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Lahmann v. Grand Aerie of Fraternal Order of Eagles10/12/2005
of concerns of provincial import, particularly relations with the crown, rested on the collective shoulders of townspeople gathered in local assemblies. Id. at 291. Individuals within the town meeting drew up instructions for the town's representative to the provincial body, "and these would then be debated and voted upon by the entire town meeting." Id. In addition to managing the town's internal affairs, townspeople developed positions on matters of regional importance and, at times, instructed representatives to take positions directly opposing the British Parliament. See, e.g., John Adams, Instructions of the Town of Braintree to Their Representative Ebenezer Thayer, Charles F. Adams ed., 3 The Works of John Adams 465, 467 (1851)(urging noncompliance with the Stamp Act of 1765).
Attempts by the British government to ban town assemblies in Massachusetts catalyzed the Revolution. In 1774, the so-called Intolerable Acts required appointment of council representatives by royal writ rather than election and starkly limited town meetings to a single, annual gathering for the election of assembly representatives. Monsell, 29 New Eng L Rev at 293. The towns continued to meet in defiance of the British mandate. Id. That year, representatives from every colony except Georgia met in Philadelphia at the First Continental Congress to protest the Intolerable Acts, define America's rights, and limit British power. See generally Erwin C. Surrency, The Transition from Colonialism to Independence, 46 Am J Legal Hist 55 (2004). The Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress recited that "assemblies have been frequently dissolved, contrary to the rights of the people, when they attempted to deliberate on grievances," and proclaimed: "The inhabitants of the English colonies * * * have a right peaceably to assemble, consider of their grievances, and petition the king; and that all prosecutions, prohibitory proclamations, and commitments for the same, are illegal." Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress, 1774, reprinted in Bernard Schwartz, 1 The Bill of Rights: A Documentary History 215, 216, 217 (1971). Shortly thereafter, the Declaration of Independence lamented the failure of the British government to answer the concerns of the colonies, stating that colonists' "repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury," and the Revolutionary War ensued.
In the decades after the war, the colonies-turned-states explicitly reserved to the people the right to assemble and instruct (or petition) their political representatives. For example, Article 19 of the Declaration of Rights in the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 guaranteed the right of the people to assemble in towns for the purpose of consulting about the "common good," in phrasing very similar to Oregon's Article I, section 26:
"The people have a right, in an orderly and peaceable manner, to assemble to consult upon the
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