Building a Government During Revolution: Eight Original New Jersey Legislative Manuscripts, 1776–1778
An extraordinary archive of eight original working manuscripts from New Jersey’s Revolutionary legislature, documenting the creation and preservation of civil government during the state’s most dangerous and formative years.
Written principally between 1776 and 1778, these manuscripts address the establishment of New Jersey’s courts following independence, organization of the state militia, creation of an Admiralty Court, administration of public oaths and the problem of Loyalist influence within the new government.
The collection’s centerpiece is “An Act to Confirm & Establish the Several Courts of Justice Within this State,” reported September 30, 1776, and ordered to be engrossed. Written less than three months after American independence, it explicitly invokes:
“the Declaration of Independency lately made by the Honourable the Continental Congress”
The act ensured that New Jersey’s courts, officers and pending legal proceedings would continue despite the transfer of authority from the British Crown to the independent state.
Another major manuscript, “An Act to Regulate the New Jersey Militia,” addresses the state’s urgent need to organize troops while British and American forces contested New Jersey. Detailed provisions concern companies, battalions, officers, equipment, exemptions, fines and military service.
Two related security and allegiance acts reveal the new state’s concern over Loyalist influence. Jurors, attorneys, public officers and other persons occupying positions of trust were required to swear allegiance to New Jersey and renounce allegiance to the British Crown. One remarkable passage discusses schoolmasters and the need to protect the rising generation from arbitrary principles while educating them in:
“the amiable Ideas of Liberty & Republican Virtue.”
The archive also contains an early manuscript act establishing New Jersey’s Court of Admiralty, which adjudicated maritime prizes and captured enemy property during the Revolutionary War.
These are not ordinary transcriptions. They are working instruments of government, filled with deletions, substitutions, interlineations and marginal additions. They preserve the legislative process as New Jersey’s lawmakers struggled to convert revolutionary principles into a functioning system of courts, military organization and republican government.
Archive includes:
- Act confirming and establishing New Jersey’s courts, September 30, 1776
- Supplementary act regulating small-causes courts
- Draft requiring jurors to take oaths of allegiance
- Act requiring designated persons to take oaths of abjuration and allegiance
- Multi-page act regulating the New Jersey militia
- Multi-page act securing the government of New Jersey
- Act directing public officers to take official oaths
- Act establishing a New Jersey Court of Admiralty
Condition: Manuscripts on period laid paper with original deckled edges and filing folds. Expected toning, scattered stains, edge wear, small losses and occasional fold separations are present. Numerous corrections, cancellations and interlineations are intrinsic to the documents’ legislative use. Overall, the writing is exceptionally well preserved and substantially legible.
An extraordinary archive of eight original working manuscripts from New Jersey’s Revolutionary legislature, documenting the creation and preservation of civil government during the state’s most dangerous and formative years.
Written principally between 1776 and 1778, these manuscripts address the establishment of New Jersey’s courts following independence, organization of the state militia, creation of an Admiralty Court, administration of public oaths and the problem of Loyalist influence within the new government.
The collection’s centerpiece is “An Act to Confirm & Establish the Several Courts of Justice Within this State,” reported September 30, 1776, and ordered to be engrossed. Written less than three months after American independence, it explicitly invokes:
“the Declaration of Independency lately made by the Honourable the Continental Congress”
The act ensured that New Jersey’s courts, officers and pending legal proceedings would continue despite the transfer of authority from the British Crown to the independent state.
Another major manuscript, “An Act to Regulate the New Jersey Militia,” addresses the state’s urgent need to organize troops while British and American forces contested New Jersey. Detailed provisions concern companies, battalions, officers, equipment, exemptions, fines and military service.
Two related security and allegiance acts reveal the new state’s concern over Loyalist influence. Jurors, attorneys, public officers and other persons occupying positions of trust were required to swear allegiance to New Jersey and renounce allegiance to the British Crown. One remarkable passage discusses schoolmasters and the need to protect the rising generation from arbitrary principles while educating them in:
“the amiable Ideas of Liberty & Republican Virtue.”
The archive also contains an early manuscript act establishing New Jersey’s Court of Admiralty, which adjudicated maritime prizes and captured enemy property during the Revolutionary War.
These are not ordinary transcriptions. They are working instruments of government, filled with deletions, substitutions, interlineations and marginal additions. They preserve the legislative process as New Jersey’s lawmakers struggled to convert revolutionary principles into a functioning system of courts, military organization and republican government.
Archive includes:
- Act confirming and establishing New Jersey’s courts, September 30, 1776
- Supplementary act regulating small-causes courts
- Draft requiring jurors to take oaths of allegiance
- Act requiring designated persons to take oaths of abjuration and allegiance
- Multi-page act regulating the New Jersey militia
- Multi-page act securing the government of New Jersey
- Act directing public officers to take official oaths
- Act establishing a New Jersey Court of Admiralty
Condition: Manuscripts on period laid paper with original deckled edges and filing folds. Expected toning, scattered stains, edge wear, small losses and occasional fold separations are present. Numerous corrections, cancellations and interlineations are intrinsic to the documents’ legislative use. Overall, the writing is exceptionally well preserved and substantially legible.
