Hanna's Town Resolves

On May 16, 1775, settlers in the far west of Pennsylvania, along with Arthur St. Clair (The Penn government’s local representative) gathered at the tavern “also serving as the seat of government” in Hanna's Town and affixed their names to the Hanna's Town Resolves agreeing to bind themselves together and to take up arms if necessary to resist further "tyrannical" acts of Parliament. More than a year later, the Declaration of Independence would be signed in Philadelphia.

The full and original text of the Hanna’s Town Resolves are included here. There is also a more detailed history of the place and time at the end of this article.

The Hanna's Town Resolves

"Resolved unanimously, That the Parliament of Great Britain, by several late acts, have declared the inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay to be in Rebellion, and the ministry, by endeavoring to enforce those acts, have attempted to reduce the said inhabitants to a more wretched state of slavery than ever before existed in any state or country. Not content with violating their constitutional and chartered privileges, they would strip them of the rights of humanity, exposing lives to the wanton and unpunishable sport of licentious soldiery, and depriving them of the very means of subsistence." "Resolved unanimously, That there is no reason to doubt that the same system of tyranny and oppression will (should it meet with success in Massachusetts Bay) be extended to every other part of America: It is therefore become the indispensable duty of every American, of every man who has any public virtue or love for his country, or any bowels for posterity, by every means which God has put in his power, to resist and oppose the execution of it; that for us we will be ready to oppose it with our lives and fortunes. And the better to enable us to accomplish it, we will immediately form ourselves into a military body, to consist of companies to be made up out of the several townships under the following association, which is declared to be the Association of Westmoreland County." "Possessed with the most unshaken loyalty and fidelity to His Majesty, King George the Third, whom we acknowledge to be our lawful and rightful King, and who we wish may long be the beloved sovereign of a free and happy people throughout the whole British Empire; we declare to the world, that we do not mean by this Association to deviate from that loyalty which we hold in our bounded duty to observe, but, animated with the love of liberty, it is no less our duty to maintain and defend our just rights (which, with sorrow, we have seen of late wantonly violated in many instances by a wicked Ministry and a corrupted Parliament) and transmit them to our posterity, for purpose which we do agree and associate together:" "1st. To arm and form ourselves into a regiment or regiments, and choose officers to command us in such proportions as shall be thought necessary." "2nd. We will, with alacrity, endeavor to make ourselves masters of the manual exercise, and such evolutions as may be necessary to enable us to act in a body with concert; and to that end we will meet at such times and places as shall be appointed either for the companies or the regiment, by the officers commanding each when chosen." "3rd. That should our country be invaded by a foreign enemy, or should troops be sent from Great Britain to enforce the late arbitrary acts of its Parliament, we will cheerfully submit to military discipline, and to the utmost of our power resist and oppose them, or either of them, and will coincide with any plan that may be formed for the defense of America in general, or Pennsylvania in particular." "4th. That we do not wish or desire any innovations, but only that things may be restored to, and go on in the same way as before the era of the Stamp Act, when Boston grew great, and America was happy. As a proof of this disposition, we will quietly submit to the laws by which we have been accustomed to be governed before that period, and will, in our general or associate capacities, be ready when called on to assist the civil magistrate in carrying the same in execution.'' "5th. That when the British Parliament shall have repealed their late obnoxious statutes, and shall recede from their claim to tax us, and make laws for us in every instance; or when some general plan of union and reconciliation has been formed and accepted by America, this our Association shall be dissolved; but till then it shall remain in full force; and to the observation of it, we bind ourselves by everything dear and sacred amongst men." "No licensed murder: no famine introduced by law? "Resolved that on Wednesday, the twenty-fourth instant, the township meets to accede to the said Association and choose their officer." Adopted at a general meeting of the inhabitants of the County of Westmoreland, held at Hanna's Town the 16th day of May, 1775 for taking into consideration the very alarming situation of the country, occasioned by the dispute with Great Britain.

Early History of Westmoreland County

Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania was the last county established under the Penn proprietary government during the tumultuous final years of British rule prior to the outbreak of the American Revolution. I was probably named after Westmoreland county in northwestern England, but the origins of the word: “west of the dark land” were appropriate for this Westernmost land of King George’s land.

