Set Forth in Some Resolutions Intended for the
Inspection of the Present Delegates of
the
People of Virginia
Now in Convention.
By a NATIVE and MEMBER of the HOUSE of BURGESSES
by Thomas Jefferson
Transcript from the original work
by Thomas Jefferson
Transcript from the original work
Resolved, that it be an instruction to
the said deputies, when assembled in general congress with the
deputies from the other states of British America, to propose to said
congress that an humble and dutiful address be presented to his
majesty, begging leave to lay before him, as chief magistrate of the
British empire, the united complaints of his majesty's subjects in
America; complaints which are excited by many unwarrantable
encroachments and usurpations, attempted to be made by the
legislature of one part of the empire, upon those rights which God
and the laws have given equally and independently to all. To
represent to his majesty that these his states have often
individually made humble application to his imperial throne to
obtain. Through its intervention, some redress of their injured
rights, to none of which was ever even an answer condescended; humbly
to hop that this their joint address, penned in the language of
truth, and divested of those expressions of servility which would
persuade his majesty that we are asking favours, and not rights,
shall obtain from his majesty a more respectful acceptance. And this
his majesty will think we have reason to expect when he reflects that
he is no more than the chief officer of the people, appointed by the
laws, and circumscribed with definitive power, to assist in working
the great machine of the government, erected for their use, and
consequently subject to their superintendence. And in order that
these our rights, as well as the invasions of them, may
be laid more fully before his majesty, to take a view of them from
the origin and first of these countries.
To
Remind them that our ancestors, before their emigration to America,
were free inhabitants of the British dominions in Europe, and
possessed a right which nature has given all men, of departing from
the country which chance, not choice, has placed them, of going on a
quest of new habitations, and of establishing new societies, under
such laws and regulations as to them shall seem most likely to
promote public happiness. That their Saxon ancestors had, under this
universal law, in a manner left their native wilds and woods in the
north of Europe, and possessed themselves of the island of Britain,
then less charged with inhabitants , and had established there system
of laws which has long since been the glory and protection of that
country. Nor was ever any claim of superiority or dependence asserted
over them by that mother country from which they had migrated; and
were such a claim made, it is believed that his majesty's subjects in
Great Britain have too firm a feeling of the rights derived to them
from their ancestors, to bow down to the sovereignty of their state
before such visionary pretensions. And it is thought that no
circumstance has occurred to distinguish materially the British from
the Saxon emigration. America was concurred, and their settlements
made, and firmly established, at the expense of individually, and
not of the British public. Their own blood was spilt in acquiring
lands for their settlement, their own fortunes expended in making
that settlement effectual; for themselves they fought, for themselves
they conquered, and for themselves alone they have a right to hold.
No shilling was ever issued from the public treasuries of his
majesties, or his ancestors, for the assistance, till of very late
times, after the colonies has become established on a firm and
permanent footing. That then, indeed, having become valuable to Great
Britain for her commercial purpose, his parliament was pleased to
lend to them assistance against an enemy, who would said have drawn
to herself the benefits of their commerce, to the aggrandizement of
herself, and danger of Great Britain. Such assistance of herself, and
danger of Great Britain. Such assistance, and in such circumstances,
they had often before given to other allied states, with whom they
never supposed, that by calling in her aid, they thereby submitted
themselves to her sovereignty. Had such terms been proposed, they
would have rejected them with disdain and trusted for better to the
moderation of their enemies, or to a vigorous exertion of their own
force. We do not however mean to under-rate those aids, which to us
were doubtless valuable, on whatever principles granted; but we would
shew that they cannot give a title to that authority which the
british parliament would arrogate us, and that they may amply be
repaid by our giving to the inhabitants of Great Britain such
exclusive privileges in trade as may be advantageous to them, and at
the same time not to restrictive to ourselves. That settlements
having been thus effected in the wilds of America, the emigrants
thought proper to adopt that system of laws under which they had
hitherto lived in the mother country, and to continue their union
with her by submitting themselves to the same common sovereign, who
was thereby made the central link connecting the several parts of the
empire thus newly multiplied.
