Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 212, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 September 1919 — Tri-Centennial Anniversary of die First Legislative Assembly in America [ARTICLE]

Tri-Centennial Anniversary of die First Legislative Assembly in America

j. ' 0 • Three hundred years ago a colonial legislative assembly, the first ever held in the western continent, met in the church at Jamestown, Va., and drew up a code of laws for the colony. The event was a portentous one. The old world had passed away and the new one was born. Popular right in America had entered on life and the long struggle to hold its own. It might be strangled in the cradle, or done to death before it reached full manhood; but the fact remained, it had been born. Two burgesses were sent from the plantations, towns and hamlets, arid as two were sent from each the assembly consisted of twenty-two. They sat with their hats on, as in the English commons, the members occupying the “choir,” with the governor and council in the front seats, the speaker, with clerk and sergeant, faced them, and the session was opened with a prayer, after which the burgesses took the oath of The era of talk having not yet arrived the proceedings were businesslike. The charter, brought by George Yeardly, was read and referred to a committee, which was to report whether it contained anything “not perfectly square with the state of the colony, or any law pressing or binding too hard . . • because this great charter is to bind us and our heirs forever.” Laws were enacted regulating intercourse with the on matters of agriculture and on religious affairs. Divine services were to be according to the ritual of the English church, and all persons were to attend church on Sunday. Every male above sixteen was to pay one pound of -the best tobacco to discharge the salaries of the burgesses, and lewd and lecherous servants should be whipped and nailed in the pillory. The spirit inspiring the assembly may be seen from that petition to the company to grant them authority “to allow or disallow of their orders of court, as his majesty hath given them power to allow or disallow of our laws.” This was the great original American claim of right—the authority to govern themselves; and Henry’s protest against the stamp act a century and a half afterward was simply its repetition.