Chapter XL: Section 16: ) which reserves to the Empire the regulation of the (6)

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1747.
The founding of the Redwood Library.

See LIBRARIES, MODERN: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1754.
The Colonial Congress at Albany,
and Franklin's Plan of Union.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1754.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1760-1766.
The question of taxation by Parliament.
The Sugar Act.
The Stamp Act and its repeal.
The Declaratory Act.
The Stamp Act Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1760-1775; 1763-1764; 1765; and 1766.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1764.
The founding of Brown University.

Brown University was founded in 1764, especially in the
interest of the Baptist Church, and with aid from that
denomination in other parts of the country. It was placed
first at Warren, but soon removed to Providence, where it was
named in honor of its chief benefactor, John Brown.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1766-1768.
The Townshend Duties.
The Circular Letter of Massachusetts.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1766-1767; and 1767-1768.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1768-1770.
The quartering of troops in Boston.
The "Massacre" and the removal of the troops.

See BOSTON: A. D. 1768; and 1770.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1770-1773.
Repeal of the Townshend duties, except on Tea.
Committees of Correspondence instituted.
The Tea Ships and the Boston Tea-party.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1770, and 1772-1773;
and BOSTON: A. D. 1773.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1772.
The destruction of the Gaspe.
The first overt act of the Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1772.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1774.
The Boston Port Bill, the Massachusetts Act,
and the Quebec Act.-
The First Continental Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1774.
The further introduction of Slaves prohibited.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1774.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1775.-
The beginning of the War of the American Revolution.
Lexington.
Concord.
The country in arms and Boston beleaguered.-
Ticonderoga.
Bunker Hill.
The Second Continental Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1775.
Early naval enterprises in the war.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775-1776
BEGINNING OF THE AMERICAN NAVY.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1776.
Allegiance to the king renounced.
State independence declared.
The British occupation.

"The last Colonial Assembly of Rhode Island met on the 1st of
May. On the 4th, two months before the Congressional
Declaration of Independence, it solemnly renounced its
allegiance to the British crown, no longer closing its session
with 'God save the King,' but taking in its stead as
expressive of their new relations, 'God save the United
Colonies.' … The Declaration of Independence by Congress was
received with general satisfaction, and proclaimed with a
national salute and military display. At Providence the King's
arms were burned, and the Legislature assumed its legal title,
'The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.' … From
the 4th of May, 1776, the Declaration of Independence of Rhode
Island, to the battle of Tiverton Heights, on the 29th of
August, 1778, she lived with the enemy at her door, constantly
subject to invasion by land and by water, and seldom giving
her watch-worn inhabitants the luxury of a quiet pillow. … In
November … a British fleet took possession of her waters, a
British army of her principal island. The seat of government
was removed to Providence."

_G. W. Greene,
Short History of Rhode Island,
chapters 24-25._

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1779.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1776-1783.
The War of Independence to the end.
Peace with Great Britain.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776, to 1783.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1778.
Failure of attempts to drive the British from Newport.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1778 (JULY-NOVEMBER).

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1783-1790.
After the War of Independence.
Paper-money.
Opposition to the Federal Constitution.
Tardy entrance into the Union.
Rhode Island emerged from the war of independence bankrupt.

