Founders of American Government
Quick Links to Documents & Events on This Page
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
James Otis, Jr. Brings "Writs of Assistance" Lawsuit
Mercy Otis, America's 1st Female Playwright
Sam Adams & the Boston Tea Party
The Continental Congress, Articles of Association
John Hancock & the Declaration of Independence
Oliver Ellsworth & the United States Constitution
The Bissell family, through a dozen or more of its early New England ancestors and cousins, is intimately connected with the founding of the foundational documents of the American system of government. Between these people, they approved the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, approved and signed the Declaration of Independence, drafted and signed the U.S. Constitution and approved some of its important amendments. Many of the Bissell's Notable Cousins also played a significant role in events that led to the Revolutionary War and in the development of state and federal government, as judges, Governors and even a number of Presidents, summarized further elsewhere on this website, see Notable Cousins in Politics.
The Mayflower Compact, 1620
Going back to the very beginning, the Mayflower Compact was signed aboard the ship Mayflower in November 1620 as the first American settlers waited in Cape Cod Bay to come ashore. According to the website MayflowerHistory.com,
"The "Mayflower Compact" was signed on 11 November 1620 onboard the Mayflower shortly after she came to anchor off Provincetown Harbor. The Pilgrims had obtained permission from English authorities to settle in Virginia, whose northern border at the time extended up to what is now New York. The Pilgrims had originally intended to settle near the mouth of the Hudson River, but due to dangerous shoals and a near shipwreck on their attempt to head south, they decided instead to plant themselves outside the bounds of the Virginia Company patent--which caused some "mutinous speeches" amongst some of the passengers. The Mayflower Compact was an attempt to establish a temporary, legally-binding form of self-government until such time as the Company could get formal permission from the Council of New England."
While the original compact document has been lost, at right is a digital image of the original handwritten page from Governor William Bradford's history Of Plymouth Plantation, written by Bradford between 1630 and 1651. Bradford presumably copied his text from the orginal.
'In ye name of God Amen· We whose names are vnderwriten,
the loyall subjects of our dread soueraigne Lord King James
by ye grace of God, of great Britaine, franc, & Ireland king,
defender of ye faith, &c
Haueing vndertaken, for ye glorie of God, and aduancemente
of ye christian ^faith and honour of our king & countrie, a voyage to
plant ye first colonie in ye Northerne parts of Virginia· doe
by these presents solemnly & mutualy in ye presence of God, and
one of another, couenant, & combine our selues togeather into a
ciuill body politick; for ye our better ordering, & preseruation & fur=
therance of ye ends aforesaid; and by vertue hearof, to enacte,
constitute, and frame shuch just & equall lawes, ordinances,
Acts, constitutions, & offices, from time to time, as shall be thought
most meete & conuenient for ye generall good of ye colonie: vnto
which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witnes
wherof we haue herevnder subscribed our names at Cap=
Codd ye ·11· of Nouember, in ye year of ye raigne of our soueraigne
Lord king James of England, france, & Ireland ye eighteenth
and of Scotland ye fiftie fourth. Ano: Dom ·1620·|'
Henry Sampson, Bissell great-grandfather, was on the Mayflower at age 16. He was not a signer of the Compact, as he was too young to sign. But given the small number of adult men and the close quarters aboard the Mayflower, it is very likely Sampson heard the discussions about the document. It was signed, among others, by Edward Tilley and John Tilley. Henry came to Plymouth on the Mayflower without his parents but with his Aunt and Uncle, Edward Tilley and Ann Cooper Tilley. Ann was the sister of Henry's mother, Martha Cooper Sampson. Ann and Martha's brother Robert Cooper had a young child, Humility Cooper, who also made the trip on the Mayflower with her Aunt Ann and Uncle Edward. Humility later returned to England.
Edward Tilley's older brother John is documented as a member of the Leiden English Separatist congregation and was also on the Mayflower. Edward Tilley is therefore a Great-Uncle by marriage.
According to the online Bill of Rights Institute, "The Mayflower Compact was based on Biblical covenanting tradition. It also stressed the civic values of justice, equality, and responsibility. While not a governing document, it was the first basis for written laws in the colonies, and expressed the necessity of consent of the governed. In these ways, the Mayflower Compact is a precursor to the Constitution."
This might also be the appropriate place to note that Bissell cousin John Winthrop (he was a first cousin to Bissell 11th Great-grandmother Anne Winthrop Hoskins) was the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and one of the most influential Puritans of the early New England colonies. And not all of his influences were good ones. He sold his considerable property in England and joined the Massachusetts Bay Company investors in England in 1629. He was elected by them to be the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was a strict Puritan and eventually fell out of favor with the majority of Massachusetts colonists, who wanted more freedom.
The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, 1639
According to the Connecticut State Library and other sources, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut has sometimes been considered the first written constitution in America. The Puritans had come to America to escape religious persecution in England. The group of Massachusetts Puritans and Congregationalists who got permission to settle the towns of Windsor, Wethersfield and Hartford in about 1635 were looking to establish new communities because they were unhappy with the slow rate of Anglican reforms in Massachusetts. Their hope was to establish a society based on religious rules.
But by 1636, the property dispute involving claims by some English investors to the Connecticut River valley land on which Wethersfield, Hartford and Windsor were founded resulted in the Massachusetts General Court establishing a group called "the March Commission." This commission, with two representatives from each of Wethersfield, Hartford, Windsor and Springfield, resolved the dispute and for one year it operated as the colonial government in Connecticut. One of the members of the March Commission was Great-grandfather Andrew Warner. In 1637 and 1638, these Connecticut River valley towns held elections to select deputies and magistrates for their own General Courts. By 1638, the Connecticut settlers informed their official governors in Massachusetts that they wanted to "unite ourselves to walk and lie peaceably and lovingly together." It has, they said, been proposed "to bring ourselves to some rules, articles and agreements."