But
that not long were they permitted, however far they thought
themselves removed from the hand of oppression, to hold undisturbed
the rights thus acquired, at the hazard of their lives, and loss of
their fortunes. A family of princes was then on the British throne,
whose treasonable crimes against their people brought them afterwards
the exertion of those sacred and sovereign rights of punishment
reserved in the hands of the people for cases of extreme necessity,
and judged by the constitution unsafe to be delegated to any other
judicature. While every day brought for the new and unjustifiable
exertion of power over their subjects on that side the water, it was
not to be expected that those here, much less able at that time to
oppose the designs of despotism, should be exempted from injury.
Accordingly
that country, which had been acquired by the lives, the labours, and
the fortunes, of individual adventurers, was by these princes, at
several times, parted out and distributed amoung the favourites * and
followers of their fortunes, and, by an assumed right of the crown
alone, was erected into distinct and independent governments;
a measure which it is believed his majesty's prudence and
understanding would prevent him from imitating at this day, as no
exercise of such a power, of dividing and dismembering a country, has
ever occurred in his majesties realm of England, though now of very
antient standing; nor could it be justified or acquiesced under
there, or in any other part of his majesty's empire.
That
exercise of free trade with all parts of the world, possessed by the
American colonists, as of natural Right, and which no law of their
own had encroachment. Some of the colonies having thought proper to
continue the administration of their government in the name and under
the authority of his ]majesty king Charles the fifth, whom,
notwithstanding his late deposition by the commonwealth of England,
they continued in the sovereignty of their state; the parliament for
the commonwealth took the same in high offense, and assumed upon
themselves the power of prohibiting their trade with other parts of
the world, except the island of Great Britain. This arbitrary act,
however, they soon recalled, and by solemn treaty, entered into oh
the 12th day of March, 1651, between the said commonwealth
by their commissioners, and the colony of Virginia by their house of
burgesses, it was expressly stipulated, by the 8th article
of the said treaty, that they should have “free trade as the people
of England do enjoy to all the places and with all nations, according
to the laws of that commonwealth.” But that, upon the restoration
of his majesty king Charles the second, their rights of free commerce
fell once more a victim to arbitrary power; and by several acts ** of
his reign, as well as some of his successors, the trade of the
colonies was laid under such restrictions, as shew what hopes they
might form from the justice of British parliament, were its
uncontrouled power admitted over these states. History has informed
us that the bodies of men, as well as individuals, are susceptible of
the spirit of tyranny. A view of these acts of parliament for
regulation, as it has been affectedly called, of the American trade,
if all other evidence were removed out of the cafe, would undeniably
evince the truth of this observation. Besides the duties they impose
on our articles of export and import, they prohibit our going to any
markets northward of Cape Finesterre. In the kingdom of Spain, for
the sale of commodities which Great Britain will not take from us,
and for the purchase of others, with which she cannot supply us, and
that for no other than the arbitrary purpose of purchasing for
themselves, by a sacrifice of our rights and interests, certain
privileges in their commerce with an allied state, who in confidence
that their exclusive trade with America will be continued, while the
principles and power of the British parliament be the same, have
indulged themselves in every exorbitance which their avarice could
dictate, or our necessitates extort; have t the double and treble of
what they sold for before such exclusive privileges were given to
them, and of what better commodities of the same kind would cost us
elsewhere, and at the same time give us much less for what for what
we carry thither than might be had at more convenient ports. That
these acts prohibit us from carrying in quest of other purchases the
surplus of our tobaccos remaining after the consumption of Great
Britain is supplied; so that we must leave them with the British
merchant for whatever he will please to allow us, to be by him
reshipped to foreign markets, where he will reap the benefits of
making sale of them for full value. That to heighten still the idea
of parliamentary justice, and to shew with what moderation they are
like to exercise power, where themselves are to feel no part of its
weight, we take leave to mention to his majesty certain other acts of
British Parliament, by which they would prohibit us from
manufacturing for our own use the articles we raise on our own lands
with our own labour. By an act *** passed in the 5th year of
the reign of his late majesty king George the second, an american
subject is forbidden to make a hat for himself of the fur which he
has taken perhaps on his own soil; an instance of despotism to which
no parallel can be produced in the most arbitrary ages of British
history. By one other act, * passed in the 23rd year of
the same reign, the iron which we make we are forbidden to
manufacture, and heavy as that article is, and necessary in every
branch of husbandry, besides commission and influence, we are to pay
freight for it to Great Britain, and freight for it back again, for
the purpose of supporting not men, but machines, in the island of
Great Britain. In the same spirit of equal and impartial legislation
is to be viewed the act of parliament, ** passed in the 5th
year of the same reign, by which American lands are made subject to
the demands of British creditors, while their own lands were still
continued unanswerable for their debts; from which one of these
conclusions must necessarily follow, either that justice is not the
same in America as in Britain, o else that the British Parliament Pay
less regard to it here than there. But that we do not point to his
majesty the injustice of these acts, with intent to rest on that
principle the cause of their nullity; but to shew that experience
confirms the propriety of those political principles which exempt us
from the jurisdiction of the British parliament. The true ground on
which we declare these acts void is, that the British parliament has
no right to exercise authority over us.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnote 1-
*See
original document here.