"The first question was how to replenish the exhausted
treasury. The first answer was that money should be created by
the fiat of Rhode Island authorities. Intercourse with others
was not much thought of. Fiat money would be good at home. So
the paper was issued by order of the Legislature which had
been chosen for that purpose. A 'respectable minority' opposed
the insane measure, but that did not serve to moderate the
insanity. When the credit of the paper began to fall, and
traders would not receive it, laws were passed to enforce its
reception at par. Fines and punishments were enacted for
failure to receive the worthless promises. Starvation, stared
many in the face. Now it was the agricultural class against
the commercial class; and the former party had a large
majority in the state and General Assembly. When dealers
arranged to secure trade outside the state, that they might
not be compelled to handle the local paper currency, it was
prohibited by act. When three judges decided that the law
compelling men to receive this 'money' was unconstitutional,
they were brought before that august General Assembly, and
tried and censured for presuming to say that constitutional
authority was higher than legislative authority. At last,
however, that lesson was learned, and the law was repealed.
Before this excitement had subsided the movement for a new
national Constitution began. But what did Rhode Island want of
a closer bond of union with other states? … She feared the
'bondage' of a centralized government. She had fought for the
respective liberties of the other colonies, as an assistant in
the struggle. She had fought for her own special, individual
liberty as a matter of her own interest.
{2645}
Further her needs were comparatively small as to governmental
machinery, and taxation must be small in proportion; and she
did not wish to be taxed to support a general government. … So
when the call was made for each state to hold a convention to
elect delegates to a Constitutional Convention, Rhode Island
paid not the slightest attention to it. All the other states
sent delegates, but Rhode Island sent none; and the work of
that convention, grand and glorious as it was, was not shared
by her. … The same party that favored inflation, or paper
money, opposed the Constitution; and that party was in the
majority and in power. The General Assembly had been elected
with this very thing in view. Meanwhile the loyal party, which
was found mostly in the cities and commercial centres, did all
in its power to induce the General Assembly to call a
convention; but that body persistently refused. Once it
suggested a vote of the people in their own precincts; but
that method was a failure. As state after state came into the
Union, the Union party, by bonfire, parade, and loud
demonstration, celebrated the event."

_G. L. Harney,
How Rhode Island received the Constitution
(New England Magazine, May, 1890)._

"The country party was in power, and we have seen that
elsewhere as well as in Rhode Island, it was the rural
population that hated change. The action of the other states
had been closely watched and their objections noted. One thing
strikes a Rhode Islander very peculiarly in regard to the
adoption of the federal constitution. The people were not to
vote directly upon it, but only second-hand through delegates
to a state convention. No amendment to our state constitution,
even at this day, can be adopted without a majority of
three-fifths of all the votes cast, the voting being directly
on the proposition, and a hundred years ago no state was more
democratic in its notions than Rhode Island. Although the
Philadelphia Convention had provided that the federal
constitution should be ratified in the different states by
conventions of delegates elected by the people for that
purpose, upon the call of the General Assembly, yet this did
not accord with the Rhode Island idea, so in February, 1788,
the General Assembly voted to submit the question whether the
constitution of the United States should be adopted, to the
voice of the people to be expressed at the polls on the fourth
Monday in March. The federalists fearing they would be
out-voted, largely abstained from voting, so the vote stood
two hundred and thirty-seven for the constitution, and two
