TY  - BOOK
AU  - WILLING Richard
TI  - Of life, liberty and the pursuit of 'All persons found lurking within our lines': the continental congress' committee on spies and the path to American independence
PY  - 2022///
KW  - HOW THE COMMITTEE ON SPIES TOOK SHAPE
KW  - THE FAR SHORE - NEW TREASON STATUTES IN ACTION, 1776-1778
KW  - FLAGRANT INJUSTICE
KW  - THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS' COMMITTEE
KW  - THE COURT MARTIAL POLICIES
N2  - In the weeks before it declared independence, the Continental Congress was already at work building the institutions it would need to maintain the new republic. In June 1776, a committee was appointed to explore linking the 13 provincial legislatures in a Confederation. Another was tasked to consider how the United Colonies, soon to become the United States of America, could protect itself against Great Britain by striking treaties with European powers. But before these committees were formed, the Congress first appointed a "Committee on Spies" to deal with a chronic problem: how the law should treat "persons giving intelligence to the enemy, or supplying them with provisions." The resolutions that were the Committee's answer re-defined the law of treason, substituting a new notion of American sovereignty in place of the allegiance that had been owed the British monarchy. They drew a bright line between those lukewarm or hostile to the Revolution, and the new American identity embraced by its supporters. And they placed limits on the military's ability to try civilians charged with spying by court-martial, setting a precedent for American military justice. This paper argues that the impact of the Committee's work has been under-examined, as has been its influence on George Washington and the evolving American policy of military deference to civil authority in matters of justice. It explores how the Committee's "Resolves" prompted the creation of new treason statutes in nearly all the United "States," which in turn prompted hundreds of prosecutions. The paper revises scholars' views on how and why the Spies Committee was formed. It traces the Committee's contribution to language incorporated by the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution's article on treason, drafted 13 years later by a scholar who had been a Spies Committee member
UR  - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02684527.2021.2019915
ER  -