Nearly a century and a half passed from the time of the founding of the first permanent English colony at Jamestown, Virginia (1607) before Europeans entered the land west of the Allegheny Mountains and into what is now western Pennsylvania. That account is detailed in the diary of Christopher Gist, surveyor and agent for the Ohio Company of Virginia, who on November 12 through 14, 1750, stayed at a Delaware Indian town at Loyalhannon, near present day Ligonier, Pennsylvania. The first white settlement within the region of old Westmoreland was sponsored by the Ohio Company in what is present day Fayette County in 1752. Virginia continued to lay claim to the region through the onset of the American Revolution.

General Braddock's ill-fated 1755 military expedition to dislodge the French and their Indian allies at Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) established a major transportation artery, Braddock's Road, into Western Pennsylvania. This military road, from Virginia through Cumberland, Maryland provided easy access to Western Pennsylvania for immigrants from Maryland, Virginia and the western Carolinas. It was not until General Forbes built a military road from Carlisle, Pennsylvania to present-day Pittsburgh in 1758, that the door was opened for settlers from eastern Pennsylvania to start settlements in what is now Westmoreland County. The Forbes Road, or the "Great Road" as it was known to the thousands of settlers to follow, entered present-day Westmoreland County at the top of the Laurel Ridge near where a fort was constructed. It was named Fort Ligonier by General Forbes in honor of Sir John Viscount Ligonier, Commander-in-Chief of all of the kings forces. By the fall of 1758, Fort Ligonier was the military springboard for the assault on Fort Duquesne that drove the French from western Pennsylvania. The Forbes Road continued from Ligonier through present-day Hanna's Town (near Greensburg, Pennsylvania) and on to the forks of the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio Rivers where General Forbes would rename the captured French fort, "Pittsbourgh" in honor of the British Prime Minister William Pitt. By eighteenth century frontier standards, the Forbes Road provided a "superhighway" into the western Pennsylvania wilderness. The duel for North America between England and France known to the Americans as the French and Indian War, ended in victory for the British in 1763.

The end of the French and Indian War resulted in the British government issuing the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Issued to placate the Native American tribes who were complaining about the encroachment of white settlers on their lands, the act forbade English settlement beyond the head waters draining into the Atlantic Ocean from the Crest of Laurel Hill. Neither the threats of arrest nor later enactment of a death penalty for violators of the law stopped squatters and some early traders from moving into the area. Fueled by glowing accounts of the land to the west, taken back east by the soldiers of Braddock and Bouquet's armies, settlers poured into western Pennsylvania in pursuit of land.

As the area of Westmoreland County began to be settled, the composition of the population began to take shape. In the main they were the landless, the disinherited and the disenfranchised. They were bold, aggressive, hardy, courageous and self-reliant. They often had little respect for authority or title. Having experienced arbitrary and capricious government in England, they were zealous defenders of personal liberty and self-government. Ethnically, the
majority of the population in early Westmoreland was composed of Scotch-Irish, German and English settlers.

Westmoreland County Created

The Penn government soon found it necessary to create a new county, both to establish the province's ownership of the land and to establish law and order in an area, where many unruly individuals cared little about civil law or the laws concerning land ownership. The same statute that created Westmoreland County also designated Hanna's Town along the Forbes Road, as the
temporary county seat. Robert Hanna and town residents Joseph Erwin and Samuel Sloan were appointed along with George Wilson and John Cavett as trustees to choose a permanent county seat. Hanna and his neighbors outvoted Wilson and Cavett who favored Pittsburgh. It was in Robert Hanna's tavern, on April 6, 1773, that the first English court west of the Alleghenies was organized with Robert Hanna as presiding judge.