thousand seven hundred and eight against it, there being about
four thousand voters in the state at that time. Governor
Collins, in a letter to the president of Congress written a
few days after the vote was taken, gives the feeling then
existing in Rhode Island, in this wise:—'Although this state
has been singular from her sister states in the mode of
collecting the sentiments of the people upon the constitution,
it was not done with the least design to give any offence to
the respectable body who composed the convention, or a
disregard to the recommendation of Congress, but upon pure
republican principles, founded upon that basis of all
governments originally derived from the body of the people at
large. And although, sir, the majority has been so great
against adopting the Constitution, yet the people, in general,
conceive that it may contain some necessary articles which
could well be added and adapted to the present confederation.
They are sensible that the present powers invested with
Congress are incompetent for the great national government of
the Union, and would heartily acquiesce in granting sufficient
authority to that body to make, exercise and enforce laws
throughout the states, which would tend to regulate commerce
and impose duties and excise, whereby Congress might establish
funds for discharging the public debt.' A majority of the
voters of the country was undoubtedly against the
constitution, but convention after convention was carried by
the superior address and management of its friends. Rhode
Island lacked great men, who favored the constitution, to lead
her. … The requisite number of states having ratified the
constitution, a government was formed under it April 30, 1789.
Our General Assembly, at its September session in that year,
sent a long letter to Congress explanatory of the situation in
Rhode Island, and its importance warrants my quoting a part of
it. 'The people of this state from its first settlement,' ran
the letter, 'have been accustomed and strongly attached to a
democratical form of government. They have viewed in the new
constitution an approach, though perhaps but small, toward
that form of government from which we have lately dissolved
our connection at so much hazard and expense of life and
treasure,—they have seen with pleasure the administration
thereof from the most important trusts downward, committed to
men who have highly merited and in whom the people of the
United States place unbounded confidence. Yet, even on this
circumstance, in itself so fortunate, they have apprehended
danger by way of precedent. Can it be thought strange, then,
that with these impressions, they should wait to see the
proposed system organized and in operation, to see what
further checks and securities would be agreed to and
established by way of amendments, before they would adopt it
as a constitution of government for themselves and their
posterity? … Rhode Island never supposed she could stand
alone. In the words of her General Assembly in the letter just
referred to:—'They know themselves to be a handful,
comparatively viewed.' This letter, as well as a former one I
have quoted from, showed that she, like New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and North Carolina, hoped
to see the constitution amended. Like the latter state she
believed in getting the amendments before ratification, and so
strong was the pressure for amendments that at the very first
session of Congress a series of amendments was introduced and
passed for ratification by the states, and Rhode Island,
though the last to adopt the constitution, was the ninth state
to ratify the first ten amendments to that instrument now in
force; ratifying both constitution and amendments at
practically the same time. One can hardly wonder at the
pressure for amendments to the original constitution when the
amendments have to be resorted to for provisions that Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free use thereof, or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably
to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of
grievances; that excessive bail should not be required, nor
excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments
inflicted; for right of trial by jury in civil cases; and for
other highly important provisions."