**12.
c. 2. c. 18. 15. c. 2. c. 11. 25. c. 2. c. 7. 7. 8. W. M. C. 22. 11.
W. 3. 4. Anne. 6. G. 2. c. 13.
***5,
G, 2,
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
That
these exercises of usurped power have not been confined to instances
alone, but they have also intermeddled with the regulation of the
internal affairs of the colonies. The act of the 9th of
Anne for establishing a postoffice in America seems to have had
little connection with the British convenience, except that of
accommodating his majesty's ministers and favourites with the sale of
a lucrative and easy office.
That
thus have we hastened through the reigns which preceded his
majesty's, during which the violations of our right were less
alarming, because repeated at more distant intervals than that rapid
and bold succession of injuries which is likely to distinguish the
present from all other periods pf American story. Scarcely have our
minds been able to emerge from the astonishment into which one stroke
of parliamentary thunder has involved us, before another more heavy,
and more alarming, is fallen on us. Single acts of tyranny may be
ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of
oppressions, begun as a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably
through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate and
systematical plan of reducing us to slavery.
That
the act * passed in the 4th year of his majesty's reign,
intitled “An act for granting certain duties in the British
colonies and plantations in America, &c.”
One
other act ** passed in the 5th year of his reign, intitled
“ An act for granting and applying certain stamp duties and other
duties in the British colonies and plantations in American, &c.”
One
other act ***, passed in the 6th year of his reign,
intituled “An act for the better securing the dependency of his
majesty's dominions in America upon the crown and parliament of Great
Britain;” and one other act *, Passed in the 7th year of
his reign, intituled “An act for granting duties on paper, tea,
&c.” form that connected chain of parliamentary usurpation,
which has already been the subject of frequent applications of his
majesty, and the houses of lords and commons of Great Britain; and no
answers having yet been condescended to any of these, we shall not
trouble his majesty with a repetition of the matters they contained.
But
that one other act **, passed in the same 7th tear of his
reign, having been a peculiar attempt, must ever require peculiar
mention;; it is intituled “An act for suspending the legislature of
New York.” One free and independent legislature hereby takes
upon itself to suspend the powers of another, free and independent as itself; thus exhibiting a phenomenon unknown in
nature, the creator and creature of its own power. Not only the
principles of common sense, but the feelings of human nature, must be
surrendered up before his majesty's subjects here can be persuaded to
believe that they hold their political existence at the will of a
British parliament shall
these governments be dissolved, their property annihilated, and their
people reduced to a state of nature, at the imperious breath of a
body of men, whom they never saw, in whom they never considered, and
over whom they have no powers of punishment or removal, let their
crimes against the American public be ever so great? Can any one
reason be assigned why 160,000 electors in the island of Great
Britain should give law to four millions in the states of America,
every individual whom is equal to every individual of them, in
virtue, in understanding, and in bodily strength? Were this to be
admitted, instead of being a free people, as we have to hitherto
supposed, and mean to continue ourselves, we should suddenly be found
the slaves, not of one, but of 160,000 tyrants, distinguished too
from all others by this singular circumstance, that they are removed
from the reach of fear, the only restraining motive which may
withhold the hand of a tyrant.
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Footnote 2-
*4. G. 3. c. 15.