Westmoreland County and the New Republic

In addition to the Hanna’s Town Resolves, a second event relative to Westmoreland's role in the American Revolution occurred during the brief life of Hanna's Town when some officers and men of the British Indian Department and their Seneca Indian allies attacked and burned Hanna's Town on July 13, 1782 in retaliation for American atrocities committed against them. Although rebuilt to some degree, the town never recovered. Archaeological surveys begun in 1969 have resulted in a partial reconstruction of the town and its stockade. The site is a designated National Historic Registered Site as well as a Westmoreland County Park and is administered by the Westmoreland County Historical Society. The need to re-establish the county, seat resulted in a committee of trustees, appointed by the General Assembly, selecting Greensburg (then called New-town) as the new county seat. Greensburg was located on the new state road which ran from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. Parts of this road would later become the Lincoln Highway. The first court at the new county seat was held on January 7, 1787 in a log building on the site of the present court house. Rapid growth and the press of county business resulted in the construction of new courthouses on the same site in 1798, 1856 and the present French Renaissance structure completed in 1907. After the Colonial War for Independence, Westmoreland, the "mother county", gave "birth" in their entirety, to five counties that were carved from her original boundaries - Allegheny, Armstrong, Fayette, Indiana and Washington. After 1800, eleven other counties in the western section of Pennsylvania - Beaver, Butler, Clarion, Crawford, Erie, Forest, Greene, Lawrence, Mercer, Venango, and Warren - were created in part from these counties making Old Westmoreland a "grandmother" county as well.

Findley, whose home was along the Loyalhanna Creek near Latrobe, served as Westmoreland County's first Congressman. A staunch anti-Federalist, he was elected to Congress in 1791 and served for twenty-two years. Findley opposed the tax on whiskey levied during Washington's administration. He also opposed the shortlived Whiskey Rebellion that followed.

Adapted from “WESTMORELAND COUNTY A Short History” Prepared by the Westmoreland County Historical Society 1997. http://www.starofthewest.org/images/shorthistory.pdf

Ancient Mesopatanian Democracy?

