"Can proclamations, according to the principles of reason and justice, and the constitution, go farther than the law?"  Sound like something critics of Washington would say?  Well, not quite.  That was written by Congress – the Second Continental Congress.  The year was 1775. It was in response to a rejection of an entreaty to King George II concerning Parliament's abuse of power in the colonies.  You see, fighting the usurpation of power in America is nothing new.  In fact, it was the defining issue in the founding of our nation.

Almost one year to the day before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, on July 5, 1775, the Second Continental Congress approved the so-called Olive Branch Petition.  It asked King George II to personally intervene in mediating the struggle between the American colonies and England.  Some believed that it was too late for reconciliation; the battles of Lexington, Concord, Ticonderoga, and Bunker Hill had already been fought.  Still, a petition was drafted by a committee whose members included Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay and forwarded to the king, who refused even to hear it.

Knowing, to what violent resentments and incurable animosities, civil discords are apt to exasperate and inflame the contending parties, we think ourselves required by indispensable obligations to Almighty God, to your Majesty, to our fellow subjects, and to ourselves, immediately to use all the means in our power not incompatible with our safety, for stopping the further effusion of blood, and for averting the impending calamities that threaten the British Empire.

This is not the language of rebels.  These men still thought of themselves as loyal subjects of the Crown – subjects suffering what they believed to be injustices that only the king could correct.  The Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, the Intolerable Acts – these were not just laws abhorrent to the colonists; they pointed out a difference in opinion about how the colonies should be governed.

The colonial charters that established the American colonies were contracts in which the colonists pledged allegiance to the king in exchange for his protection.  Although the colonies agreed to live by English law, these agreements did not include Parliament; they were directly to the Crown through colonial self-rule.  Problems arose as Parliament started enacting laws regulating the colonies, because the colonists believed these laws to be illegal – tyrannies not just in what they did, but in who was making them.

What allegiance is it that we forget? Allegiance to Parliament? We never owed – we never owned it. Allegiance to our King? Our words have ever avowed it, – our conduct has ever been consistent with it.  

– Congress's response to King George's rejecting the Olive Branch Petition

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here.  

– The Declaration of Independence

The colonists believed that the king did not appreciate the distinction they saw between being subjects of the Crown and being subject to Parliament, and if they had a chance to air their grievances, the king could help de-escalate the situation in the Americas.  The problem was that he did understand the problem and sided with Parliament.  He declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion.  Congress wrote a response to his rejection of the Olive Branch Petition.  King George II responded with the American Prohibitory Act.

This last act was crucial.  It provided undeniable proof that the king agreed with parliamentary policy toward the colonies and that further entreaties to the Crown were a waste of time.  But it did far more than that – it ordered the blockade of American ports and authorized the hiring of foreign mercenaries to fight on American soil.  Simply put, it was an act of war with the approval of the king.

As such, the Crown itself abrogated the colonial charters by removing its protection.  The colonies no longer owed the Crown their allegiance.  After the American Prohibitory Act was published in the colonies, the colonies' declaring independence was an acknowledgement of what had already happened.

That as to the king, we had been bound to him by allegiance, but that this bond was now dissolved by his assent to the late Act of Parliament by which he declares us out of his protection.

– Proceedings from the Second Continental Congress, regarding the Prohibitory Act of 1775

The American Revolution was not an act of radical men going beyond the law.  Rather, it was an act of men who had tried every means possible to stay within the rule of law.  An unconstitutional regime of proclamations was foisted upon them, and they protested against it.

Today we find ourselves in a similar arrangement, with a government amassing extra-constitutional powers through regulations and executive actions on the one hand while ignoring constitutional bounds in legislative actions and fanciful judicial decisions on the other.  Those who protest such power-grabs are not outside American tradition; they represent it.

America is currently in the midst of heated debate over the direction of the country.  Oftentimes, those who argue for the primacy of the Constitution are thought of as old-fashioned and out of touch with the problems facing the country.  In fact, standing up for constitutional principles is the very spirit that led to our founding.

Let us hope that the story ends differently this time.  Let us hope that the "king" begins to understand the bounds of the contract made with the people and reins in the extra-constitutional forces that have begun to "try men's souls."  It would seem to be common sense to do so.