me. butler's discourse.                             49
order of time, was adopted on the 12th of June 1776. New Jersey, Maryland, and North Carolina, following her example, completed their constitutions, during the same year. The Constitution of New York, was the fifth in the series; having been finally adopted on the 20th of April 1777.
The Provincial Congress of New York, elected in April 1776, assembled in the City of New York, a few days after the passage of the resolution of the Continential Congress, mentioned above.
They proceeded, without delay, to consider this resolution. It was fully discussed, and on its true grounds. It was treated as involving, substantially, the question of Independence. Gouverneur Morris, then a delegate for the County of Westchester, appears, though one of the youngest members, to have taken a leading part in this debate; and as may be seen by the extracts from his speech, in the work of Mr. Sparks, he strongly argued the duty and necessity of abandoning, forever, the phantom of reconciliation, and of seeking peace, liberty and security, by a new and independent government. Being, however, of opinion, that the Congress had not the power to enter on the plan of a new government, he proposed that a committee should be appointed, to draw up a notice to the people, recommending the election of delegates, for the express purpose of assembling and forming a new government. Other members thought, and of this opinion was a majority of the house, that the subject should be referred to a committee, to consider and report thereon; and a resolution to this effect was accordingly adopted.* The Committee, on the 27th of May, reported, that the right of framing or new modelling civil government belonged to the people; and that as doubts existed of the authority of the Provincial Congress to form a new government, the people should be called together to express their sentiments on the subject, by the usual mode of election.
This report is worthy of special notice, as one of the earliest and most explicit expositions of the doctrine of the popular sovereignty, put forth in this State. It was approved by the Congress ; and on the 31st of May, this body passed a series of resolutions prepared by Mr. Jay, calling on the people of the several counties to elect deputies to a
* Life of Morris by Sparks, ch. 6. Journal of the New York Provincial Congress, published in 1842, p. 460. This committee was composed of Messrs. Scott, Haring, Remsen, Lewis, Jay, Cuyler, and Broome.