These efforts, along with an influential sermon by Rev. Thomas Hooker, a founder of Hartford, helped move towards a new document governing Connecticut as a separate colony. According to the Connecticut State Library website,
"Hooker had emphasized three important points in his discussion of the Biblical Commonwealth: 1) The civil authority rested with the people, 2) This authority should be written down, and documented, 3) The electoral franchise might be expanded. These ideas were important enough to advance the ideals of democracy beyond anything which had been put forth up to that time from Massachusetts or elsewhere. Hooker's sermon compelled action by the General Court. Meetings of a committee of the General Court were held in secret throughout the remainder of 1638 and on January 14, 1639, a document, called the Fundamental Orders, was adopted, probably by the full legislative body, or perhaps by freemen in each town."
It is a near certainty that one or more Bissell ancestors was involved in the discussions at the General Court during the drafting of the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, as many of them were deputies and magistrates of the Court through those early years. A Holcombe family website asserts that 10th Great-grandfather Thomas Holcombe was intimately involved in this process. Most of them, as Freemen voting in these three towns, would have been involved in considering and finally adopting the document. As stated on the Connecticut State Library website,
"These Fundamental Orders have long been called the world's first written constitution. Of course, today we know that this is only partially correct. The Orders were really statutes, which could be, and were in fact, subject to periodic legislative amendment. They were not an organic document distributing power among various branches of government. But the Orders did, to quote Andrews, contain, the "germs of a great principle-the principle of self-government based on a limited measure of popular control." A significant result had been achieved based purely upon the principles of Congregationalism.
Whether a true constitution or not, the Fundamental Orders did work and Connecticut's early government was successful. The first meeting of the General Court under the Fundamental Orders took place on April 11, 1639 and John Haynes was elected governor. Haynes, an English aristocrat and former governor of Massachusetts, served alternately as Governor and Deputy Governor until 1655. Important legislation was enacted at this General Court-incorporating the towns and providing for the keeping of proper land records.'
(See the Full Text of the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut below.)
The Long Road to the Revolutionary War
"...the child Independence was then and there born..."
The most well-known founding documents of American government, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, were the result of events that were occurring in the several decades before the American Revolution began in 1775.
Many years before the Revolutionary War began in 1775 and before the Declaration of Independence, several Bissell "Notable Cousins" considered to be among the "Founding Fathers" played significant roles in moving the colonies towards independence. The Founders playing these substantial early roles included Samuel Adams, John Hancock and James Otis, Jr. More on each of these cousins (including the family tree showing their relationship to the Bissell Family) can be found on their separate listings under Notable Cousins, but they deserve a few words here about the years leading up to the start of the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence.
And just as importantly, there were other Bissell Cousins who played less well-known but important roles in developing the governing documents and running the young American government from the time of the First Continental Congress (1774), through the Second Continental Congress (1775-1781), the Congress of the Confederation during the time of the Articles of Confederation until the Constitution was ratified (1781-1789) and into the first years of the new U.S. Government. These included playwright, poet and political activist Mercy Otis Warren; William Williams (a signer of the Declaration); Silas Deane; Oliver Ellsworth (a principal drafter of the Constitution); Jared Ingersoll, Jr. (a signer of the Constitution); Samuel Allyne Otis; and Jesse Root.
James Otis, Jr.
Perhaps a good place to start is with James Otis, Jr. (information from www.foundersofamerica.org). He was a leading lawyer in the British-controlled court system in Massachusetts, having been appointed to the prestigious position of Advocate General of the Admiralty Court in 1760. He resigned almost immediately when his father was treated unfairly by the colonial Governor and the next year, 1761, Otis represented colonial merchants who brought a lawsuit in the Massachusetts courts protesting the "Writs of Assistance." These writs were issued in America by the British government beginning in about 1760 to help enforce British laws against smuggling. They were a legal order issued by the British that allowed entry and search of a home or other property. Unlike the search warrants later permitted under the U.S. Constitution, however, the Writs of Assistance allowed entry without any notice, with no reason given and no probable cause to believe the law was being broken.
Otis represented the merchants at no charge before the Court that was then the highest court in Massachusetts. As John Adams, another Founding Father and later President, wrote of Otis' Court appearance more than 50 years later, "Otis was a flame of fire; with a promptitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities." He argued his case for nearly five hours and while he did not win, he inspired those who heard him toward revolution: "the child Independence was then and there born," said Adams.
The Encyclopedia Britannica notes the following about Otis's influence on bringing about the Revolutionary War:
"Otis was elected in May 1761 to the General Court (provincial legislature) of Massachusetts and was reelected nearly every year thereafter during his active life. In 1766 he was chosen speaker of the house, though this choice was negated by the royal governor of the province.
"In September 1762 Otis published A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in defense of that body’s rebuke of the governor for asking the assembly to pay for ships not authorized by them. Otis also wrote various state papers addressed to the [other] colonies to enlist them in the common cause, and he also sent such papers to the government in England to uphold the rights or set forth the grievances of the colonists. His influence at home in controlling and directing the movement of events toward freedom was universally felt and acknowledged, and few Americans were so frequently quoted, denounced, or applauded in Parliament and the British press before 1769. In 1765 he was a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress in New York City, and there he was a conspicuous figure, serving on the committee that prepared the address sent to the House of Commons [in the British Parliament in London]."
John Adams also said more generally of James Otis, Jr., "I have been young and now I am old, and I solemnly say I have never known a man whose love of country was more ardent or sincere, never one who suffered so much, never one whose service for any 10 years of his life were so important and essential to the cause of his country as those of Mr. Otis from 1760 to 1770." Regarding Otis's arguments in the Massachusetts Court against the Writs of Assistance, Adams claimed that "the child independence was then and there born,[for] every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away as I did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance." Adams himself edited and supplemented the speech and had it printed in 1773 (and it was re-printed later in the early 1800s).
James Otis, Jr.
Statue in Barnstable, MA.
As explained by the U.S. Department of State historian at https://history.state.gov/milestones/1750-1775/parliamentary-taxation, the American Revolution was sparked in part by a series of British taxes and trade laws between 1763 and 1775.
