APRIL 1925
THE UNITED AMERICAN
BECOMING AN AMERICAN
(Continued from Page Eight)
sary to cause a rebellion. This, too, became a principle
in the new government. Hence, when, they wrote their
Constitution, they were very careful to enact laws to
promote rather than hamper their trade with the world
markets. As a consequence of these wise and liberal
provisions, America has become one of the great com
mercial powers of the world.
(5) A fifth grievance was the denying of jury
trial to colonists charged with certain offenses against
the law.
One of the rights first fought for by the people
of England was the right of trial by a jury of his peers,
or equals, of anyone charged with crime. This right
was granted hundreds of years before and in England
it had long been enjoyed. Hence when the government
of England arbitrarily ruled that certain offenses
against the English laws should be tried before judges
sent from England, without juries, there arose a very
strong resentment. It is probable that exact justice
was usually rendered. The colonists did not expressly
charge that they had failed to receive fair treatment.
It was, on the contrary, a matter of principle. Hence
when they later wrote their own Constitution, they
established trial by jury as one of the fundamental
rights of every American citizen.
(6) A sixth of the leading charges against the
English government was the impressment, or forcing,
of our sailors into the English navy.
The mother country claimed that a man who was
once an Englishman was always an Englishman.
Several of the European countries make the same
claim today.
If Greece, for example, were engaged in a war and
a naturalized American citizen, bom in Greece, were
to go back to his old home on a visit, he might find
himself forced into the military service of his country.
The colonists denied the justice of such act and ex
pressed strongly their resentment in the Declaration.
Different from the grievances before mentioned, this
matter was not settled by the Revolution. It took a
second war with England, the War of 1812, to settle
the dispute, and even then it was not mentioned in the
treaty closing the war. England, however, had come
to realize the force of the feeling against such arbitrary
enforcement of military duty and since that time has
never impressed into her military service the English-
born, naturalized citizens of any country.
American citizens should know and understand
these grievances because out of the statement of them
in the Declaration and) out of the differences over them
grew certain of th# outstanding fundamental principles
of American constitutional law.
♦
♦
♦
A paragraph should be given also to the Articles
of Confederation.
In 1774 a congress of delegates from all of the
colonies except Georgia met in Philadelphia. These
delegates met merely for conference and little was done
other than to prepare a Declaration of Rights. A
second Continental Congress, however, met in 1776
and remained in session because of the necessity of
Page Thirteen
conducting a war, for several years. It was this congress
which prepared and adopted the famous Declaration of
Independence. It very soon came to understand fully
that it had little power to conduct a war or govern the
colonies. Hence, a committee was early appointed to
draw up a plan of government. This plan became the
agreement called the Articles of Confederation. It was
adopted in the year 1777 and under it the colonies were
governed until the adoption of the Constitution in 1789.
The Articles were not satisfactory because only one of
the three functions of government, the legislative, was
provided for. Laws could be made but they could
not be enforced and in case there was difference of
opinion as to the making of a certain law there was
no higher court to interpret the meaning. Despite
these weaknesses, the colonies got along pretty well un
der these Articles so long as the war was in progress.
When this unifying influence was gone, however, con
fusion and dissatisfaction resulted. The chief weak
nesses of the Articles were, — that they gave Congress
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