Ed Vebell (American, 1921 - 2018) "First Legislative Assembly" Signed lower right. Original Acrylic painting on Illustration Board.

Provenance: Collection of James A. Helzer (1946-2008), Founder of Unicover Corporation.

This painting is the original painting which was published on the Fleetwood Commemorative Cover for Epic Events in American History series issued in 1985.

Alone among nations of the modern world, England boasted some form of representative government since 1215. That was the year the barons wrested from King John the Great Charter, with its guarantees of "due process of law" and its famous twelfth article which provided that no "scutage nor aid shall be levied in the kingdom unless by the common consent of our kingdom" -- a commitment which contained at least the germ of a representative body capable of giving consent. Certainly from the Tudor period on, Parliament was a more-or-less effective agency of representative government, and certainly never more so than under the Stuarts, on whom Parliament imposed the Petition of Rights of 1628. Certainly those who came to Virginia were familiar with both the principle and the practice of representative government. The first two Charters of Virginia were speedily withdrawn, and a Third Charter in 1612, transferred most powers to the Virginia Company. It was under this Charter that Governor Yeardley provided for what was to be the first representative assembly in America. At its first meeting in Jamestown, on July 30, 1619, the legislature "considered what laws might issue out of the private concept of any of the Burgesses" and what petitions "were fit to be sent home for England." What is discussed and provided for were relations with the Indians, the regulation of the tobacco trade, and how to prevent or punish "ungodly disorders, and scandalous offenses."

Image Size: 20 x 21 in.
Overall Size: 27 x 27.25 in.
Unframed.
(B06583)

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