The Rules and Members of the Moot Club, 23 November 1770
The Rules and Members of the Moot Club
[New York, 23 November 1770]
The Subscribers being desirous of forming a club for social conversation & the mutual improvt. of each other have determined to meet in the evening of the 1th: Friday of every month, at Bardins1 or such other place as a Majority of the members shall from time to time appoint, & for the better regulating of the said Club do agree
- I. That the said club shall be called the Moot
- II. That the members present at the first meeting shall choose by ballot a President, Vice-President, & Secretary who shall continue for 12mo & then others shall be annually chosen in like manner to succeed them
- III. The President for the time being shall preside at every meeting & in his absence the Vice president & in case of the absence of both the members attending shall by plurality of voices choose one of their number president for the Night—
- IV. At every Meeting any Member may propose a question of Law to be debated in the Club at the next meeting, and if more than one Question be proposed the members present shall determine by plurality of voices, which question shall be debated at the next meeting, & if none of the members propose any question, the President for the Night shall pick one; and the discussion of such question shall be the first business of the next meeting; after which the members may discourse of such other matters as may occur—The Secretary shall enter the question & the determination of the Moot, in a book to be kept for that purpose
- V. No Member shall presume upon any pretences to introduce any discourse about the party politics of this province, & to persist in such discourse after being desired by the president to drop it on pain of expulsion
- VI. No new member shall be admitted but by the unanimous consent of all the members present at such admission & for the more regular choice of Members, every Member shall be chosen by ballot at a stated meeting & shall be first proposed to the Moot at the meeting next before the balloting—2
- VII. Every member shall be at liberty to introduce to the Moot any non-Resident Gentleman of the Law as visitor
- VIII. The president for the night shall take care to keep due order & Regularity & if any member is refractory after admonition by the president he shall be absolutely expelled
- IX. If any Member shall be absent for three successive Meetings, & shall not assign a sufficient reason to the satisfaction of the Moot he shall ipso facto be expelled.3
- X. No Member to be expelled for any cause, by less than three fourths of all the members present—
- XI The Secretary at the request of any two Members shall summon extraordinary meetings
- XII. Every Member, shall be equally charged at every state meeting, whether he attends or not
- XIII. The Bill shall always be settled by 10 OClock
D, in JJ’s hand, NNC. Other versions of the minutes are in NHi: Moot Club (EJ: 632, 3616, and 10058).
1. “Bardins”: King’s Arms Tavern, on the lower part of Broadway, now Whitehall Street. Edward Bardin was the owner. , 250.
2. Gouverneur Morris and John Watts Jr. were elected 4 Mar. 1774.
3. Whitehead Hicks was expelled for nonattendance on 4 Mar. 1774.
4. David Matthews (d. 1800), lawyer, Loyalist, mayor of New York during the British occupation, 1776–83. See “Rounding Up Subversives, Detecting Conspiracies, and Determining Loyalty”(editorial note) on pp. 252–53, 254, 257n12.
5. William Smith Jr. (1728–93), lawyer, jurist, and historian, son of Judge William Smith and brother of Thomas Smith. Smith, with William Livingston and John Morin Scott, was a contributor to the Independent Reflector and active in the Whig Presbyterian faction. He was also the author of The History of the Province of New-York (1757). Smith was chief justice of New York from 1763 to 1782. Despite his earlier activism, he remained loyal to Great Britain and was appointed chief justice of Canada in 1785.
6. William Wickham (d. 1813), a 1753 graduate of Yale, studied law in New York City. During the Revolution, he was a Loyalist who retired to Goshen, N.Y. In 1792, he was appointed one of the judges for the Court of the Common Pleas of Orange County.
7. Thomas Smith (1734–c. 1800), son of Judge William Smith and brother of Chief Justice William Smith Jr.
8. Rudolphus Ritzema, King’s College class of 1758.
9. For Samuel Jones, see above, JJ to Benjamin Kissam, 12 Aug. 1766. Jones was later a member of the Committee of One Hundred.