ed
for "passing the Rubicon." Among the opponents of the resolution was
John Dickenson of Pennsylvania, whose powerful arguments in a series of
_Letters of a Pennsylvania Farmer_, published eight years before, had
contributed greatly toward arousing the colonies to resistance. He did
not regard the measure as impolitic _at all times_, but as premature
and impracticable at _that time_. He urged the want of money, munitions
of war, of a well-organized and disciplined army; the seeming apathy of
several colonies, manifested by their tardiness in declaring their
wishes on the subject; the puissance of Great Britain by sea and land,
and the yet unknown course of foreign governments during the contest
which would follow. Richard Henry Lee, on the other hand, had supported
his resolution with all his fervid eloquence, in Congress and out of it,
from the day when he presented it. He prefaced his motion with a speech,
which his compatriots spoke of in terms of highest eulogium. He reviewed
with voluminous comprehensiveness the rights of the colonists, and the
violation of those rights by the mother country. He stated their
resources, descanted upon the advantages of union daily drawing closer
and closer as external danger pressed upon them, and their capacity for
defense. He appealed to the patriotism of his compeers, portrayed the
beauties of liberty with her train of blessings of law, science,
literature, arts, prosperity and glory; and concluded with these
beautiful thoughts: "Why, then, sir, do we longer delay? Why still
deliberate? Let this happy day give birth to an American Republic! Let
her arise, not to devastate and conquer, but to re-establish the reign
of peace and law. The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us; she demands of
us a living example of freedom, that may exhibit a contrast, in the
felicity of the citizen, to the ever-increasing tyranny which desolates
her polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum, where the
unhappy may find solace, and the persecuted repose. She entreats us to
cultivate a propitious soil, where that generous plant, which first
sprung and grew in England, but is now withered by the blasts of
Scottish tyranny [alluding to Bute, Lord Mansfield, and other Scotch
advocates of the right of Great Britain to tax America], may revive and
flourish, sheltering under its salubrious and interminable shade, all
the unfortunate of the human race. If we are not this day wanting in our
duty to our c