In 1764, seeking new revenue to pay debts from the Seven Years War, the British Parliament started to tax the American colonies, beginning with the Sugar Act. Bissell cousin Samuel Adams, sometimes called "Father of the Revolution," argued that since the colonists were not represented in the British Parliament, they could not be taxed by the Parliament -- the same argument that James Otis, Jr. had been making! At the same time, Otis was publishing pamphlets in 1764-65 arguing against the imposition of British taxes on the colonies. In 1764, Parliament passed the Currenct Act, forbidding the colonies from issuing any currency, making it difficult for them to pay debts or taxes. In 1765, the British imposed the Stamp Act, requiring colonists to buy a British-issued stamp for all legal documents and other paper goods.
The passage of the Stamp Act caused protests across the American colonies, from legislative protests in Virginia to riots in Boston. In Connecticut, Bissell Notable Cousin Matthew Griswold, a lawyer and legislator, joined the Connecticut Sons of Liberty and publicly protested the Stamp Act. The Sons of Liberty were at the vanguard of leading the colonies into open revolt against the British. Griswold would later be hunted by the British authorities during the Revolutionary War. (Note also below the role of Bissell Cousin Jared Ingersoll, Sr., British-appointed Stamp Master for Connecticut, on the other side of this conflict, seeking to enforce the Stamp Act.)
James Otis, Jr. is also credited with coining the expression, "taxation without representation." While there is some evidence that the phrase had been used in protests in Ireland before that, Otis properly gets credit for bringing it into use in America as a short-hand for complaints about British taxation of American goods.
In the mid-to-late 1760s, Otis exhibited increasingly erratic behavior and signs of mental illness, some of it noted by John Adams in his diaries. With only occasional periods of clarity during which he did some legal practice, Otis's public career effectively came to an end by 1770. He died in 1783 at the age of 58 when he was struck by lightning while standing in a doorway.
Mercy Otis Warren, circa 1763, oil on canvas by John Singleton Copley.
This would be an appropriate place to also mention James Otis, Jr.'s sister, Mercy Otis. Here is a summary of Mercy Otis Warren's life according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Mercy Otis was born Sept. 14, 1728 in Barnstable, Mass. She eventually became an American poet, dramatist, and historian whose proximity to political leaders and critical national events gives particular value to her writing on the American Revolutionary period. She is considered by some to be America's first female playwright and the first American woman to write primarily for the public, rather than for herself.
As we know, one of her brothers was the political activist and firebrand James Otis, Jr. Another brother, about whom there is more below, was Samuel Allyne Otis, a participant in the Continental Congress and a person who played many other roles including being the first Secretary of the United States Senate. Unlike James and Samuel, Mercy received no formal schooling but managed to absorb something of an education from her uncle, who tutored her brothers and allowed her to study by their side in most subjects.
In 1754 she married James Warren, a merchant and farmer who served in the Massachusetts state legislature 1766–78. Because of her husband’s political associations, Mercy was personally acquainted with most of the leaders of the Revolution and was continually at or near the centre of events for more than two decades, from the Stamp Act crisis of 1765 to the establishment of the federal republic in 1789.
After her brother James was brutally beaten by colonial revenue officers in 1769, Warren was increasingly drawn to political activism and hosted protest meetings at her home that resulted in improving the organization of the Committees of Correspondence.
Combining her unique vantage point and fervent beliefs with a talent for writing, she then became both a poet and a historian of the Revolutionary era, beginning with a trio of scathingly polemical plays in verse that were published serially in a Boston newspaper. The Adulateur (1772) foretold the War of Revolution through the actions of Rapatio, a haughty, imperious official obviously modeled on Massachusetts’s royal governor, Thomas Hutchinson. The Defeat, also featuring Rapatio, followed a year later, and in 1775 Warren published The Group, a satire conjecturing what would happen if the British king abrogated the Massachusetts charter of rights. Other anonymously published prose dramas during the Revolutionary War are also attributed to her.
Mercy Otis Warren maintained social and political correspondences with her friends John Adams and his wife, Bissell Notable Cousin Abigail Adams (although she later had a split with Adams based on Mercy's treatment of him in her history of the War). In 1790 she published Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous, a collection of her works and in 1805 Warren completed a three-volume history titled A History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution.
Speaking of the Stamp Act, let's look at that other Notable Cousin, Jared Ingersoll, Sr. of Connecticut, who was a Loyalist (or "Tory," like Bissell ancestor John Lyon). In fact, Ingersoll, Sr. wasn't just any Loyalist, he was the person appointed by King George III in 1765 to be Stamp Master of Connecticut, whose job it was to enforce the Stamp Act. There is more information about this Ingersoll, a Bissell First Cousin several times removed, but the short version is that at the height of the colonial protest against the much-hated Stamp Act, Ingersoll, Sr. was burned in effigy in August 1765 in Norwich, New London, Lebanon, Windham and Lyme, Connecticut. Old Man Ingersoll should not be confused with his son Jared Ingersoll, Jr., a patriot who renounced his family's views and was later a signer of the Constitution.
Jared Ingersoll, Sr., hung in effigy in Connecticut in 1765.
In August 1765, a mob surrounded Ingersoll, Sr.'s house in New Haven, CT demanding that he resign, and to save his house from attack he agreed to go to Hartford and present his case to the legislature. On his way, he encountered another mob of more than 500 men on horseback. They forced him to go to Wethersfield and to resign his commission as Stamp Master. They then forced him to yell "Liberty and Property" three times and after obeying them, he was forced to go on to Hartford and read the resignation he had just signed to the legislative assembly.