In searching East and West for original democratic traditions, one need not retreat when confronted with monarchy, aristocracy, nobility, or slavery. In fact, the search must begin in the East, not the West, for it is in the East that early original egalitarian societies first developed hierarchies and blossomed into mature civilisations, clustered around life-giving sources of water which provided not only irrigation but also arteries of commerce and communication, stimulating urbanisation.
In fact, the earliest such civilisation, Mesopotamia, was named for its position between the two great rivers the Tigris and the Euphrates (Greek mesos, middle, and potamos, river). It is the earliest prototype for Wittfogel's "hydraulic society", which necessitates and produces Oriental despotic power - "total and not benevolent".(2) Indeed, the most common recollections of Mesopotamia are those of original imperial despotisms.
However, the story of the birth of an empire, focusing on the forces that it took to weld it out of scattered communities, may not bother to look unto the character of the original communities. It was, in fact, the search for steady irrigation that brought farming communities to the alluvial lowlands of the Tigris-Euphrates system around 4000 B.C. In apparent contradiction to the Wittfogel theory, there was no spontaneous growth of centralized despotism among them - only villages that "were relatively self-sufficient and politically autonomous".(3) 500 years later, they developed their first cities, and still 500 years later, they put together the first known system of handwriting.
At that point, Service points out, "we merge archaeology (prehistory) with documentary history. It is documentary history that tells us of life and government in the Mesopotamian cities".
A. Leo Oppenheim writes of the coexistence of two components in Mesopatamian society, in a "pattern (which) maintained its effectiveness through three millennia". First there was:
" the community of persons of equal status bound together by a consciousness of belonging, realized by directing their communal affairs by means of an assembly, in which, under a presiding officer, some measure of consensus was reached as it was the case in the rich and quasi-independent old cities of Babylonia."(4)
Side by side with this democratic configuration, there was a second "organization of persons entirely different in structure and temperament from the community just mentioned, whose center and raison d'etre was either the temple or the palace, either the household of the deity or that of the king". Here, then, we have an early instance of a kingdom, within the tight confines of its city-state where the population was within reach of the royal power, which not only tolerated but complemented an operative popular sovereignty. "The solidarity of a Mesopotamian city," observes Oppenheim, "is reflected in the absence of any status or ethnic or tribal articulation". The city's community of citizens "constituted as an assembly" not only administered the city under a presiding official, but also made legal decisions, some of them ceremonially confirmed by the king. Its coexistence with the temple-palace system created for the Mesopotamian city "an equilibrium of forces and an overall harmony that endowed the city with the longevity which the Greek Polis could not achieve"(5)
However, it is another anthropologist, Thorkild Jacobsen, who provides us with deeper, and more sanguine, insights into the democratic character of Ancient Mesopotamia. Jacobsen read a paper entitled, "Primitive Democracy in Ancient Mesopotamia" at the meeting of the American Oriental Society in Chicago in April, 1941. His "primitive" is more substance than form, where "sovereignty resides in the citizens", but "the various functions of government are as yet little specialized, the power structure is loose, and the machinery for social coordination is as yet imperfectly developed". He then portrays a Mesopotamia where the classic historical confrontation between democratic and autocratic tendencies takes place. The autocratic drive was strong: "The country formed a mosaic of diminutive, self-sufficient autonomous city-states, and in each such state one individual, the ruler, united in his hands the chief political powers: legislative, judiciary and executive". This autocratic momentum "drove Mesopotamia forward relentlessly toward the more distant aim: centralization of power within one large area". Lugal-Zaggisi achieved this goal with his "activities imperial", followed by King Sargon and the highly organized bureaucratic state of the Third Dynasty of Ur.(6)
Working its way up against this autocratic downstream was the egalitarian instinct of the original society, producing seemingly anachronistic democratic institutions. In Assyria, the highest judicial authority was a general assembly of all the colonists: karum sahir rabi - "the colony young and old" - which could be called into session by a clerk only at the bidding of a majority of its senior members. If the clerk issues the call at the request of only one individual, he was fined ten shekels of silver! Besides discharging judicial functions, the general assembly had its political duties. For example, it could overrule objections of particular colonists to the coming commissaries sent by the legal authorities of the mother-city Assur.
In Babylonia, where "we are very naturally struck first of all by the degree to which royal power is there in evidence", anyone had recourse directly to the king for redress, and he could delegate each case to suitable courts for decision. But alongside the king and his judicial powers stood "the Babylonian city", whose town mayor and town elders settled minor disputes and where the whole town - Puhrum, the "assembly" - decided important cases "according to its own local ideas of right and wrong".
To prove that participation in the Puhrum and its judicial function was not limited to a favoured class but was open, perhaps with some degree of compulsion, to all citizens, Jacobsen quotes a Babylonian proverb which presages modern day counsel from stand-up comedians to potential witness summons dodgers and jury-duty evaders:Do not go stand in the assemblyDo not stray to the very place of strifeIt is precisely in strife that fate may overtake you;Besides, you may be made witness for them.So that they take you along to testify in a lawsuitNot your own.(6)