_H. Rogers,
Rhode Island's Adoption of the Federal Constitution
(Rhode Island Historical Society, 1890)._

{2646}

The convention which finally accepted for Rhode Island and
ratified the federal constitution met at South Kingston, in
March, 1790, then adjourned to meet at Newport in May, and
there completed its work.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1787, and 1787-1789.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1814.
The Hartford Convention.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1814 (DECEMBER) THE HARTFORD CONVENTION.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1841-1843.
The Dorr Rebellion.
The old Charter replaced by a State Constitution.

The old colonial charter of Rhode Island remained unchanged
until 1843. Its property qualification of the right of
suffrage, and the inequality of representation in the
legislature which became more flagrant as the state and its
cities increased in population, became causes of great popular
discontent. The legislature turned a deaf ear to all demands
for a democratic basis of government, and in 1841 a serious
attempt was made by a resolute party to initiate and carry
through a revision of the constitution independently of
legislative action. A convention was held in October of that
year which framed a constitution and submitted it to the vote
of the people. It was adopted by a majority of the votes cast,
and, in accordance with its provisions, an election was held
the following April. Thomas Wilson Dorr was chosen Governor,
and on the 3d of May, 1842, the new government was formally
inaugurated by its supporters at Providence, where they were
in the majority. "If Mr. Dorr and his officers, supported by
the armed men then at their command, had taken possession of
the State House, Arsenal, and other state property, and acted
as if they had confidence in themselves and their cause, the
result might have been different. This was the course desired
and advocated by Mr. Dorr, but he was overruled by more timid
men, who dared go just far enough to commit themselves,
disturb the peace of the state, and provoke the Law and Order
government, but not far enough to give themselves a chance of
success. While the People's government was being organized in
Providence, the regularly elected General Assembly met on the
same day at Newport, inaugurated the officers as usual, and
passed resolutions declaring that an insurrection existed in
the state and calling on the President for aid, which was …
declined with good advice as to amnesty and concession, which
was not heeded. On the following day a member of the People's
legislature was arrested under the Algerine law, and this
arrest was followed by others, which in turn produced a
plentiful crop of resignations from that body. … At the
request of his legislature, Mr. Dorr now went to Washington
and unsuccessfully tried to secure the aid and countenance of
President Tyler. … During Mr. Dorr's absence, both parties
were pushing on military preparations. … The excitement at
this time was naturally great, though many were still inclined
to ridicule the popular fears, and the wildest rumors filled
the air." On the 18th, the Dorr party made an attempt to gain
possession of the state arsenal, but it failed rather
ignominiously, and Dorr himself fled to Connecticut. One more
abortive effort was made, by others less sagacious than
himself, to rally the supporters of the Constitution, in an
armed camp, formed at Chepachet; but the party in power
confronted it with a much stronger force, and it dispersed
without firing a gun. This was the end of the "rebellion." "In
June, 1842, while the excitement was still at its height, the
General Assembly had called still another convention, which
met in September and … framed the present constitution, making
an extension of the suffrage nearly equivalent to that
demanded by the suffrage party previous to 1841. In November
this constitution was adopted, and in May, 1843, went into
effect with a set of officers chosen from the leaders of the
Landholders' party, the same men who had always ruled the
state. … Early in August, Governor Dorr, who had remained
beyond the reach of the authorities, against his own will and
in deference to the wishes of his friends who still hoped,
issued an address explaining and justifying his course and
announcing that he should soon return to Rhode Island.
Accordingly, on October 31, he returned to Providence, without
concealment, and registered himself at the principal hotel.
Soon afterwards, he was arrested and committed to jail,
without bail, to await trial for treason. … The spirit in
which this trial was conducted does no credit to the fairness
or magnanimity of the court or of the Law and Order party.
Under an unusual provision of the act, although all Dorr's
acts had been done in Providence County, he was tried in
Newport, the most unfriendly county in the state. … Every
point was ruled against Mr. Dorr, and the charge to the jury,
while sound in law, plainly showed the opinion and wishes of
the court. It was promptly followed by a verdict of guilty,
and on this verdict Mr. Dorr, on June 25, just two years from
his joining the camp at Chepachet, was sentenced to
imprisonment for life. … Declining an offer of liberation if
he would take the oath to support the new constitution, Mr.
Dorr went to prison and remained in close confinement until
June, 1845, when an act of amnesty was passed, and he was
released. A great concourse greeted him with cheers at the
prison gates, and escorted him with music and banners to his
father's house, which he had not entered since he began his
contest for the establishment of the People's constitution.
The newspapers all over the country, which favored his cause,
congratulated him and spoke of the event as an act of tardy
justice to a martyr in the cause of freedom and popular
rights. … But Mr. Dorr's active life was over. He had left the
prison broken in health and visibly declining to his end. The
close confinement, dampness, and bad air had shattered his
constitution, and fixed upon him a disease from which he never
recovered. He lived nine years longer but in feeble health and
much suffering."

_C. H. Payne,
The Great Dorr War
(New England Magazine, June, 1890)._

ALSO IN:
_D. King,
Life and Times of Thomas Wilson Dorr._

{2647}

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1888.
Constitutional Amendment.
The qualification of the Suffrage.

