Exactly,
The elected members were BURGESSES, but they were not yet meeting and
organized as a separate HOUSE.
Jon
> Ok, then why does the statute in 1629-39 refer to the "names of the
> Burgesses"? I am not trying to create an argument here. As we say out
> here in Oklahoma, "I have no dogs in this fight" -- I just want to
> figure it out, so I get it right. If I am understanding you correctly,
> the members of the legislature called themselves "Burgesses" in the 1629
> statute and inthe 1642 statute I quoted below, but they were not yet
> part of something that was officially called "The House of Burgesses."
> Is that right?
>
> Paul
>
> [log in to unmask] wrote:
>> Paul-
>> In a nutshell, from 1619-1642 Virginia's unicameral entity was called
>> either the General or Grand Assembly - from 1643 to 1776 the General
>> Assembly (now bicameral) comprised the Council and the House of
>> Burgesses.
>>
>> Jon Kukla
>>
>> One will not find the name "House of Burgesses" in any primary source
>> prior to the 1640s - just as one will not find "The United States of
>> America" prior to the revolution. Back in 1873 I read VCRP microfilm etc
>> 8
>> hours a day for a month . . .
>> The salient thing about your first quote, Paul, is that it is from W.
>> W. Hening's HEADNOTE - written earily in the 19th century - not from
>> the contemporary 17th-century sources he was publishing. Hening and
>> McIlwaine and lots of others were reading back into the 17th-c a
>> structure that only began in 1643. In the Jefferson MSS at Library of
>> Congress, one can see portions of the original manuscript text that
>> Hening circled with a note to the typesetter that said "Omit" - in at
>> least one case the omitted material supported my interpretation of the
>> structure of the assembly . . . but I digress.
>>
>> Warren Billings's new book (as well as my dissertation and my
>> _Speakers
>> and Clerks of the Virginia House of Burgesses, 1643-1776)) document all
>> this in detail, but in a nutshell:
>>
>> 1619-1642 Unicameral General or Grand Assembly (literally meeting in
>> one
>> room)
>> First General Assembly of 1619 was an expanded meeting of governor and
>> Council with the addition of elected "burgesses" from various of the
>> settlements :
>> the self-styled "Speaker" John Pory was in fact secretary of the
>> colony
>> and a member of the Council, not an elected burgess.
>> the word "burgess" was English parliamentary term for representative
>> from a borough (as opposed to a shire or county) hence it goes along
>> with the early Virginia entities of James City, Charles City, Elizabeth
>> City .... (I dealt with the myth of the county formation in 1634 in an
>> article in Virginia Genealogist back in the 1980s ... formal counties
>> date to the early 1640s, too.)
>> During these decades, the unicameral body was sometimes called the
>> Grand
>> Assembly, burgesses sat together with governor and council, having been
>> elected by various geographical settlements and sometimes by parishes.
>> When using Hening and especially McIlwaine one must be careful not to
>> let _their_ misunderstandings obstruct one's perception of the primary
>> sources . . . . (I addressed this in my introductions to the 2d
>> editions of the (as McIlwaine called them) the Legislative Journals of
>> the Council and the Minutes of the Council and General Court (both
>> reprint editions published about 1979 I think).
>> One also needs to escape the misunderstanding in Robert Beverly's
>> History where he claimed that a House of Burgesses started meeting
>> separately in 1680 - I dealt with that in VMHB back in 70s. Beverley
>> lifted and misunderstood passages from an earlier report by Hartwell,
>> Chilton and Blair.
>>
>> 1643-1776 Bicameral General Assembly comprised of Council and House of
>> Burgesses properly so called.
>> 1643 is first meeting of a bicameral General Assembly with the elected
>> members organized separately as a "lower" house properly called the
>> House of Burgesses - and first real "Speaker" a burgess (unlike Pory)
>>
>> ============
>>
>>
>>>Warren: I am confused. What was the body called from 1619 to 1643?
