Declaration of Resolves of the First Continental Congress

Richard L. Perry and John C. Cooper, Sources of Our Liberties (Birmingham, AL: American Bar Foundation, 1978), 285.

“The resolutions of Parliament rested for authority upon a statute of 1543, enacted during the reign of Henry VIII (35 Hen. 8, c. 2). At the time that statute was passed, England had no colonies. The statute was completely inapplicable to the colonial situation. It would seriously have infringed the right of the colonists to a trial by a jury composed of men of the vicinity where the alleged crime occurred… A trial beyond the seas would have made it difficult for defendants effectively to exercise their right to challenge jurors, and would have made it virtually impossible for defendants to call witnesses in their defense, a right which had been conferred in cases of treason by the Trial of Treasons Act of 1696. ” Richard L. Perry and John C. Cooper, Sources of Our Liberties, 281.

N.C.D. stands for the Latin phrase nemine contradicente, meaning “no one contradicting,” in other words “unanimously.”

The Declaration of Independence calls this “For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses.”

The Boston Port Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, and the Administration of Justice Act