According to one encyclopaedia article, they were sent in the main as representatives from their respective Colonial Assemblies.

So, they were elected by the bodies who had been elected by the people of those Colonies (who had the franchise).

In similar fashion, according to the original Constitution of these United States, the State Legislatures used to elect and send the two State Representatives as delegates to the US Senate.

So, unless one argues successfully that the Colonial Assemblies had no right (as Englishmen or subjects of the Crown) to a regional assembly of powers with common cause or interest, I cannot see how this Congress violated any principles of English Common Law.


In contrast, SFAIK, the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was organized beginning with a plebiscite, contrary to the ordinary principles of law and order. If anything, the work of 1787 (which typically gets the highest praise from the Christian America crowd) was exactly the sort of end-run "appeal to the masses" to subvert lawful authority, by finding the seat of final authority in a 51% vote.

There, it was exactly a special-interest crowd, organized and gathered as a special interest, who were unhappy with the greater independency the Articles of Confederation accorded the free and independent States. It was too messy and impossible to enforce whatever dictatorial whims of the central-power.

Call me an "Anti-Federalist."

__________________
Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


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