>>>After 1643 is the colonial legislature a unicameral and then called the
>>>House of Burgesses? Hening, vol. 1, p. 230 mentions in a headnote an
>>>act "signed by the Governor, memebrs of hte Council and House of
>>>Burgesses, and dates at James City, the first day of April 1642." That
>>>would be a year before 1643." That act (also on page 230) says it was
>>>passed by the "We the Governor, Council and Burgesses of the Grand
>>>Assembly in Virginia...." But, 1 Hening 147 (March 24 1629-30) lists
>>>"the names of the Burgesses..."
>>>
>>>So, there were Burgesses in in 1629-30, but were they not yet "the House
>>>of Burgesses"?
>>>
>>>Paul Finkelman
>>>
>>>--
>>>Paul Finkelman
>>>Chapman Distinguished Professor
>>>University of Tulsa College of Law
>>>3120 East 4th Place
>>>Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104-2499
>>>
>>>918-631-3706 (office)
>>>918-631-2194 (fax)
>>>
>>>[log in to unmask]
>>>
>>>Brent Tarter wrote:
>>>
>>>>Va-Hist subscriber Warren Billings asked me to post this to the list,
>>>> as
>>>>he has had some computer difficulty.
>>>>
>>>>Subject: Another bit of pedantry
>>>>Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 09:32:47 -0600
>>>>From: "Dr. Warren M. Billings" <[log in to unmask]>
>>>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Permit me to add another bit of pedantry to the recent postings about
>>>>ecclesiastical law and practices in colonial Virginia
>>>>
>>>>In those discussions, several commentators equate "House of Burgesses"
>>>>with "General Assembly." Those were not synonymous terms. The General
>>>>Assembly, after 1643, consisted of the governor-general, the Council of
>>>>State, and the House of Burgesses, all of whom had to concur before any
>>>>bill passed into law. Constitutionally, therefore, the house could not
>>>>enact laws ex mero motu. Also, the burgesses could not "enforce" the
>>>> law
>>>>of religion or any other for that matter. The power and obligation for
>>>>execution of the statutes in force lay with the colony's magistracy. To
>>>>be sure, many of those magistrates sat on the Council or in the House,
>>>>but when they enforced the law, they did so in their capacity as
>>>> General
>>>>Court judge or justice of the peace, not as councillor of state or
>>>>burgess.
>>>>
>>>>The General Assembly, as Jon Kukla and others have clearly
>>>> demonstrated,
>>>>began as a unicameral body. Thus, there was no House of Burgesses
>>>>between 1619 and 1643, the year Sir William Berkeley encouraged the
>>>>assembly to become bicameral.
>>>>
>>>>Warren M. Billings
>>>>
>>>>Warren M. Billings
>>>>Distinguished Professor
>>>>Department of History
>>>>University of New Orleans
>>>>New Orleans, Louisiana 70148
>>>>
>>>>To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the
>>>>instructions
>>>>at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>>>
>>>To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the
>>> instructions
>>>at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Dr. Jon Kukla, Executive Vice-President
>> Red Hill - The Patrick Henry National Memorial
>> 1250 Red Hill Road
>> Brookneal, Virginia 24528
>> www.redhill.org
>> Phone 434-376-2044 or 800-514-7463
>>
>> Fax 434-376-2647
>>
>> - M. Lynn Davis, Office Manager
>> - Karen Gorham-Smith, Associate Curator
>> - Edith Poindexter, Curator
>>
>> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the
>> instructions
>> at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>
>
> --
> Paul Finkelman
> Chapman Distinguished Professor
> University of Tulsa College of Law
> 3120 East 4th Place
> Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104-2499
>
> 918-631-3706 (office)
> 918-631-2194 (fax)
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
> at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>
>
Dr. Jon Kukla, Executive Vice-President
Red Hill - The Patrick Henry National Memorial
1250 Red Hill Road
Brookneal, Virginia 24528
www.redhill.org
Phone 434-376-2044 or 800-514-7463
Fax 434-376-2647
- M. Lynn Davis, Office Manager
- Karen Gorham-Smith, Associate Curator
- Edith Poindexter, Curator
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
|