Jacobsen believes that these democratic judicial institutions were not the vanguard of a vigorous democratic thrust, but rather "a last stronghold, a stubborn survival, of ideas rooted in earlier ages". Thus, perhaps unwittingly, he refutes those who, whilst ostensibly advocating support of democracy for all nations, insist that it can only come with growth, progress and development.
As Jacobsen looks backward in time at Mesopotamian history, "the competence and influence of the 'assembly' appears to grow and to extend from judiciary functions to other, even more vital, aspects of government". In the days of the kings of Akkad, "the assembly deemed it within its authority to choose a king". Farther back, in older tradition concerning Uruk in the time of Gilgamesh, "beyond the border line of history proper", the ruler consults the assembly in important matters of peace and war. Gilgamesh, lord of Uruk, is remembered as consulting first the senate, "the elders of Uruk", and then the assembly, "the men of the town", before he decides to arm for a fight with King Agga of Kish. His consultation is not only for advice but for consent, and, Jacobsen correctly concludes, the assembly is recognised as "the ultimate political authority".(7)
The success of the early Mesopotamian democratic thrust appears to be traceable to the fact that the egalitarian values of the primitive population were successfully translated into religious legend.
The Sumerians and the Akkadians projected their human terrestrial conditions into their world of gods and goddesses, who reflected early Mesopotamian culture by organising themselves politically along democratic lines. There was, according to the Adad myth, an assembly of gods and goddesses usually held in a large court called Ubshuukkinna.
An, the god of heaven and "father of the gods", was their presiding officer, and Enlil, god of the storm, was their executive officer and discussion leader. There were fifty "senior gods" - corresponding to the earthly seniors in the Assyrian karum - who handled the discussion, and seven deciding "gods of fates", corresponding to the group of seven members of the karum entitled to seal documents.
The assembly's functions were not only judicial. It also had the authority to grant kingship and to take it back. The period of the kingship was called a bala, the same word applied to the term of earthly Sumerian kings and - in its altered form palu - to that of the rulers of Akkad.
The elections of Mesopotamian kings of that period were dramatically confirmed as late as 1976 by the excavations which yielded the remains of the lost kingdom of Ebla, which flourished in 2500 B.C., a "large and thriving commercial, administrative, and intellectual center with economic and political institutions that sound remarkably familiar".(8)
The diggings yielded some 15,000 clay tablets or fragments written in Sumerian cuneiform. The king of Elba, according to the records discovered in the palace archives, was elected for a seven-year term and shared power with a council of elders. The King, (we would probably call him president today) who lost reelection bids retired on a government pension!
What is involved here is not a primitive, prehierarchical society or a hierarchical society of limited scope, - such as a village or even a town or city-state. Ebla, whose existence had long been inferred from Mesopotamian literature, now rises in history, through its own records, as a fairly extended kingdom of at least 250,000 inhabitants - a large population in those days - with a capital city of 30,000 residents "of whom a eleven thousand seven hundred were civil servants". It was a society of highly organized sophistication. The findings included Sumerian-Eblaite dictionaries of more than 3000 words, expense accounts of traveling diplomats, and even a list of beers, one of which was called ebla, "pronounced just like the city", write Bermant and Weitzman, venturing to add the obvious observation. "could it have been the beer that made Ebla famous?"(9)
Ebla appears to have hosted international conferences and dominated many other kingdoms and cities politically and economically. Among its principal trading partners were the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, whose historical reality had been doubted until now.
So the thrust of Mesopotamian democracy, which even its enthusiastic commentator Jacobsen would cautiously trace as a declining tradition from "beyond the border line of history proper", now receives even stronger confirmation in recorded history than that which already had been found for it by Jacobsen and, after him, Oppenheim.
A little less than 4000 years before the maturing of British Parliamentarianism, the founding of the Swiss Confederation, and the birth of the American republic, we find in Mesopotamia a likeness of a political system which, although with much cruder and broader strokes of the brush, strikingly resembles the finer lines of the Swiss and American written constitutions and the unwritten charter of the British system.
On one fine but crucial point the Mesopotamian democracy may have been superior to at least the current Swiss system. The Puhrum, or assembly of the Babylonian gods, was open to goddesses. An old Babylonian hymn, the song of the goddess Ishtar, relates that "in their (i.e. that gods') assembly her word is highly esteemed, is surpassing; she sits among them counting as much (with them) as Anum, their king".(10) If the reality of the Babylonian system was, as we have seen above, but a reflection of the democratic legends of the Babylonian deities, the women may have participated in the earthly Puhrum. In Switzerland, women received the right to vote in the constitution only in 1971, and up to this writing they may not vote or even participate in some cantons in those open-air, popular assemblies for which Switzerland has had such a rightful claim to fame.
The Eblan discovery, as well as the Oppenheim and Jacobsen theses, may now enable us to cross the line between substance and form. As we move from the cradle of civilization to its neighbour, India, we may perhaps begin to feel entitled to suspect that, whether in form or substance, democracy may have been, indeed, the natural state of early man wherever he may have been.