Coincidentally, a few years later on the same day that John Adams left Bissell's Tavern in East Windsor after an overnight stay there in June 1771, Adams rode to Wethersfield, CT and his diary tells of a comment he heard there,
"They have in Weathersfield a large brick Meeting House, Lockwood the Minister. A Gentleman came in and told me, that there was not such another Street in America as this at Weathersfield excepting one at Hadley, and that Mr. Ingersol the Stamp Master told him, he had never seen in Phyladelphia nor in England, any Place equal to Hartford and Weathersfield." (John Adams Diary )
Notable Cousin Samuel Adams was writing political essays that began to define the colonists' constitutional rights as early as 1748. He began to be elected to positions in Boston by the Boston Town Meeting at about the same time and was elected tax collector in 1756. He proposed a continental congress as early as 1765 when he was elected to the Massachusetts legislature. (By the time the Revolution began 10 years later, Adams, along with John Hancock, was one of two patriots who were publicly identified at the start of the Revolutionary War as being wanted for treason. They were in hiding at Hancock's house in Lexington, MA on April 19, 1775 and it is thought by some that the British troops going to Concord had orders to capture them. In any event, they were warned of the British approach by Paul Revere and William Dawes and escaped.)
Sam Adams is also well known as an organizer of one of the high-profile events that led to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the Boston Tea Party. On December 16, 1773, the Sons of Liberty led a political protest in which an entire shipment of tea, sent by the East India Company, was destroyed in protest of the Tea Act, a British tax act of 1773.
Colonists, some disguised as Indians, boarded the ships holding the tea and threw it into Boston Harbor. The British response was to pass the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts, which resulted in an end to local self-government in Massachusetts and closed down Boston's commercial activity.
Colonists in the thirteen colonies responded by calling together the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia on Sept. 5, 1774, with representatives elected by the people of their colony, their colony's legislature or the colony's Committee of Correspondence. Sam Adams and John Hancock were both members of the First Continental Congress, as was Notable Cousin Silas Deane (a representative to the Congress from Connecticut from 1774-1776).
By the time the First Continental Congress ended in October 1774, the members had agreed to produce several lengthy documents, including the Articles of Association which stated many of the colonist's grievances and stated the political rights of the American colonists. It ended by stating the colonists' intention to quit importing goods from and exporting goods to Great Britain and expressing a hope for resolution of the problems in the American and British relationship. A similar document was provided to the people of the colonies and a long petition was sent to King George III. The Independence Hall Association website http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/related/decres.htm has the complete collection of these materials online.
The key document produced by the First Continental Congress was the Articles of Association, adopted on October 20, 1774 as the system for imposing economic sanctions on Great Britain in the form of a boycott of British goods. The Association was signed by Notable Cousins Samuel Adams and Silas Deane (who would be sent by the Congress to France in April 1776). The Articles of Association document is pictured here to the left and shows that Adams and Deane were in pretty good company, with other signers including Peyton Randolph, Roger Sherman, John Jay, Patrick Henry, John Adams and George Washington.
The Articles of Association, 1774
Only six months after the First Continental Congress had ended, war had in fact broken out in earnest in April 1775. As a result, in May 1775 the Second Continental Congress was convened in Philadelphia. The Congress created a Continental Army and commissioned George Washington to be its commander. The Congress took other steps that showed it was a governing body, including authorizing the printing of money and a standing committee to deal with foreign governments. Still not ready for a complete break from Britain, in July 1775 the Congress approved the Olive Branch Petition, a direct appeal to King George III. His response was to refuse the petition, declare the colonies in rebellion and hire mercenary Hessian troops to put an end to the rebellion.
As noted in the U.S. State Department history website, the Second Continental Congress continued until 1781 -- "The Continental Congress was the formal means by which the American colonial governments coordinated their resistance to British rule during the first two years of the American Revolution. The Congress balanced the interests of the different colonies and also established itself as the official colonial liaison with Great Britain. As the war progressed, the Congress became the effective national government of the country, and, as such, conducted diplomacy on behalf of the new United States.
Notable Cousins who participated in the Second Continental Congress included John Hancock and Sam Adams, representing Massachusetts. Also elected as a representative from Connecticut in 1776-77 and a signer of the Declaration of Independence (although he arrived too late to vote for it) was William Williams. Oliver Ellsworth was a representative from Connecticut from 1777-1784 and served on many committees. Samuel Allyne Otis was a representative from Massachusetts in 1787-88. Jesse Root was a representative from Connecticut from 1778-1782. These men and other representatives working on committees in the Continental Congress effectively administered the country's national government, including the war effort, as there was no "executive branch" like there would later be under the Constitution.
In January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, instantly a wildly popular publication in the colonies (Paine donated his royalties to the new American Continental Army). It called for independence from England and the creation of a democratic republic.
The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
John Hancock was president of the Second Continental Congress. In June 1776 the Congress appointed a committee of five, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and George Washington, to draft a document declaring the independence of the colonies. Jefferson was deemed the best writer and was the principal drafter. Congress approved the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, with Hancock's famous bold signature across the bottom, as President of the Congress --
There is more information about John Hancock in the Notable Cousins A-H section of this website. In October 1774, Hancock had been unanimously elected president of the provincial congress of Massachusetts. The following year he was elected to the Continental Congress. Although that body included men of superior genius and greater experience than Hancock – Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Dickinson and others – none were more virtuous than Hancock and he was chosen president and continued in that capacity until bad health forced his resignation in October 1777. As noted in the National Archives, the Declaration was drafted by Thomas Jefferson between June 11 and June 28, 1776 and is at once the nation's most cherished symbol of liberty and Jefferson's most enduring monument.
One other Bissell Notable Cousin, William Williams, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. In the famous John Trumbull painting The Declaration of Independence above, Williams is shown standing on the right side of the room at the back in a group of two, with a brown coat. Next to him, on the right in a red coat, is Oliver Wolcott. And Hancock, as presiding officer, is seated in front on the right as the drafting committee presents their work.
William Williams, according to the Independence Hall Association website, was a successful merchant in Lebanon, CT. Born in 1731, he attained a common school education. He attended Harvard and graduated in 1751. He then studied theology with his father, Pastor of the First Congregational Church in Lebanon. Four years later, he joined his uncle, Col. Ephraim Williams, in the French and Indian War at Lake George. (Col. Williams died during that fighting in September 1755, but had left funds in his will to establish a college that would later become Williams College in Williamstown, MA.)
