Grand Council

“ Let us have a triennial grand council to originate bills, allowing King George to appoint the governor-general who may have a negative voice, and who shall choose the military officers, as against the civil appointees of the council. All war measures, external land purchases and organization, general laws and taxes should be the province of the federal government, but each colony should keep its private constitution, and money should issue only by common consent. ”

“ Good faith forbids us to say more, and we have no desire to be premature, but we think we may venture to add, that it was decided to hold, at an early day, a grand National council, to sit at some central point, and to be composed of delegates from every section of the Union. ”

“ Organized on the basis of highly centralized control, the people's councils function under the general supervision of the Grand National Assembly; and between assembly sessions the councils function under the direction of the Council of State. The Law on the Organization and Operation of People's Councils specifically places the people's councils under the overall leadership of the PCR as the leading political force of the society. ”

“ In the administrative tradition indeed of the last hundred years the Council had become all-important to the Crown. It brought it in contact with public opinion, less efficiently, no doubt, but more constantly than the Parliament itself; it gave to its acts an imposing sanction and assured to them a powerful support; above all it provided a body which stood at every crisis between the nation and the monarchy, which broke the shock of any conflict, and which could stand forth as mediator, should conflict arise, without any loss of dignity on the part of the sovereign. ”

“ Nevertheless, the higher a man is placed the more independent he is, and the greater confidence the people have placed in him the more he has need of enlightened and conscientious councils. Thence the creation of a council of state, henceforward a veritable council of the government, first wheel in our organization, a collection of practical men, elaborating bills in special commissions, discussing them with closed doors, without oratorical ostentation in general assembly, and presenting them afterwards for acceptance to the legislative body. ”

“ At the request of the commons, the lords, in the King's name, appointed nine persons to be a permanent council, and it was resolved that during the King's minority the appointment of all the chief officers of the crown should be with the parliament. ”

“ The Council of Ten was created by the votes, the discussions, and conclusions of a numerous and intelligent Assembly; strong in its united strength; full of political instincts, which did not ignore the truth that the power which by a vote it was about {119} to establish was created to prevent the dangers which men of great ambitions on the exterior, or revolutionists in the interior, might bring to the Republic. ”

“ For their creation, they are equally obliged to both the other branches; so that there is little or no bias in favor of either; if any, it is in favor of the prerogative. In short, it is not easy, without an hereditary nobility, to constitute a council more independent, more nearly resembling the house of lords, than the council of this province has ever been by charter.
But perhaps it will be said, that we are to enjoy the British constitution in our supreme legislature, the parliament, not in our provincial legislatures. ”

“ To my mind the advantages of the Supreme Council outweigh the objections to it. It serves as an effective preventative of backstairs influence which must always be an overpresent danger in absolute Monarchy. It provides for an effective avenue by which outside opinion may reach the ears of the King, and thus enable him the better to understand and appreciate the truth underlying any given situation . It gives to the King the benefit of the wisdom and experience of the ablest men of the Kingdom. ”

“ From the date of our charter to the time of the Stamp Act, and indeed since that time, (notwithstanding the misrepresentations of our charter constitution, as too popular and republican,) the council of this province have been generally on the side of the governor and the prerogative. For the truth of this, I appeal to our whole history and experience. The art and power of governors, and especially the negative, have been a stronger motive on the one hand, than the annual election of the two houses on the other. ”

“ As the council sprang from the gentile organization the two institutions have come down together through the ages. The Council of Chiefs represents the ancient method of evolving the wisdom of mankind and applying it to human affairs. Its history, gentile, tribal, and confederate, would express the growth of the idea of government in its whole development, until political society supervened into which the council, changed into a senate, was transmitted. ”

“ This standing Council of the Empire was to be formed of a President, one Elector, one Bishop, one Prince, one Count, and sixteen representatives of the States. It was to summon the Diet, of which it served as a standing committee, to nominate the members of the Imperial Chamber, to collect taxes, to maintain order at home, and decide on questions of peace and war. Although under the presidency of the Emperor or his Stadtholder, nothing of importance could be done without its leave, and thus it shared the executive power with him. ”

“ Your Majesty will doubtless wish to secure the advice of a few of the wisest men of the realm. Such questions might well be referred by Your Majesty to the Supreme Council for their advice and suggestion, always reserving the power of final decision to Yourself. In other words, my conception of the functions of the Supreme Council under such a scheme of government would be that it should from a purely advisory body to which the King might turn for advice on question of large policy. It should have nothing whatsoever to do with the executive work of government. ”

“ In presence of the danger which encompasses you, Representatives of the people, your committee felt it incumbent upon it to call you together in special session to inform you thereon; it felt it to be its duty to spur the deliberations of the Council on in deciding what part it was to play in these circumstances. The Council of Ancients holds in its hands the means of saving the country and liberty; it would be doubting its prudence, it would be doubting its wisdom, to think that it will not grapple the problem with its accustomed courage and energy. ”