This article is Chapter 3 from the late Raul S. Manglapus' book Will of the People: Original Democracy in Non-Western Societies. Manglapus' overall thesis is that democracy is not a Western concept but "a value that has been treasured and practiced in the East - in Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere - as far back as at least 2500 B.C." With impressive research through eighteen case studies in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, he argues persuasively that democracy is the natural state of most of mankind. He says it was practiced naturally in the earliest tribes and villages through among other things, discussion, consensus and customary law and that it preceded despotism in all civilisations. In the chapter we have reproduced, slightly edited, below, Manglapus argues that the earliest formal democracy gradually developed in Mesopotamia, that is today's Iraq, between 2500 and 4000 B.C.

Freedom House, New York, 1987. Manglapus was a lawyer, Philippine senator, and a Foreign Secretary under President Corazon Aquino. He founded and led the Philippine Progressive Party (PPP), and under its banner unsuccessfully ran for president. In the post-Marcos era, he founded the National Union of Christian Democrats (NUCD) which supported presidents Aquino, Ramos and Arroyo. Early in his career, he became the secretary-general in 1954 of the founding conference of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) and the following year vice chairman of the Philippine delegation to the famous Asian-African Conference at Bandung, Indonesia. He wrote Will of the People while in exile during the Marcos years. His hands-on research took him to every country and region of the world he discusses. Manglapus visited Melbourne in September 1966 and a luncheon in his honour was organised by our editor and a number of other people in the process of establishing the Pacific Institute, a regional organisation dedicated to the development of liberal democratic institutions of which Manglapus was to become an active member and our editor its secretary general. Mesopotamia: Earlist Formal Democracy? By Raul S. Manglapus