When William Williams returned to Connecticut, he established himself in Lebanon as a merchant, and also took a job as town clerk. He held that position for forty-four years. He was a Selectman for twenty-five years, served the provincial and later state Legislature for nearly forty years-during which time he was councilor, member, and Speaker of the House.
He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1776. He arrived too late to vote for Independence (he replaced Oliver Wolcott, who became seriously ill), but he did sign the Declaration, and was then appointed a member of the committee to frame the Articles of Confederation. In 1777 he was appointed to the Board of War. After the war, he attended the Hartford convention, where Connecticut ratified the Federal Constitution. Williams spent his remaining years as a County Court judge. He died in 1811 at the age of 80.
Following the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, at the end of 1776 Thomas Paine would publish The Crisis with its now famous opening appeal to the Continental Army's soldiers to complete their task:
"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER" and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God."
The Continental Congress Continues...
William Williams was also in the Continental Congress during the drafting of The Articles of Confederation. Their purpose was served, as described in Wikipedia:
"...the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the 13 founding states that established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution. Its drafting by the Continental Congress began in mid-1776, and an approved version was sent to the states for ratification in late 1777. The formal ratification by all 13 states was completed in early 1781. Even when not yet ratified, the Articles provided domestic and international legitimacy for the Continental Congress to direct the American Revolutionary War, conduct diplomacy with Europe and deal with territorial issues and Native American relations. Nevertheless, the weakness of the government created by the Articles became a matter of concern for key nationalists. On March 4, 1789, general government under the Articles was replaced with the federal government under the U.S. Constitution. The new Constitution provided for a much stronger federal government with a chief executive (the president), courts, and taxing powers.
Jesse Root, Bissell third cousin, was also in the Continental Congress. He was born 28 Dec 1736 and died 29 Mar 1822. He was a prominent lawyer from Coventry, Connecticut. Root was in the Continental Congress from 1778-82. During the American Revolution he also played many other roles. He served on the Connecticut Council of Safety and in the Connecticut militia.
Jesse Root, Member of
the Continental Congress
In that job, early in the War, on Aug. 7, 1776 Root received a letter from General George Washington, advising that Washington had just learned that more than 10,000 mercenaries hired by the British were in Canada and preparing to attack America. Washington asked Root to increase the size of the Connecticut militia "as fast as possible." From the National Archives:
To Jesse Root
New York Head Qrs Aug. 7. 1776
Sir
I have the most authentick intelligence that Genl Clinton with his whole Southern Army—1000 Hessians & a number of Highlanders have within these few days joined General Howe—that 11,000 more foreign Troops are hourly expected having been left on the Banks of Newfoundland a few days ago—An attack is now therefore to be expected which will Probably decide the Fate of America—The Levies from New Jersey, New York, & Connecticut are not compleated within one half of their Establishment and my whole Army much short of its Complement.
Under these circumstances Sir, I must desire you to apply to the several Committees or other authority of Connecticut to hasten down as fast as possible the Militia, and I cannot doubt but a sense of publick Duty & the imminent Dangers to which every thing that is dear to us is exposed, will induce every true friend & Lover of his Country to exert his utmost Powers for its Salvation and Defence. I am Sir Your Obed. Hble Servt
G.W.
Root indeed moved quickly and on August 12 was authorized by the Connecticut Council of Safety to receive £3,600 “as Paymaster of the advance wages of the Officers and Men of the Second, Fourth, Ninth, Tenth, Thirteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Regiments of Militia, in this Colony, now ordered on duty to New York, to be by him paid out at the rate of 20 shillings per man, into the hands of the Commanding Officers of each Regiment.” In December 1776 the Connecticut General Assembly named Root Lieutenant Colonel of a regiment of volunteers raised for the relief of Washington’s army.
Root was also the lawyer with whom Oliver Ellsworth, who was about 10 years younger than Root, trained in preparation for joining the bar.
Finally, there was one more Bissell cousin serving in the Continental Congress -- the brother of James and Mercy Otis, Samuel Allyne Otis. Samuel was a delegate to the Continental Congress from Massachusetts. Born in Barnstable in 1740, he graduated from Harvard in 1759 and was a merchant in Boston. He served in numerous positions in Massachusetts, including being Speaker of the state legislature and a member of the Massachusetts state constitutional convention. He served on the Board of War in 1776.
The Board of War and Ordnance was a special committee of the Continental Congress to oversee the administration of the American Continental Army, since there was no executive branch of government but only the Congress. Their role included, "...compiling a master roster of all Continental Army officers; monitoring returns of all troops, arms, and equipment; maintaining correspondence files; and securing prisoners of war." (Wikipedia). In this capacity, Otis was considered a quartermaster of the Continental Army.
Samuel Otis was a long-time friend of John Adams and when the new U.S. Congress came into being in 1789 following the ratification of the Constitution, Adams maneuvered to have Otis elected Secretary of the Senate. Otis is pictured to the right, holding the Bible at George Washington's first inauguration. Remarkably, Otis served as Senate Secretary, helping establish the rules and procedures of the new government, through the first turbulent quarter century of American government, until his death in 1814, longer than any other Secretary in the more than 200 year history of the U.S. Senate.
The United States Constitution
The Bissell cousin who played a signficant role in the drafting of the Constitution was Oliver Ellsworth. There is much more information about Oliver Ellsworth's life on the Notable Cousins page -- we already know he was a delegate to the Continental Congress. He was also a member of the Connecticut legislature, a judge in the Superior Court of Connecticut, a judge on the Committee of Appeals (essentially the forerunner of the Federal Supreme Court), helped administer military activities of the State of Connecticut during the Revolutionary War, served as one of Connecticut's first two United States senators in the new federal government from 1789 to 1796 (during which time he played a dominant role in Senate proceedings equivalent to that of a Senate Majority Leader in later decades), was the Third Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court and in 1799-1800 was United States Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of France.
On May 28, 1787, Ellsworth joined the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia as a delegate from Connecticut along with Roger Sherman and William Samuel Johnson. Ellsworth in particular played an important role in the exclusion of judicial review from the Constitution at the Convention and later in putting it into force in the 1789 Judiciary Act.
