54 INTRODUCTION. 



proper laws should be passed for that purpose. They passed a bill for the fre- 

 quent election of representatives, and the governor being intimidated gave it his 

 assent, but it was afterwards disallowed by the crown. After coming into direct 

 collision with the governor, the assembly was ordered to attend him, when he, in 

 an angry strain of invective and abuse, pronounced their proceedings presumptu- 

 ous, daring and unprecedented, and saying that he could not look upon them 

 without astonishment, nor with honor suffer them to sit any longer, he declared 

 the house dissolved. 



One of our best historians* pronounces a high eulogium upon this legislative 

 body, declaring that its members properly appreciated their own dignity, and 

 that neither ministerial smiles nor frowns could sway them from the path of 

 duty. Yet the record contains one spot which the friends of rational liberty 

 would wish to see effaced. On a question concerning a contested seat, the assem- 

 bly resolved that Jews could neither vote for representatives nor be admitted as 

 witnesses. 



The election showed that the assembly had not misunderstood the feelings or 

 sentiments of their constituents ; and the new legislature firmly adhered to the 

 principles which had been asserted. The maintenance of those principles ren- 

 dered the executive dependent upon the legislature, and thus an important step 

 was taken towards that independence which was afterwards established. 



The institution of domestic slavery now began to produce its fruits of suspicion 

 and fear. By the laws regulating that institution, every colored person was a 

 slave, and a slave could not be a witness against a free man. The persons thus 

 held in servitude were punishable by their masters to any extent short of priva- 

 tion of life or limb. The disabilities of the slave were hereditary, and the race 

 was therefore plunged into hopeless bondage and degradation. This oppression 

 was supposed to be justified by the assumption that those thus injured were of 

 " the accursed seed of Cain." Several fires having occurred in 1741, the negroes 



 John Van Ness Yates. 



