Details
WAYNE, ANTHONY ("Mad Anthony"), General Continental Army. Eight autograph memoranda recording proceedings and debates of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, probably comprising about 1500 words, n.p., [Philadelphia], 1777-1780. Together approximately 18 pages, folio and 4to, a few minor marginal defects.
One two-page memorandum relates to the career of Nathanael Greene; Wayne praises his "rigid honor & integrity," and recalls that with him, he "participated in every vicissitude of fortune in many a well tried field from the frozen waters of the north to the burning sands of the south...." Other passages, most of them clearly dated, relate to the exposure of Benedict Arnold's treason and a search for any papers or letters bearing on the subject (27 August 1780), the seizure of the estates of "persons who have gone over to the Enemy" (9 July 1778), the election of Joseph Reed to the Council while a member of Congress, which Wayne labels "unconstitutional & nugatory" (21 July 1778), appropriations, banishments and military affairs. In four pages of undated notes, Wayne rails against the denial of the rights of suffrage to soldiers "of the Pennsylvania line...in the late election"; that act, he asserts, was "a violation of the Constitution they were bound to support." He expresses outrage on behalf of "the virtuous Pennsy[lvan]ia veteran who has been fighting & bleeding to Vindicate the Rights & Liberties of America...." A further memorandum appears to constitute a draft of an oath of allegiance to be taken by "every Officer...in authority under this Commonwealth," vowing not to "do any act or thing prejudicial or injurious to the Constitution or government," and to support the "Declaration of Rights, & the frame of Gevernment..." (8)
One two-page memorandum relates to the career of Nathanael Greene; Wayne praises his "rigid honor & integrity," and recalls that with him, he "participated in every vicissitude of fortune in many a well tried field from the frozen waters of the north to the burning sands of the south...." Other passages, most of them clearly dated, relate to the exposure of Benedict Arnold's treason and a search for any papers or letters bearing on the subject (27 August 1780), the seizure of the estates of "persons who have gone over to the Enemy" (9 July 1778), the election of Joseph Reed to the Council while a member of Congress, which Wayne labels "unconstitutional & nugatory" (21 July 1778), appropriations, banishments and military affairs. In four pages of undated notes, Wayne rails against the denial of the rights of suffrage to soldiers "of the Pennsylvania line...in the late election"; that act, he asserts, was "a violation of the Constitution they were bound to support." He expresses outrage on behalf of "the virtuous Pennsy[lvan]ia veteran who has been fighting & bleeding to Vindicate the Rights & Liberties of America...." A further memorandum appears to constitute a draft of an oath of allegiance to be taken by "every Officer...in authority under this Commonwealth," vowing not to "do any act or thing prejudicial or injurious to the Constitution or government," and to support the "Declaration of Rights, & the frame of Gevernment..." (8)