Ellsworth took an active part in the proceedings beginning on June 20, when he proposed the use of the name the United States to identify the nation under the authority of the Constitution. While the words "United States" had already been used in the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation, it was Ellsworth's proposal to retain the earlier wording to sustain the emphasis on a federation rather than a single national entity. From this day forward the "United States" was the official title used in the Convention to designate the government, and this usage has remained in effect ever since.
This mural by Bradley Stevens shows Ellsworth (on the left) and Sherman working out the "Connecticut Compromise." It is in the U.S. Senate Reception Room.
Ellsworth played a major role in the passage of the Connecticut Plan. During debate on the Great Compromise, often described as the Connecticut Compromise, he joined his fellow Connecticut delegate Roger Sherman in proposing the bicameral arrangement in which members of the Senate would be elected by state legislatures as indicated in Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution. Without this compromise, the Constitution may well never have been agreed to by the delegates. Ellsworth's version of the compromise was adopted by the Convention, but it was later revised by Constitutional Amendment XVII substituting a popular vote similar to that used for the House of Representatives.
Along with James Wilson, John Rutledge, Edmund Randolph, and Nathaniel Gorham, Ellsworth served on the Committee of Detail which prepared the first draft of the Constitution based on resolutions already passed by the Convention. All Convention deliberations were interrupted from July 26 to August 6, 1787, while the Committee of Detail completed its task. The two preliminary drafts that survive as well as the text of the Constitution submitted to the Convention were in the handwriting of Wilson or Randolph. However, Ellsworth's role is made clear by his 53 contributions to the Convention as a whole from August 6 to 23, when he left for business reasons. As James Madison tabulated in his Records, only James Madison (4th President of the U.S. from 1809-1817) and Gouverneur Morris spoke more than Ellsworth during those sixteen days.
Though Ellsworth left the Convention near the end of August and didn't sign the final document, he wrote the Letters of a Landholder to promote its ratification. He also played a dominant role in Connecticut's 1788 ratification convention, when he emphasized that judicial review guaranteed federal sovereignty.
Ellsworth's first project as a leader of the new U.S. Senate was the Judiciary Act, described as Senate Bill No. 1, which effectively supplemented Article III in the Constitution by establishing a hierarchical arrangement among state and federal courts. Years later James Madison stated, "It may be taken for certain that the bill organizing the judicial department originated in his [Ellsworth's] draft, and that it was not materially changed in its passage into law." Ellsworth himself probably wrote Section 25, the most important component of the Judiciary Act. This gave the Federal Supreme Court the power to veto state supreme court decisions supportive of state laws in conflict with the U.S. Constitution. All state and local laws accepted by state supreme courts could be appealed to the federal Supreme Court, which was given the authority, if it chose, to deny them for being unconstitutional. State and local laws rejected by state supreme courts could not be appealed in this manner; only the laws accepted by these courts could be appealed. None of this was in the Constitution; it was created by Ellsworth and the Senate.
This seemingly modest specification provided the federal government with its only effective authority over state government at the time. In the drafting of the Constitution, the concept of federal "Congressional Review" of state laws, trying to guarantee federal sovereignty, had been unsuccessfully proposed four times by Madison at the Constitutional Convention. Granting the federal government this much authority was apparently rejected because its potential misuse could later be used to reject the Constitution at State Ratifying Conventions. Upon the completion of these conventions the previous year, however, Ellsworth was in the position to render the sovereignty of the federal government defensible, and he did it through judicial review instead of Congressional review.
The Bill of Rights
Once the Judiciary Act was adopted by the Senate, Ellsworth sponsored the Senate's acceptance of the Bill of Rights promoted by James Madison in the House of Representatives. Significantly, Madison sponsored the Judiciary Act in the House at the same time. Combined, Judiciary Act and Bill of Rights gave the Constitution the "teeth" that had been missing in the Articles of Confederation. Judicial Review guaranteed the federal government's sovereignty, whereas the Bill of Rights guaranteed the protection of states and citizens from the misuse of this sovereignty by the federal government. The Judiciary Act and Bill of Rights thus counterbalanced each other, each guaranteeing respite from the excesses of the other.
Oliver Ellsworth thus played a crucial role in the successful passage of the Constitution through his work with Roger Sherman developing the Great Compromise, and in working on the draft of the Constitution; in structuring the federal judicial system as we know it today; and in steering the Bill of Rights through the U.S. Senate and helping to achieve the Constitutional balance between a strong federal government and protection of individual and states rights.
The other Bissell Notable Cousin who was among the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention and the 39 who signed the Constitution was Jared Ingersoll, Jr. His colleagues at the Constitutional Convention included many American patriot luminaries. The American National Biography website notes that he was born in New Haven, CT in 1749, the son of Jared Ingersoll, Sr. who was the Stamp Master burned in effigy during the Stamp Act protest in 1765. Jared, Jr. graduated from Yale in 1766. After managing his father's financial affairs for a few years, Jared, Jr. joined his father in Pennsylvania, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1773. He went to London and studied more law for three years. He renounced his father's Loyalist views in 1776 and returned to Pennsylvania
He went to London and studied more law for three years, during which time the American Revolution began. When it continued, he renounced his father's Loyalist views and returned to Pennsylvania in 1778. He established a law practice there and in 1780 Ingersoll was elected to the Continental Congress, at the age of 31.
The website American National Biography online describes Ingersoll's participation in the Constitutional Convention:
"Apart from having a record of perfect attendance at the convention, Ingersoll apparently made no notable contributions, though he was known to favor revision of the Articles over the creation of a new document. Only one eyewitness account of his participation is known to exist--preserved in William Pierce's "Notes on Delegates to the Federal Convention." These brief written observations of his colleagues made by Pierce, a representative from Georgia, included the following commentary on Ingersoll: he was, wrote Pierce, "a very able attorney, and possesses a clear legal understanding. He is well educated in the classics, and is a man of very extensive reading. Mr. Ingersol [sic] speaks well, and comprehends his subject fully." However, Pierce further noted, "there is a modesty in his character that keeps him back." Despite initial reservations, Ingersoll was among the thirty-nine delegates who approved the new U.S. Constitution on 17 September 1787."
