concluded with the Indians,
show the political sense pushing itself out into a broader field,
after having been cultivated in town communities and in legis-
lative assemblies. It was no new idea after the outbreak of
the revolution to construct a confederation. The quarrels,
also, of several legislatures, with their royal or proprietary
governors, in colonies where the governors were not elected
by the people, were also a preparation for an independent
political condition ; so that when the parliament passed what
was considered to be oppressive and unauthorized acts, the
colonies were armed with precedents and analogies drawn
from the English constitution, as well as animated by those
views of the right of revolution and the powers of the people
which were beginning to spread over one of the most impor-
tant countries of Europe, and had been sanctioned in one in-
stance, at least, by the express action of the mother country
herself.
3. When the revolution began it was of the greatest advan-
The"oidconfed- tage, first, that the war bound the colonies to-
eration"anditsde- ** '• ' _ , , , ,, „ ,
fccts. gether, and'then that the old confederation was.
found to be an insufficient bond.
*Comp* Holmes, u. s., iL, 55, 56, under 1754.
VOL.II.-i6