FRtR > Documents > Johnson on Biennial Act
Governor Gabriel Johnston's request
to repeal the North Carolina Biennal act,
18 October 1736
*** Quote
* Context ***
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 mett 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 Representa
tion.
- The whole lower House by this means consists of
forty six and it is impossible to pick out in the whole
Province so many fitt 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may be lost but I may have this Repealed by the way of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. . .