Understandable to have a "modesty in his character that keeps him back," of course, when the small group of colleagues in the Convention included Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, George Mason, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton!
After the ratification of the Constitution, Ingersoll went back to his legal practice in Philadelphia. He ran unsuccessfully for Vice President on the Federalist ticket in 1812. He served as attorney general of Pennsylvania (1790–99 and 1811–17), as Philadelphia's city solicitor (1798–1801), and as United States Attorney for Pennsylvania (1800–1801). For a brief period (1821–22), he sat as presiding judge of the Philadelphia district court.
Ingersoll's major contribution to the cause of constitutional government came through several U.S. Supreme Court cases that defined various basic points in Constitutional law during the beginning of the new republic. In one definitive case he represented Georgia in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), a landmark case in states' rights. Here the court decided against him, ruling that a state may be sued in federal court by a citizen of another state. However, this reversal of the notion of state sovereignty was later rescinded and Ingersoll's view was put in place by the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution. In representing Hylton in Hylton v. US (1796), Ingersoll was also involved in the first legal challenge (although he lost the case) to the constitutionality of an act of Congress. Ingersoll also served as counsel in various cases that helped clarify constitutional issues concerning the jurisdiction of federal courts and U.S. relations with other sovereign nations.
The Thirteenth Amendment
The last Bissell Notable Cousin to mention for involvement with key governmental documents is Schuyler Colfax (more on the Notable Cousins page). Born in 1823, by 1852 Colfax felt he was ready to run for a seat in Congress. He ran and lost by 232 votes but two years later, he ran again and won by more than 2,000 votes. The year was 1854, Schuyler Colfax was 32 years old and he would spend eighteen years in Washington. He served in Congress for 14 years, eight of which were spent as The Speaker of the House. During Abraham Lincoln’s run for the presidential nomination in 1860, Colfax corresponded frequently with Lincoln and advised him of various political developments known to Colfax, letters which today are housed in the archives at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.
As a Congressman, Colfax did nothing which would mark him as outstanding. He was more concerned with building a power base than with passing legislation. During his 14 years in the lower House he authored no legislation of any kind which would have left its mark on America.
Colfax was appointed to the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads and became its chairman and was instrumental in reorganizing the overland mail service and extending it to California.
In 1863, Colfax was elected by his colleagues as the Speaker of the House of Representatives. He was elected primarily because of his loyalty to the Republican Party. He always supported the party, never got out of line and was never controversial. As the speaker he never took a strong stand on any issue except for opposing the admission of the southern states back into the union. In fact, Schuyler Colfax was such a nice smooth operator that his colleagues in Congress had long before his ascension to Speaker nicknamed him "Smiler" Colfax.
It is noted that in the 2013 movie Lincoln, based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's book about Lincoln Team of Rivals, Colfax was involved in the passage of, including voting for, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting slavery.
The Thirteenth Amendment was approved by the Senate in the fall of 1864. In mid-January 1865, Colfax advised Lincoln that the House was in his estimate five votes short of passage of the amendment and Rep. John Ashley, leading the effort on the amendment for Lincoln, got the vote postponed.
The amendment was finally voted on on Jan. 31 and finally passed by a vote of 119 to 56, narrowly reaching the required two-thirds majority. The House exploded into celebration, with some members openly weeping. Black onlookers, who had only been allowed to attend Congressional sessions since the previous year, cheered from the galleries.
President Lincoln signed the amendment on February 1, 1865. It was quickly ratified by enough states to take effect before the end of 1865. It provides:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Colfax won the nomination to the Vice Presidency in 1868, on the fifth ballot after he had defeated a number of other contenders. As Vice President under Ulysses S. Grant, Schuyler Colfax followed 16 other men who had been Vice President in attempting to find something to occupy himself. Other than presiding over the business of the Senate, there was no other work for the former speaker.
Add material here about other ancestors and Notable Cousins who were involved in government: William Bissell, Gov. of Illinois;
Full Text of "The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut"
For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God by the wise disposition of his divine providence so to order and dispose of things that we the Inhabitants and Residents of Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield are now cohabiting and dwelling in and upon the River of Connectecotte and the lands thereunto adjoining; and well knowing where a people are gathered together the word of God requires that to maintain the peace and union of such a people there should be an orderly and decent Government established according to God, to order and dispose of the affairs of the people at all seasons as occasion shall require; do therefore associate and conjoin ourselves to be as one Public State or Commonwealth; and do for ourselves and our successors and such as shall be adjoined to us at any time hereafter, enter into Combination and Confederation together, to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess, as also, the discipline of the Churches, which according to the truth of the said Gospel is now practiced amongst us; as also in our civil affairs to be guided and governed according to such Laws, Rules, Orders and Decrees as shall be made, ordered, and decreed as followeth:
1. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that there shall be yearly two General Assemblies or Courts, the one the second Thursday in April, the other the second Thursday in September following; the first shall be called the Court of Election, wherein shall be yearly chosen from time to time, so many Magistrates and other public Officers as shall be found requisite: Whereof one to be chosen Governor for the year ensuing and until another be chosen, and no other Magistrate to be chosen for more than one year: provided always there be six chosen besides the Governor, which being chosen and sworn according to an Oath recorded for that purpose, shall have the power to administer justice according to the Laws here established, and for want thereof, according to the Rule of the Word of God; which choice shall be made by all that are admitted freemen and have taken the Oath of Fidelity, and do cohabit within this Jurisdiction having been admitted Inhabitants by the major part of the Town wherein they live or the major part of such as shall be then present.
2. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that the election of the aforesaid Magistrates shall be in this manner: every person present and qualified for choice shall bring in (to the person deputed to receive them) one single paper with the name of him written in it whom he desires to have Governor, and he that hath the greatest number of papers shall be Governor for that year. And the rest of the Magistrates or public officers to be chosen in this manner: the Secretary for the time being shall first read the names of all that are to be put to choice and then shall severally nominate them distinctly, and every one that would have the person nominated to be chosen shall bring in one single paper written upon, and he that would not have him chosen shall bring in a blank; and every one that hath more written papers than blanks shall be a Magistrate for that year; which papers shall be received and told by one or more that shall be then chosen by the court and sworn to be faithful therein; but in case there should not be six chosen as aforesaid, besides the Governor, out of those which are nominated, than he or they which have the most writen papers shall be a Magistrate or Magistrates for the ensuing year, to make up the aforesaid number.
3. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that the Secretary shall not nominate any person, nor shall any person be chosen newly into the Magistracy which was not propounded in some General Court before, to be nominated the next election; and to that end it shall be lawful for each of the Towns aforesaid by their deputies to nominate any two whom they conceive fit to be put to election; and the Court may add so many more as they judge requisite.
4. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that no person be chosen Governor above once in two years, and that the Governor be always a member of some approved Congregation, and formerly of the Magistracy within this Jurisdiction; and that all the Magistrates, Freemen of this Commonwealth; and that no Magistrate or other public officer shall execute any part of his or their office before they are severally sworn, which shall be done in the face of the court if they be present, and in case of absence by some deputed for that purpose.
5. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that to the aforesaid Court of Election the several Towns shall send their deputies, and when the Elections are ended they may proceed in any public service as at other Courts. Also the other General Court in September shall be for making of laws, and any other public occasion, which concerns the good of the Commonwealth.
6. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that the Governor shall, either by himself or by the Secretary, send out summons to the Constables of every Town for the calling of these two standing Courts one month at least before their several times: And also if the Governor and the greatest part of the Magistrates see cause upon any special occasion to call a General Court, they may give order to the Secretary so to do within fourteen days warning: And if urgent necessity so require, upon a shorter notice, giving sufficient grounds for it to the deputies when they meet, or else be questioned for the same; And if the Governor and major part of Magistrates shall either neglect or refuse to call the two General standing Courts or either of them, as also at other times when the occasions of the Commonwealth require, the Freemen thereof, or the major part of them, shall petition to them so to do; if then it be either denied or neglected, the said Freemen, or the major part of them, shall have the power to give order to the Constables of the several Towns to do the same, and so may meet together, and choose to themselves a Moderator, and may proceed to do any act of power which any other General Courts may.
7. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that after there are warrants given out for any of the said General Courts, the Constable or Constables of each Town, shall forthwith give notice distinctly to the inhabitants of the same, in some public assembly or by going or sending from house to house, that at a place and time by him or them limited and set, they meet and assemble themselves together to elect and choose certain deputies to be at the General Court then following to agitate the affairs of the Commonwealth; which said deputies shall be chosen by all that are admitted Inhabitants in the several Towns and have taken the oath of fidelity; provided that none be chosen a Deputy for any General Court which is not a Freeman of this Commonwealth. The aforesaid deputies shall be chosen in manner following: every person that is present and qualified as before expressed, shall bring the names of such, written in several papers, as they desire to have chosen for that employment, and these three or four, more or less, being the number agreed on to be chosen for that time, that have the greatest number of papers written for them shall be deputies for that Court; whose names shall be endorsed on the back side of the warrant and returned into the Court, with the Constable or Constables' hand unto the same.
8. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield shall have power, each Town, to send four of their Freemen as their deputies to every General Court; and Whatsoever other Town shall be hereafter added to this Jurisdiction, they shall send so many deputies as the Court shall judge meet, a reasonable proportion to the number of Freemen that are in the said Towns being to be attended therein; which deputies shall have the power of the whole Town to give their votes and allowance to all such laws and orders as may be for the public good, and unto which the said Towns are to be bound.
9. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that the deputies thus chosen shall have power and liberty to appoint a time and a place of meeting together before any General Court, to advise and consult of all such things as may concern the good of the public, as also to examine their own Elections, whether according to the order, and if they or the greatest part of them find any election to be illegal they may seclude such for present from their meeting, and return the same and their reasons to the Court; and if it be proved true, the Court may fine the party or parties so intruding, and the Town, if they see cause, and give out a warrant to go to a new election in a legal way, either in part or in whole. Also the said deputies shall have power to fine any that shall be disorderly at their meetings, or for not coming in due time or place according to appointment; and they may return the said fines into the Court if it be refused to be paid, and the Treasurer to take notice of it, and to escheat or levy the same as he does other fines.
10. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that every General Court, except such as through neglect of the Governor and the greatest part of the Magistrates the Freemen themselves do call, shall consist of the Governor, or some one chosen to moderate the Court, and four other Magistrates at least, with the major part of the deputies of the several Towns legally chosen; and in case the Freemen, or major part of them, through neglect or refusal of the Governor and major part of the Magistrates, shall call a Court, it shall consist of the major part of Freemen that are present or their deputies, with a Moderator chosen by them: In which said General Courts shall consist the supreme power of the Commonwealth, and they only shall have power to make laws or repeal them, to grant levies, to admit of Freemen, dispose of lands undisposed of, to several Towns or persons, and also shall have power to call either Court or Magistrate or any other person whatsoever into question for any misdemeanor, and may for just causes displace or deal otherwise according to the nature of the offense; and also may deal in any other matter that concerns the good of this Commonwealth, except the election of Magistrates, which shall be done by the whole body of Freemen. In which Court the Governor or Moderator shall have power to order the Court, to give liberty of speech, and silence unseasonable and disorderly speakings, to put all things to vote, and in case the vote be equal to have the casting voice. But none of these Courts shall be adjourned or dissolved without the consent of the major part of the Court.
11. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that when any General Court upon the occasions of the Commonwealth have agreed upon any sum, or sums of money to be levied upon the several Towns within this Jurisdiction, that a committee be chosen to set out and appoint what shall be the proportion of every Town to pay of the said levy, provided the committee be made up of an equal number out of each Town.
14th January, 1638, the 11 Orders above said are voted.