"The adoption of the Amendment to the Constitution of Rhode
Island, at the recent election, relating to the elective
franchise, brings to a close a political struggle which began
in earnest in 1819. Hence it has been in progress about 80
years. It makes, or will ultimately make, great political
changes here. … It may not be inopportune, upon the
consummation of so great a political change, to note briefly
some of the steps by which the change came to pass. … The
qualifications of electors was not defined by the charter.
That power was given to the General Assembly. A property
qualification was first introduced into the laws in 1665, and
has ever since been and now is in part retained. It was not at
first specified to be land, but men of competent estates,
without regard to the species of property, 'may be admitted to
be freemen.' Even so accurate a scholar as the late Judge
Potter, has erred in his statement of the case. He says that
by the act of March, 1663-4, all persons were required to be
of 'competent estate.' This is not correct. The proposition
was made two years subsequent to the establishment of the
charter, and was made by the King of England, and sent by him
by commissioners to Rhode Island and was then adopted and
enacted by the General Assembly. … This qualification was made
to depend only on land, by the act of the General Assembly of
February 1723-4, and was a purely Rhode Island measure
(Digest. of Rhode Island, 1730, p. 110). From that time until
the present, covering a period of nearly 165 years, this
qualification has in some measure remained. The value was then
(in 1723) fixed at £100, and practically, it was never
changed. It was raised or lowered from time to time to meet
the fluctuation of paper money. Sometimes it was in 'old
tenor' and sometimes in 'lawful money,' both of which were in
paper, and reckoned usually in pounds, shillings and pence. In
1760, the amount was £40 lawful money. In 1763 'lawful money'
was defined to be gold or silver. After the decimal system
came into use, the mode of reckoning was changed into dollars.
Thus in £40 are 800 shillings, which at six shillings to the
dollar, which was then New England currency, is equal to
$133.33; by the law of 1798 the sum was made $134, and so it
has always since remained, and so under the recent amendment
it remains as a qualification of an elector, who can vote on a
question of expenditure, or the levying of a tax. … There was
practically no change in the qualifications required of a man
to become an elector from the earliest times down to 1842. In
1819 a serious attempt was made to obtain a constitution. A
convention was called and a constitution was framed and
submitted to the people, that is, to the Freemen, for
adoption; but the General Assembly enacted that a majority of
three-fifths should be required for its adoption. This was the
origin of the three-fifth restriction in the present
constitution. It did not enlarge the suffrage; a proposition
to that end received only 3 votes against 61, nor was it of
any general benefit, and it was as well that it failed. The
political disabilities of men were confined to two classes, to
wit: The second son, and other younger sons of freemen, and
those other native American citizens of other states who had
moved into Rhode Island, and therein acquired a residence. To
these two classes, although possessed of abundant personal
property, and upon which the state levied and collected taxes,
and from whom the state exacted military service, the right to
vote was denied, because among their possessions there was no
land. It was taxation without representation, the very
principle upon which the Revolution had been fought. In 1828
more than one-half the taxes paid in Providence were paid by
men who could not vote upon any question. In 1830, in North
Providence, there were 200 freemen and 579 native men, over
twenty-one years, who were disfranchised. … There were in 1832
five men in Pawtucket who had fought the battles for Rhode
Island through the Revolution, but who, possessing no land,
had never been able to vote upon any question. … In another
respect a great wrong was done. It was in the representation
of the towns in the General Assembly. Jamestown had a
representative for every eighteen freemen. Providence,one to
every 275. Smithfield, one in every 206. Fifty dollars in
taxes, in Burrington, had the same power in the representation
that $750 had in Providence. The minority of legal voters
actually controlled the majority. … Such then was the
political condition of men in Rhode Island in 1830. There were
about 8,000 Freemen and about 13,000 unenfranchised Americans
with comparatively no naturalized foreigners among them. The
agitation of the question did not cease. In 1829 it was so
violent that the General Assembly referred the question to a
committee, of which Benjamin Hazard was the head, and which
committee made a report, always since known as Hazard's
Report, which it was supposed would quiet forever the
agitation. But it did not; for five years later a convention
was called and a portion of a constitution framed. The
question of foreigners was first seriously raised by Mr.
Hazard in this report. By this term Mr. Hazard intended not
only citizens of countries outside of the United States, but
he intended American citizens of other American States. He
would deny political rights to a man born in Massachusetts,
who came to dwell in Rhode Island, in the same way that he
would deny them to a Spaniard. A Massachusetts man must live
here one year, the Spaniard three, but both must own land.
These ideas were formulated in the constitution of 1834 as far
as it went. … Fortunately it fell through and by the most
disgraceful of actions; and its history when written will form
one of the darkest chapters in Rhode Island history. This
discrimination against foreign born citizens, that is, men
born in countries outside of the United States, became more
pointed in the proposed Landholders' Constitution of November
1841. A native of the United States could vote on a land
qualification, or if he paid taxes upon other species of
property. A foreigner must own land and he could not vote
otherwise. This Constitution was defeated. Then came the
People's Constitution, (otherwise known as the Dorr
Constitution). It made no restrictions upon foreigners; it
admitted all citizens of the United States upon an equal
footing; negroes were excluded in both documents. This
Constitution never went into effect. Then came the present
Constitution, adopted in September, 1842, by which all the
disabilities complained of were swept away with the exception
of the discrimination in the case of foreigners. By it negroes
were admitted, but foreigners were required to hold lands, as
all the various propositions had provided with the single
exception of the People's Constitution. Now comes the
amendment recently adopted, and parallel with it I have
reproduced the section relating to the same matter from the
People's Constitution:

{2648}

Qualification of Electors under Amendment
(Bourn) to Constitution, adopted April, 1888.