On This Day In The Revolution

On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — November 3, 1776

On this day 250 years ago in Annapolis, the Declaration of Rights (Maryland’s Bill of Rights) was adopted by Ninth Provincial Convention of Maryland. The entire Declaration provides an eloquent statement of the natural rights that Americans were claiming and defending in the Revolution, but I want to focus on four of the first five:

I. That government of right originates from the people, is founded in compact only, and instituted solely for the good of the whole.

2. That the people of this state ought to have the sole and exclusive right of regulating the internal government and police thereof.

. . .

4. That all persons invested with the legislative or executive powers of government, are the trustees of the public, and as such accountable for their conduct, wherefore whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought, to reform the old, or establish a new government; the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.

5. That the right in the people to participate in the legislature is the best security of liberty, and the foundation of all free government ; for this purpose elections ought to be free and frequent, and every man having property in, a common interest with, and an attachment to, the community, ought to have a right of suffrage.

On this election day in 2026 as Americans all across the Nation are exercising the right to vote, it is important to remember that elections have been from the beginning the foundation of our democratic republic. And we should remember that as we go to the polls, it is our right and obligation to resist “arbitrary power and oppression.” The “ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered” by those in office now but with our votes we have the “means of redress” to hold them “accountable for their conduct.”

Source: Proceedings of the Conventions of the Province of Maryland, Held at the City of Annapolis, in 1774, 1775, & 1776, Baltimore: James Lucas & E. K. Deaver (1836) at pp. 310-28 accessed at https://archive.org/details/proceedingsofcon00mary/page/310/mode/2up

O. Kevin Vincent

2 responses to “On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — November 3, 1776”

  2. I agree with you cousin that “it is our right and obligation” to “go to the polls.” Voting is both a right and an obligation. If everyone voted who is eligible, we would always have an electorate of the people. It’s only when voters get complacent AND uneducated that people are elected who shouldn’t be in office. There is much wickedness in politics and public media today, both within and without our nation. All forms of one-sided or false media, both electronic and traditional, seek to persuade us. There have always been those who would use our very freedoms to submit us in bondage. We must never ignore our obligations as citizens or lose those freedoms.

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