6
THE GREEN BAG
Philadelphia, afterwards the University of Pennsylvania, which in that yea*r conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts, he having passed in the classics the best ex amination of anyone to that date. Shortly after this he took up the study of law in the office of John Dickinson, and was ad mitted to the Bar in 1767. He at once began practice at Reading, Pa., but soon removed to Carlisle, Pa., where from 1770 to 1774 he had the largest practice at the Bar, the docket showing that of the 819 cases in those five years, Wilson appeared in 346 of them. He was thoroughly estab lished in his profession before the Revolu tion, having early taken a place among the leaders, as the result of an argument in an important land case between one Samuel Wallace, whom he represented, and the proprietors of Pennsylvania. In 1772 he married Rachel, daughter of William Bird, a wealthy iron founder of Birdsborough, Pa. Wilson rapidly forged to the front as a great leader. In July, 1774, he was a dele gate to the Pennsylvania Provincial Meet ing of Deputies at Philadelphia, as well as to the Provincial Convention which also met there in January, 1775, but his greatest service to the development of the spirit of freedom in America, has so far been over looked by historians. Yet what he did was a service which undoubtedly did more to crystallize a spirit of independence among the great leaders of thought in the American colonies than any other one thing. This was in August, 1774, when the first Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia. Wilson was not a member of it, although the Pennsylvania Convention of July, 1774, had recommended that the As sembly elect him a delegate, but there was distributed among the delegates to the Congress a printed pamphlet of forty pages,1 from his pen, bearing date, the 17th of August, 1774, and in which with con vincing logic, supported by exhaustive
authorities, he demonstrated that the Brit ish Parliament possessed no legislative authority over the American colonies. In his prefatory remarks he said :
In this argument, thus published to the world twenty-three months in advance of the Declaration of Independence, Wilson made use of the phrase "All men are by nature equal and free." Again in the Pennsylvania Provincial Convention of January, 1775, in a speech1 which in the years to come will find its place as one of the most highly prized de liverances of any American patriot orator, he declared that the ministers of George III had "abused his majesty's confidence, brought discredit upon his government, and derogated from his justice," and that "ap palled with guilt and fear, they skulk behind the throne," and he asserted that all the force then being employed by the British Government in the colonies " is force un warranted by any act of Parliament; unsup-
1 See same in full, Vol. II, Wilson's Works (Andrews' ed.), pp 501-543.
1 Wilson's Works (Andrews' ed.), Vol. II, pp. 545-S65-
"Many will, perhaps, be surprised to see the legislative authority of the British par liament over the colonies denied in every instance. Those the writer informs, that, when he began this piece, he would prob ably have been surprised at such an opinion himself; for that it was the result, and not the occasion, of his disquisitions. He en tered upon them with a view and expecta tion of being able to trace some constitu tional line between those cases in which we ought, and those in which we ought not, to acknowledge the power of parliament over us. In the prosecution of his inquiries, he became fully convinced that such a line does not exist; and that there can be no medium between acknowledging and deny ing that power in all cases. Which of these two alternatives is most consistent with law, with the principles of liberty, and with the happiness of the colonies, let the public determine. To them the writer sub mits his sentiments, with that respectful deference to their judgment, which, in all questions affecting them, every individual should pay."