2 See Karl S. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1957

3 Elman R. Service, Origins of the State and Civilization, Norton, New York, 1975, p.20.

4 A. Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1964, p.95.

5 Oppenheim, p.114.

6 See Journal of Near Eastern Studies, July 1943, pp.159ff.

6 Jacobsen, p.25.

7 Jacobsen, p.161.

8 Chaim Bermant and Michael Weitzman, Ebla: A Revelation in Archaeology, excerpted in the New York Times, 16th January 1979, p.C-1.

9 Bermant and Weitzman, p. 159.

10 Jacobsen, p.163.

THE DEATH OF VERGINIA

APPIUS CLAUDIUS did not go to the war. He stayed in Rome, and before long roused the temper of the people beyond control.
Verginius, a brave plebeian soldier, was with the army, and in his absence he had left his beautiful young daughter Verginia in the care of her nurse.
One day as the young girl was on her way to school in the Forum, Appius Claudius saw how beautiful she was, and he determined to take her away from her father and Icilius, to whom she was betrothed.
But although he did his utmost to persuade the maiden to go home with him, Verginia refused to leave her father's house.
Then Appius Claudius grew angry, and vowed to himself that he would take her away by foul means, since fair ones had failed.
So the tyrant ordered a man, named Marcus Claudius, to declare that Verginia was not a free Roman maiden, as Verginius had pretended, but was a slave belonging to himself.
This Marcus did, and then, seeing the girl one day in the Forum, he tried to lay hold of her. But her nurse cried aloud for help, so that a crowd quickly gathered, and hearing what had happened, it vowed to protect Verginia, until her father and her betrothed returned from the camp.
Then Marcius did as Appius Claudius had secretly bidden him. He said that he did not wish to harm the maiden, indeed, he was even willing to take the matter to law.
So, followed by the crowd, he led Verginia before the judge, who was no other than Appius Claudius.
Here Marcus announced that he could prove to Verginius that the maiden was not really his child, but belonged to a slave who lived in his house. Meanwhile he demanded that the maiden should be given into his charge.
But the crowd did not believe what Marcus said, nor did they care to let the young girl leave her home in her father's absence.
"Send to the camp for Verginius," cried the people, heedless of the angry looks of the judge. "Verginia is a free maiden, and shall stay with her friends until she is proved a slave."
With an effort, Appius Claudius concealed his real feelings, and, speaking with the dignity of a judge, he said: "The maiden belongs either to Verginius or to Marcus. As Verginius is absent, Marcus shall take charge of her until her father returns, when the case shall again come before me."
But to such an unfair sentence the people refused to submit. So fierce was their temper that they would have forced Claudius to leave the city had he not reluctantly allowed Verginia to stay with her friends until the following day. If Verginius did not then appear at his tribunal Marcus should claim the maiden without delay, said Claudius.
Icilius had by this time returned to the city, and he at once sent to the camp, beseeching Verginius to let nothing keep him from at once coming to Rome.
But Claudius also sent a messenger to the camp, bidding his officers on no account to allow Verginius to leave his post.
Fortunately, the messenger sent by Icilius reached the camp first, and Verginius was already hastening to the city when his officer received the order sent by Claudius.
The next morning Claudius went to the Forum, sure that before the day was over he would have secured Verginia.
What was his surprise and anger to see that Verginius, whom he had believed to be safely detained at camp, was [82] already there by the side of his daughter, accompanied by many Roman matrons and a crowd of people.
The judge could hear the voice of Verginius as he drew near. He was speaking to the people, and Claudius knew too well how easily the passions of the mob could be roused.
"It is not only my daughter that is not safe," Verginius was saying; "who will dare henceforth to leave their children in Rome if I am robbed of my child?"
As the matrons listened they wept, thinking of the fate that might overtake their own dear daughters.
Claudius was now much too angry to try to humour the people.
Bidding Verginius be silent, he at once gave his verdict that the maiden should be given to Marcus, until her father had proved that she was free-born.
The people stood silent, stunned for the moment by the wickedness of the judge. But as Marcus drew near to lead Verginia away, her friends gathered around her, refusing to let the man come near her.
Then, in his rage, Claudius bade his lictors drive the people away, and they, raising their axes, soon scattered the crowd, for it was unarmed.
Verginius, turning quietly to Claudius, asked that he might at least speak apart for a moment to his daughter and her nurse. His request was granted. Then the poor father in his desperate sorrow knew that there was but one thing to be done. To trust his daughter to these wicked men was not to be thought of, so, drawing her into his arms, he snatched a knife from one of the stalls, and whispered in her ear: "My child, there is no other way to free thee." Swift and sure, even as he spoke, he plunged the knife into his daughter's heart.
Turning to the unjust judge, Verginius cursed him to his face; then breaking through the crowd, he sped to the city gates, and mounting a horse, rode in hot haste back to the camp.
Meanwhile, Icilius lifted the dead body of the maiden, and bade the people see what the tyrant Claudius had done.
In fierce anger, the crowd rushed upon the lictors and a band of armed patricians and drove them from the Forum. Claudius, covering his face with his toga, fled, and for the time escaped with his life.
Verginius had no sooner reached the camp than he told his piteous tale to the army. Willingly the soldiers marched to Rome, led by the miserable father, and joined by another army, at the head of which was Icilius.
Together they entered Rome, and the soldiers deposed the decemvirs, while each army elected ten tribunes. They then marched out of the city, followed by the people, and encamped, as once before, on the Sacred Mount, leaving Rome to the patricians.
The Senate saw that it was time to act, for the decemvirs, it was plain, still hoped to keep the power they had grasped. So it forced them to resign, and then sent to the Sacred Mount to ask the plebeians what sentence they wished the tyrants to suffer.
Icilius demanded that the decemvirs should be put to death, the others were content that they should be banished from Rome. But Appius Claudius was not banished with the other decemvirs. He was sent to prison, where some say that he killed himself, but others assert that his enemies put him to death.
The people were now ready to return to the city, having obtained from the Senate a promise that they should have their tribunes as of old, and that the sacred laws should be again established.
In 445 B.C., about four years later, the plebeians succeeded in gaining new privileges. A law was passed allowing them to marry patricians, and this greatly pleased the people.
For many years the plebeians had wished to be allowed [84] to stand for the Consulship. Now it was arranged that, instead of Consuls, from three to six military tribunes should be appointed, and for this office plebeians might stand.
Two of the duties however that had belonged to the Consuls were not given to the military tribunes, but kept for two new officers, called censors. The censors were to be chosen from among the patricians.