**5. G. 3. c. 12.
***6. G. 3. c. 12.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
That
by “an act* to discontinue in such manner and for such time as are
therein mentioned the landing and discharging, lading or shipping, of
goods, wares, and merchandize, at the town within the harbour of
Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America,”
which was passed at the last session of the British Parliament: a
large and populous town, whose trade was their sole subsistence, was
deprived of that trade, and involved in utter ruin. Let us for a
while suppose the question of the right suspended, in order to
examine this act on principles of justice: An act of parliament had
bee passed imposing duties on teas, to be paid in America, against
which act the Americans had protested as inauthoritative. The East
India company, who till that time had never sent a pound of tea to
America on their own account, step forth on that occasion the
assertors of parliamentary right, and fend hither many ship loads of
that obnoxious commodity. The masters of their several vessels,
however, on the arrival in America, wisely attended to admonition,
and returned with their cargoes. In the province of Massachusetts
alone the remonstrances of the people were disregarded, and a
compliance, after many days waited for, was flatly refused. Whether
in this the master of the vessel was governed by his obstinacy, or
his instructions, let those who know, say. There are extraordinary
interposition. An exasperated people, who fee that they posses power,
are not easily restrained within the limits strictly regular. A
number of them assembled in the town of Boston, threw the tea in the
ocean, and dispersed without doing any other act of violence. If in
this they did wrong, they were known and were amenable to the laws of
the land, against which it could not be objected that they had ever,
in any instance, been obstructed or diverted from their regular
course in favour of popular offenders. They should therefore not have
been distrusted on this occasion. But that ill fated colony had
formerly been bold in their enmities against the house of Stuart, and
were now devoted to ruin by that unseen hand which governs the
momentous affairs of this great empire. On the partial
representations of a few worthless ministerial dependents, whose
constant office it has been keep that government embroiled, and who,
by their treacheries, hop to obtain the dignity of the British
knighthood, without calling for a party accused, without asking for
proof, without attempting a distinction between the guilty and the
innocent, the whole of that antient and wealthy town is in a moment
reduces fro, opulence to beggary. Men who had spent their live in
extending the British commerce, who had invested in that place the
wealth their honest endeavors had merited, found themselves and their
families thrown at once on the world for subsistence by its
charities. Not the hundredth part of the inhabitants of that town had
been concerned in the act complained of ; many of them were Great
Britain and in other parts beyond sea; yet all were involved in one
indiscriminate ruin, by a new executive power, unheard of till then,
that of a British parliament. A property, of the value of many
millions of money, was sacrificed to revenge, not repay, the lots of
a few thousands. This is administering justice with a heavy hand
indeed! and when is this tempest to be arrested in its course? Two
wharfs are to be opened again when his majesty shall think proper.
The residue which lined the extensive shores of the bay of Boston are
forever interdicted the exercise of commerce. This little exception
seems to have been thrown in for no other purpose that that of
setting precedent for investing his majesty with legislative powers.
If he pulse of his people shall beat calmly under this experiment,
another and another will be tried, till an insult on common sense to
restore its commerce to that great town. The trade which cannot be
received at two wharfs alone must of necessity be transferred to some
other place; to which it will soon be followed by that of the two
wharfs. Considered in this light, it would be an insolent and cruel
mockery at the annihilation of the town of Boston.
By
the act ** for the suppression of riots and tumults in the town of
Boston, passe also in the last session of parliament, a murder
committed there is, if the governor pleases, to be tried in the court
of the King's Bench, in the island of Great Britain, by a jury of
Middlefex. The witnesses, too, on receipt of such a sum as the
governor shall think it reasonable to expend, are to enter into
recognize to appear at the trail. This is, in other words, taxing
them without the account of their recognizance, and that amount may
be whatever the governor pleases; for who does his majesty think can
be prevailed on to cross the Atlantic for the sole purpose of bearing
evidence to a fact? His expenses are to be borne, indeed as they
shall be estimated by a governor; but who are to feed the wife and
children whom he leaves behind, and who have had no other substance
but his daily labour/ Those epidemical disorders, too, so terrible in
a foreign climate, is the cure of them to be estimated amoung the
articles of expense, and their danger to be warded off by having
almighty power of parliament? And the wretched criminal, if he happen
to have offended on the American side, stripped of his privilege of
trial by peers of his vicinage, removed from the place where alone
full evidence could be obtained, without money, without counsel,
without friends, without exculpatory proof, is tried before judges
predetermined to condemn. The cowards who would suffer a countryman
to be torn from the bowels of their society, in order to be thus
offered a sacrifice to parliamentary tyranny, would merit that
everlasting infamy now fixed on the authors of the act! A clause ***
for a familiar purpose had been introduced into an act, passes in
the 12th year of his majesty's reign, intitled “An act
for the better securing and preserving his majesty's dockyards,
magazines, ships, ammunition and stores;” against which, as
meriting the same censures, the several colonies have already
protected.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnote 3-
*14. G. 3.
