Background
William Rawle was born on April 28, 1759 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Francis Rawle II and Rebecca (Warner) Rawle, and great-grandson of Francis Rawle.
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(Excerpt from Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Cou...)
Excerpt from Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Vol. 4 For an act Of Providence, alone, therefore, they are not answerable. To fix them with liability for mischief done by a flood or storm, there must be a concurrence Of negligence with the act of Providence: and in a proceeding against them to recover damages for such mischief, it is for the jury to in quire whether they have used all proper precautions to prevent consequential 1njury. In a proceeding to recover damages for an injury done to the pier of a bridge, occasioned by the erection of a dam with a sluice or chasm left for rafts, which in a flood directed the volume Of water against the pier, the standard Of dam ages is not the cost of a new pier, unless the Old one should be found altogether worthless. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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(IN GENERAL OF THE NATURE OF COLONIAL GOVERNMENTS, AND OF ...)
IN GENERAL OF THE NATURE OF COLONIAL GOVERNMENTS, AND OF THE BRITISH COLONIES IN NORTH AMERICA. By a constitution we mean the principles on which a government is formed and conducted. On the voluntary association of men in sufficient numbers to form a political community, the first step to be taken for their own security and happiness, is to agree on the terms on which they are to be united and to act. They form a constitution, or plan of government suited to their character, their exigencies, and their future prospects. They agree that it shall be the supreme rule of obligation among them. This is the pure and genuine source of a constitution in the republican form. In other governments the origin of constitutions is not always the same. A successful conqueror establishes such a form of government as he thinks proper. If he deigns to give it the name of a constitution, the people are instructed to consider it as a donation from him; but the danger to his power, generally induces him to withhold an appellation, of which, in his own apprehension, an improper use might be made. In governments purely despotic, we never hear of a constitution. The people are sometimes, however, roused to vindicate their rights, and when their discontents and their power become so great as to prove the necessity of relaxation on the part of the government, or when a favourable juncture happens, of which they prudently avail themselves, a constitution may be exacted, and the government compelled to recognise principles and concede rights in favour of the people. The duration of this relief is wholly dependent upon political events. In some countries the people are able to retain what is thus conceded; in others, the concession is swept away by some abrupt revolution in favour of absolute power, and the country relapses into its former condition. To rectify abuses, without altering the general frame of government, is a task, which though found more difficult, yet is of less dignity and utility, than the formation of a complete constitution. To alter and amend, to introduce new parts into the ancient texture, and particularly new principles of a different and contrary nature, often produces an irregular and discordant composition, which its own confusion renders difficult of execution. The formation of a constitution founded on a single principle, is the more practicable from its greater simplicity
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(Excerpt from An Address Delivered Before the Philadelphia...)
Excerpt from An Address Delivered Before the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture: At Its Anniversary Meeting, January 19, 1819 Of late years these United States have become the general receptacle Of migration. We hear Of no considerable removals from one part of Europe to another, with views of perma nent residence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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William Rawle was born on April 28, 1759 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Francis Rawle II and Rebecca (Warner) Rawle, and great-grandson of Francis Rawle.
William attended the Friends' Academy at Philadelphia until the British evacuation in 1778.
As the family were Loyalists, he followed his step-father, Samuel Shoemaker, who had been mayor of the city under the British military government, to New York City and there entered upon the study of law with John Tabor Kempe, a former attorney-general of the province.
In 1781 he sailed for England, arriving in August, and enrolled as a student in the Middle Temple. While his primary purpose was to complete his legal studies under the most favorable auspices, it is probable that he intended, should the Revolution succeed, to remain there, and his letters afford a valuable source as to contemporary conditions, especially respecting Loyalists. After the Revolution he decided to return to his native city, though he admitted that the step was "in some degree humiliating. " On a passport granted by Franklin on May 8, 1782, he returned to Philadelphia and was there admitted to the bar on September 15, 1783.
In 1786 he became a member of the American Philosophical Society and three years later he was elected to the state legislative assembly. When Benjamin Franklin organized the Society for Political Inquiries, Rawle was invited to join the group. President Washington, then having his official residence in Philadelphia, was one of the members, and probably in this way Rawle came to know him quite well.
In 1791 the President appointed him United States attorney for Pennsylvania. He held the office for more than eight years, during which time the Whiskey Insurrections of 1794 and 1799 occurred, and it fell to him to prosecute the authors, for which purpose the court followed the military to the western part of the state. Rawle's early professional progress was slow and he found time for many other activities, taking, to some extent, the place of the lamented Franklin.
In 1792 he accepted honorary membership in the Maryland Society for "promoting the abolition of slavery, " and from 1818 to the close of his life he was the Society's president. In 1805 he argued against the constitutionality of slavery in the highest court of the state. He was elected a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania in 1795 and held the position nearly forty years. In 1805 he joined the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture and in 1819 delivered the annual address before it.
Also in 1805 he helped to found the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and addressed it in 1807. The same year he was elected an honorary member of the Linn'an Society and on several occasions he served as a director of the Library Company of Philadelphia.
He was a founder in 1820 of the "Society for the Promotion of Legal Knowledge and Forensic Eloquence, " which included the Law Academy, and before the latter in 1832 he delivered his "Discourse on the Nature and Study of the Law. "
In 1822 he became Chancellor of the Society of Associated Members of the Bar, before whom, within the next couple of years, he delivered two notable addresses which were published in 1824. His View of the Constitution of the United States appeared in the following year and was one of the earliest works on that much-discussed theme. Coming from one who had been a Loyalist at least in sympathy it soon attracted wide attention and was used as a textbook in various institutions, including the United States Military Academy.
It passed through two editions and, shortly before the author's death, there was a demand for a third which he was unable to meet. Rawle was the first president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, founded in 1825, and he contributed to it, besides his inaugural discourse, "A Vindication of the Rev. Mr. Heckewelder's History of the Indian Nations"; a "Biographical Sketch of Sir William Keith" ; and "Sketch of the Life of Thomas Mifflin", the first commonwealth governor. He also ventured into the field of religion and left several manuscripts upon theological subjects.
Literature also claimed much of his attention. He wrote some poetry and made a partial translation of Plato's Phaedo.
In 1830 he was appointed one of three commissioners "to revise, collate, and digest" the statutes of Pennsylvania, a task which consumed four years. His last decade was one of steadily failing health, culminating in death at his home in Philadelphia.
(Excerpt from An Address Delivered Before the Philadelphia...)
(IN GENERAL OF THE NATURE OF COLONIAL GOVERNMENTS, AND OF ...)
(Excerpt from Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Cou...)
He retained until the last his connection with the Society of Friends, and he was known as one who lived his religion.
On November 13 he married Sarah Coates Burge. They had twelve children, several of whom predeceased their parents.
