Joseph Hawley'S Criticism of the Constitution of Massachusetts, Volume 3,&Nbsp;Issue 1
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
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Joseph Hawley was an American lawyer. He was a politician leader in Northampton and throughout western Massachusetts.
Background
Joseph Hawley was born on October 8, 1723, in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States, the son of Joseph and Rebekah Hawley. Through his father he was descended from Thomas Hawley who with his brother Joseph came to America in 1629; his maternal grandfather was the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, for nearly sixty years pastor of the Northampton church and a religious leader in western Massachusetts. On the maternal side also he was a cousin of Colonel Israel Williams of Hatfield, Massachusetts, and of Jonathan Edwards
Education
After attending the schools of Northampton Joseph entered Yale College in 1739 and was graduated in 1742. He planned to enter the ministry and may have studied for a time with Jonathan Edwards.
Career
Joseph Hawley served as chaplain of one of the Massachusetts regiments against Louisbourg in 1745, but his experiences on the expedition and his conversion to Arminianism turned him from theology to law. Soon after his return from Louisbourg he began his law studies and in 1749 was admitted to the bar. Eventually he became one of its leaders in western Massachusetts and did a great deal to raise the standing of the profession. During the dispute between the Northampton church and its pastor, Jonathan Edwards, in 1749-1750, Hawley led the group opposed to Edwards and was largely influential in his dismissal from the church. Hawley’s headstrong and impetuous conduct in the affair was long a reason for self-reproach. Thereafter he served on the Northampton board of selectmen with but few interruptions from 1747 until his death, and during most of the time as chairman.
In 1754 Hawley was commissioned a major of Hampshire County and, without actually participating in the fighting, he was active throughout the French and Indian War in matters of organization and supply. He was elected to the Massachusetts General Court in 1751, 1754, and 1755 but played an unimportant part. He became associated on equal terms with Otis and the Adamses in their constant opposition to the royal power. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson attributed many of the difficulties of the time to Hawley’s influence, but recognized that unlike some of the other leaders he was not the complete partisan. Hawley worked sincerely for political freedom. He was elected to the Continental Congress but declined to serve, presumably because of ill health, and John Adams was elected in his place. At Philadelphia Adams soon received from Hawley a searching analysis of the colonial situation with an exhortation for resistance to the limit unless Great Britain yielded to the American demands.
Between 1774 and 1776 Hawley served on all the important committees of the province and was besides the guiding spirit of the Revolution in the Connecticut Valley. For many months before July 4, 1776, his constant letters to the Adamses, Thomas Cushing, and Elbridge Gerry at the Continental Congress urged a declaration of independence and the setting up of a unified colonial government. Unfortunately his exertions in the cause of the Revolution undermined his health, and in 1776 he fell a victim to the family’s curse of insanity. While the remainder of his life was spent in retirement, he was able in 1780 to write from a liberal standpoint a vigorous criticism of the Massachusetts constitution. At his death in 1788 his estate was left to Northampton for the support of education.