**14. G. 3.
***12. G. 3. c. 24.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
That
these are the acts of power, assumed by a body of me, foreign to our
constitutions, and unacknowledged by our laws, against which we do,
on behalf of the inhabitants of British America, enter this our
solemn and determined protest; and we do earnestly entreat his
majesty, as yet the only mediatory power between the several states
of the British empire, to recommend to his parliament of Great
Britain the total revocation of these acts, which, however nugatory
they be, may yet prove the cause of further discontents and
jealousies amoung us.
That
we next proceed to consider the conduct of his majesty, as holding
the executive powers of the laws of these states, and mark out his
deviations from the line of duty: By the constitution of Great
Britain, as well as of the several American states, his majesty
possesses the power of refusing to pass into a law any bill which has
already passed the other two branches of legislator. His majesty,
however, and his ancestors, conscious of the impropriety of opposing
their single opinion to the united wisdom of the two houses of
parliament, while their proceedings were unbiased by interested
principles, for several ages past have modestly declined the exercise
of this power in that part have modestly declined the exercise of his
power in that part of his empire called Great Britain. But by change
of circumstances, other principles than those of justice simply have
obtained an influence on their determinations; the addition of new
states to the British empire has produced an addition of new, and
sometimes opposite interests. It is now, therefore, the great office
of his majesty, to resume the exercise of his negative power, and to
prevent the passage of laws by any one legislature of the empire,
which might bear injuriously on he rights and interests of another.
Yet this will not excuse the wanton exercise of this power which we
have seen his majesty practice on the laws of the American
legislatures, For the most trifling reasons, and sometimes for no
conceivable reason at all, his majesty has rejects laws of the most
salutary tendency. The abolition of domestic slavery is the great
object of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced
in their infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the
slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations
from Africa; yet our repeated attempts to effect this by
prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to a
prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his majesty's negative:
Thus preferring the immediate advantages of a few British corsairs to
the lasting interests of the American states, and to the rights of
human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice. Nay, the
single interposition of an interested individual against a law
scarcely ever known to fail to success, though in opposite scale
were placed the interests of a whole country. That this is so
shameful an abuse of a power trusted with his majesty for other
purposes, as if not reformed, would call for some legal restrictions.
With
equal inattention to the necessities of his people here has his
majesty permitted our laws to lie neglected in England for years,
neither confirming them by his assent, nor annulling them by his
negative; so that such of them as have no suspending clause we hold
on the most precarious of all tenures, his majesty's will, and such
of them as suspend themselves till his majesty's assent be obtained,
we have feared, might be called into existence at some future and
distant period, when time, and change of circumstances, shall have
rendered them destructive to his people here. And to render this
grievance still more oppressive, his majesty by his instructions has
laid his governors under such restrictions that they can pass no law
pf any moment unless it have such suspending clause; so that, however
immediate may be the call for legislative interposition, the law
cannot be executed till it has twice crossed the atlantic, by which
time the evil may spent its whole force.
But
in what terms, reconcilable to majesty, and at the same time to truth
shall we speak pf a late instructions to the governor of the colony
of Virginia, by which he is forbidden to assent to any law for the
division of a country, unless the new county will consent to have no
representation in assembly? That colony has as yet fixed no boundary
to the westward. Their western counties, therefore, are of indefinite
extent; some of them are actually seated many hundred miles from
their eastern limits. Is it possible, then, that his majesty can have
bestowed a single thought on the situation of those people, who, in
order to obtain justice for injuries, however great or small, must,
by the laws of the colony, attend their county court, at such a
distance, with all their witnesses, monthly, till their litigation be
determined? Or does his majesty seriously with, and publish it to the
world, that his subjects should give up the glorious right of
representation, with all the benefits derived from that, and submit
themselves the absolute slaves of his sovereign will? Or is it rather
meant to confine the legislative body to their present numbers, that
they may be the cheaper bargain whenever they shall become worth a
purchase.