Vaishali

Just 55 kms form the city of Patna is the oldest known republic state of the world, Vaishali. Named after the King Vishala the small town of Vaishali was ruled by the Licchhavi rulers. It is believed to be the earliest republics of the world having an elected body of representatives and an efficient administration, as early as 6th century BC. Vaishali is an important pilgrimage sites for Buddhists and Jains as well. Lord Buddha after attaining his Nirvana, and before attaining the Mahaparinirvana, preached his last sermon here, after which he announced his Mahaprinirvana to come soon. Vaishali is also believed to be the birthplace of Lord Mahavira, the founder of the Jain religions.It is said that the famous courtesan Amrapali belonged to Vaishali, who later became a devout Buddhist. The stories about the Lord's encounter with the courtesan here in Vaishali are famous. Vaishali holds another importance of holding the second Buddhist council after 100 years after the Buddha's death. The monks from all over North India came here to discuss the 10 points of Vinaya, or 10 rules of conduct. The Chinese travelers Fa Xian and Xuan Zhang had visited this place on their journey to India and have written highly about Vaishali and its administration.

Lanfang Republic

Towards the end of the 18th century, Kwangtung Hakkas established a republic in Western Kalimantan which lasted 107 years and had 10 presidents.
The first president is Low Lan Pak. He was born in Kwangtung, Mei Hsien, Shih Pik Pao on the third year of Ching dynasty Chien Long emperor. He married a girl and had a son. But Hakka's custom usually do not take wife along for overseas trip. He left for Western Kalimantan alone to join the gold rush at that time.
He travelled along Han Jiang to Shantao, along Vietnam coastline, and finally landed in Western Kalimantan.
The sultan at that time, Panembahan believing that Chinese workers are hard working, brought in 20 Chinese from Brunei. The sultan Omar in Singkawang, also heard about Chinese diligence and use the lease land system to encourage Chinese to explore in his territory.
When Low Fan Pak reached Western Kalimantan, the Holland has not yet aggressively moved to Kalimantan. Along the coastal area, a lot of Java people and oceania's Bugis people settled down. Also, the Sultan's power were confined to the coastal area, the inland power belongs to the Dayak. The territories among Sultans were not well defined as well.
In the beginning of 1740, the Chinese numbered only a few tens. By 1770, the Chinese has grown to 20,000 strong. By blood clan or by the area they are from, the Chinese established Kongsi(company) to protect themselves.
In 1776, 14 kongsi banded together to form a He Soon 14 Kongsi in order to break the bottleneck of being grouped by area or by blood.
At that time Low Lan Pak established his own Lang Fan kongsi. He then united all the Hakkas in the San-Sin lake area and build a Mem-Tau-Er township and made it the headquarter of his united company.
At that time, Kun Tian(Pontianak) which located in the lower stream of Kapuas River was an important commerce area and was controlled by Sultan Abdul Laman. The upper stream of the river is controlled by the Dayaks. Kun Tian neighboring state Mempawah's Sultan tried to build a palace in the upper stream which led to the fighting between the 2 Sultans.
The Kun Tian Sultan asked Low Lan Pak for help. Since the palace is being built near the Lan Fang company territory, Low Lan Pak decided to help Kun Tian Sultan and defeated the Mempawah's Sultan.
The defeated Mempawah's Sultan then joined forces with the Dayaks and launched a counter-attack. Low Lan Pak again defeated Mempawah Sultan and this time marched North all the way to Singkawang. Singkawang Sultan and Mempawah Sultan signed a peace treaty with Low Lan Pak and Low Lan Pak's popularity increased dramatically. He was 57 then.
After that, Chinese and locals, turned to Low Lan Pak to seek protection, and when Kun Tian Sultan realized that he can not challenged Low Lan Pak, The sultan himself seek protection from Low Lan Pak.
Thus, Low Lan Pak established a government, using his company name, changing kongsi(company) to republic, and formed Lan Fang Republic in 1777, 10 years earlier than USA(1787). At that time people wanted Low Lan Pak to be Sultan, but he declined and take the post of governorship, similar to the president post.
From Qing dynasty's sea nation annals, it recorded that it is a place where Ka Yin people (Mei Hsien area) do mining, build road, establish its own nation, every year has ships reached ng Zhou and Chao Zhou area, doing commerce. >From its own Lan Fang Company annals, it indicated that every year it pays tribute to Qing dynasty like Annan (Vietnam).
The capital was in Ceh Wan Li. The Ta Tang Chon Chang(president) is elected by election. Both the president position and the vice president position has to be of Hakka from Ka Yin or Ta Pu area. The flag is a rectangle yellow flag with the word Lan Fang Ta Tong Chi. The president flag is a triangular yellow flag with the word Chuao (General). The high ranking officials dress in Chinese style while lower ranking officials dress western style clothing.
Low Lan Pak passed away on the second year of the republic. He has been in Borneo for 20 years. he 47th year of the republic during the reign of the fifth president Liew Tai Er, Dutch began its active expansion in Indonesia and occupied the South East region of Borneo. Lan Fang lose its autonomy and became a protected state of Dutch.
Then Dutch opened a colonial office in Kun Tian and intervened republic's affair. In 1884, Singkawang refused to be ruled by Dutch, and was attacked by the Dutch. The Dutch occupied Lan Fang Kongsi. Lan Fang Kongsi fought for 4 years but eventually was defeated, and its people fled to Sumatra. Fearful of strong reaction from Ching government, Dutch never declared that it occupied Lan Fang and let one of the descendent be a figure head. It was not until the formation of Republic of China in 1912 that Dutch formally declared its formal control of the area.
Those that fled to Sumatra regrouped in Medan. From there, some moved to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. One of the descendent from these people is Lee Kuan Yew. While Hakkas are the minority in Singapore, it is the Hakkas that played an important part to establish the second Lan Fang company - Singapore.

(summary from the book Hakka people - Jews of the Orient by Kao Chung Xi. Summary digest compiled by Jonathan Teoh. Some spelling were revised according to Josef Widjaja, Oct 26, 1996)