As the revolutionary movement developed and the day of open revolt approached, they chose delegates to national "congresses." The first of these was the Stamp Act Congress called to plan resistance to the tax known as the Stamp Act. Of this Congress the historian Beard rightly says:
"The Stamp Act Congress was more than an assembly of protest, it marked the rise of a new agency of Government to express the will of America. It was THE GERM OF A GOVERNMENT WHICH IN TIME WAS TO SUPERSEDE THE GOVERNMENT OF GEORGE III. IN THE COLONIES."
This is reminiscent of the words of Marx:
"And the clubs, what were they but o coalition of the entire working class against the entire bourgeois class, the formation of a workers' state against the bourgeois state. . . . . so many constituent assemblies of the proletariat and as many detachments of an army of revolt ready for action?"
As to suffrage, there was no pretense of letting anybody vote for these committees of correspondence and congresses except revolutionaries, just as exploiters and counter-revolutionaries were not permitted to vote for delegates to the Soviet congresses. On this Beard says:
"Such agencies were duly formed by the choice of men favoring the scheme, all opponents being excluded from the elections."
The committees of correspondence and Congresses also "passed laws" and the committees executed them by a sort of summary or revolutionary justice which is technically known as "revolutionary terror."
Every one of the "horrors" of the Russian revolution were repeated, including some of which the Russian revolution was innocent. The land and property of the loyalists was confiscated without indemnity. As to freedom of the press:
"Loyalists or Tories who were bold enough to speak and write against the Revolution were suppressed and their pamphlets burned. … A few Tories were hanged without trial, and others were tarred and feathered (this is a peculiar American sport.—B. D. W.). One was placed upon @ cake of ice and held there "until his loyalty to King George might cool." Whole families were driven out of their homes. … Thousands were blacklisted and subjected to espionage. … Those who refused (to support the revolution.—B. D. W.) were promptly branded as outlaws, while some of the more dangerous were thrown into jail. …" (Beard.)
All loyalists were driven out of the State Legislatures much as Cromwell "purged" the Long Parliament, as the Jacobins drove out the delegates of the Girondins or as the Bolsheviks expelled the