“ These hee-hee councils splendidly illustrate the inconsecutiveness and inconsequentiality of the Folk. Here were we, drawn together by mutual rage and the impulse toward cooperation, led off into forgetfulness by the establishment of a rude rhythm. We were sociable and gregarious, and these singing and laughing councils satisfied us. In ways the hee-hee council was an adumbration of the councils of primitive man, and of the great national assemblies and international conventions of latter-day man. ”

“ New popular authorities had, as it were, of themselves sprung up over the face of the country, and the National Assembly, in place of the royal council, became the centre of government, so far as any government existed. ”

“ With us, when we elect popular representatives, we send them to a council in which each man individually is a subject, and submitted to a government complete in all its ordinary functions. With you the elective Assembly is the sovereign, and the sole sovereign; all the members are therefore integral parts of this sole sovereignty. But with us it is totally different. With us the representative, separated from the other parts, can have no action and no existence. The government is the point of reference of the several members and districts of our representation. ”

“ The most prevalent idea in the principal States seems to be a total alteration of the present federal system, and substituting a great national council or parliament, consisting of two branches of the legislature, founded upon the principles of equal proportionate representation, with full legislative powers upon all the subjects of the Union; and an executive: and to make the several State legislatures subordinate to the national, by giving the latter the power of a negative upon all such laws as they shall judge contrary to the interest of the federal Union ... ”

“ If the Council were, in reality, a body of representatives of various sections and parties, it would necessarily contain a large number of irreconcilables, who would constantly be outvoted, as the Crown could not be expected to appoint a majority from the opposition. Had the Governor, as was the case in many of the royal colonies, possessed the executive power, and an elected assembly the legislative, then the struggle between them would have taken the course with which the student of colonial history is so familiar. ”

“ It is to be hoped that, in these days, when we all take an interest in our Empire, everybody knows that the Executive Council is the outward, visible, and recognised form of that impalpable, unrecognised, all-powerful institution, the Cabinet, consisting in fact, though not in theory, of the same persons, save that the Governor is present when the meeting is of the Council, and absent when it is of the Cabinet—a difference of less moment than it sounds, seeing that, except in extreme cases, the Governor has little to do but listen to what is going to be done. ”

“ Never, before this time, was heard of a body politic composed of one legislative and active assembly, and its executive officers, without such a council: without something to which foreign states might connect themselves,—something to which, in the ordinary detail of government, the people could look up,—something which might give a bias and steadiness, and preserve something like consistency in the proceedings of state. Such a body kings generally have as a council. A monarchy may exist without it ”

“ The great men who composed our first council—are they dead, have they deserted the cause, or what has become of them? Very few are dead, and still fewer have deserted the cause; they are all, except the few who still remain in Congress, either in the field, or in the civil offices of their respective states ”

“ How happy if they could have annihilated all our charters, and yet have been beloved, nay, deified by the people, as friends and advocates of their charters! What masterly politicians, to have made themselves nobles for life, and yet have been thought very sorry, that the two houses were denied the privilege of choosing the council! ”

“ Indeed, all projected laws emanated from the government and were prepared by the newly established council of state, which was so well recruited that it easily furnished qualified men, mostly veterans of the revolution, to prepare the final scheme. ”

“ Being disappointed in their expectations, the minority in the administration and all worthy citizens of this State, whose minds are well informd regreting the peculiarities of their Situation place their fullest confidence in the wisdom & moderation of the national council, and indulge the warmest hopes of being favorably consider’d in their deliberations. From these deliberations they anticipate a political System which must finally be adopted & from which will result the Safety, the honour, & the happiness of the United States. ”

“ Having laid down the principle that in every State the care of all matters of public concern must be in a Supreme Representative Council or Parliament, freely elected by the whole people, they maintain that any Kingship or other such office instituted in any State must be regarded as a creation of such Supreme Council for special ends and within special limits, and that any one holding such office who shall have been proved to have perseveringly abused his trust, or sought to convert it into a personal possession, may justly be called to account. ”

“ At the same time, however, that both our Secretaries of State, many of our Privy Councillors, war Councillors, forest Councillors, and finance Councillors, are to be reckoned among the second class, still not one of these exalted individuals, who from their situations are necessarily in constant personal communication with the Sovereign, ever see that Sovereign except in his Cabinet and his Council-Chamber. ”

“ They demanded that the king's council should be dismissed; that the king should govern only by the aid of the usual crown officers—the chancellor, treasurer, privy seal, chamberlain, and steward of the household; and that these ministers should be chosen by Parliament. These unexampled demands were all granted: a committee of finance was appointed, to consist of Lords and Commons; and such a concession as had never yet been made was granted, and three representatives of cities—two aldermen of London and one of York—were put upon it. ”

“ The estates-collegium or provincial council is an institution by which all such as belong to civil society in general, and are to that degree private persons, participate in the governmental power, especially in legislation—viz. such legislation as concerns the universal scope of those interests which do not, like peace and war, involve the, as it were, personal interference and action of the State as one man, and therefore do not belong specially to the province of the sovereign power. ”