Governor Gabriel Johnston's Request to
Repeal the North Carolina Biennal Act
october 18, 1736 American State Papers
Kolbe Library
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I sent your Lordships the only Copies of our Laws I
could procure last December with such remarks as my bad state of health would
then permit me to make. I did venture at that time to desire you to advise His
Majesty to repeal as soon as possible the Biennial Law and to order that no
Precinct should on any Pretence whatsoever be Represented by more than two
members and to discharge me from consenting to Erect any new Precinct without
His Majestys permission. I am still confirmed in my Opinion of this matter,
and I am satisfied we never shall have a Reason[able] Assembly while this Act
subsists. I have by this Conveyance sent an attested Copy of the said Biennial
Law and shall only observe
- That it is highly unreasonable that any Assembly
should presume to meet without His Majestys Writt, and therefore I dissolved
them when they met last.
- The six Precincts in the County of Albemarle have in
each five Members making thirty, and the number of People in it is I am sure
not fifteen thousand, which is by much too large a Representation.
- The whole lower House by this means consists of
forty six and it is impossible to pick out in the whole Province so many
fit to do business.
- The greatest objection is that there must be a new
election every two years which is too short a time to settle a Country which
has been so long in confusion, and men of sense who sincerely mean the
Publick good are so much afraid of the next Elections that they are obliged
to go in with the majority whose Ignorance and want of education makes them
obstruct everything for the good of the Country even so much as the Building
of Churches or erecting of schools or endeavouring to maintain a direct
Trade to Great Britain.
If your Lordships approve of this I beg no time may be
lost but I may have this Repealed by the way of Virginia and South Carolina by
June next at farthest and the Governors of these Provinces may have orders to
forward it. This one thing would contribute to the quiet and settlement of
this Country more than I am able to Express.
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