One
of the articles of impeachment against Trefilian, and the other
judges of Westminister Hall, in the reign of Richard the second, for
which they suffered death, as traitors to their country, was, that
they had advised the king that he might dissolve his parliament at
any time; and succeeding kings have adopted the opinion of these
unjust judges. Since the reign of the second William however
however, under whom
the British constitution, was settled,
on its free and antient principles, neither his majesty, nor his
ancestors, have exercised such a power of dissolution in the island
of Great Britain; and when his majesty was petitioned, by the united
voice of his people there, to dissolve the present parliament, who
had become obnoxious to them, his ministers were heard to declare, in
open parliament, that his majesty possessed no such power by the
constitution * (*Since this period the king has several
times dissolved the parliament a few weeks before it's expiration,
merely as an assertion of the right).
But how different their language and his practice here! To declare,
as their duty required, the known rights of their country, to oppose
the usurpations of every foreign judicature, to disregard the
imperious mandates of a minister or governor, have been the avowed
causes of dissolving houses of representative in America. But if such
powers be really vested in his majesty, can he suppose they are there
placed to awe members from such purposes as these? When the
representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents,
when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights,
when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never
put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes
dangerous to the state, and calls for an exercise of power of
dissolution. Such begin the causes for which the representative body
should, and should not, be dissolved, will it not appear strange to
an unbiased observer, that that of Great Britain was not dissolved,
while those of the colonies have repeatedly incurred that sentence?
But your majesty, or your
governors, have carried this power beyond every limit known, or
provided for, by the laws: After dissolving one house of
representatives, they have refused to call another, so that for a
great length of time, the legislature provided by the laws has been
out of existence. From the nature of things, very society must at all
times possess whiten itself the sovereign powers of legislation. The
feelings of human nature revolt against the supposition of a state so
situated as that it ay not in any emergency provide against dangers
which perhaps threaten immediate ruin. While those bodies are
existence to whom the people have delegated the powers of
legislation, they alone possess and may exercise those powers; but
when they are dissolved by the lopping off one or more of their
branches, the power reverts to the people, who may exercise it to
unlimited extent, either assembling together in person, sending
deputies, or in any other way they may think proper *(*insert
'and the frame of government thus dissolved should the people take
upon them to lay the throne of your majesty prostrate, or discontinue
their connection with the British empire, none will be so bold as to
decide against the right or the efficacy of such avulsion.').
We forbear to trace consequences further; the dangers are conspicuous
with which this practice is replete.
That we shall at this time also
take notice of an error in the nature of our land holdings, which
crept in at a very early period of our settlement. The introduction
of the feudal tenures into the kingdom of England, though antient, is
well enough understood to set this matter in a proper light. In the
earlier ages of the Saxon settlement feudal holdings were certainly
altogether unknown; and very few, if any, had been introduced at the
time of the Norman conquest. Our Saxon ancestors held their lands, as
they did their personal property, in absolute dominion, disencumbered
with any superior, answering nearly to the nature of those
possessions which the fedualists term allodial. William, the Norman,
first introduced that system generally. The lands which had belonged
to those who fell in the battle of Hastings, and in the subsequent
insurrections of his reign, formed a considerable proportion of the
lands of the whole kingdom. These he granted out, subject to feudal
duties, as did he also those of a great number of his new subjects,
who, by persuasions or threats, were induces to surrender them for
that purpose. But still much was left in the hands of his Saxon
subjects; held no superior, and not subject to feudal conditions.
These, therefore, by express laws, enacted to render uniform the
system of military duties as if they had been feuds; and the Norman
lawyers soon found means to saddle them also with all the other
feudal burthens. But still they had not been surrendered to the
king, they were not derived from his grant, and therefore they were
not holden of him. A general principle, indeed, was introduced, that
“all lands in England were held either medially or immediately of
the crown,” but this was borrowed from those holdings, which were
truly feudal, and only applied to others for the purposes of
illustration. Feudal holdings were therefore but exceptions out of
the Saxon laws of possession, under which all lands were held in
absolute right. These, therefore, still form the basis, or
ground-work, of the common law, to prevail whereforever the
exceptions have not taken place. America was not conquered by William
the Norman, nor its lands surrendered to him, or any of his
successors. Possessions there are undoubtably of the allodial nature.
Our ancestors, however, who migrated hither, were laborers not
lawyers. The fictitious principle that all lands belong originally
to the king, they early persuaded to believe real; and accordingly
took grants of their own lands from the crown. And while the crown
continued to grant for small sums, and on reasonable rents; there was
no inducement to arrest the error, and lay it open to public view.
But his majesty has lately taken on him tho advance the terms of
purchase, and of holding to the double of what they were; by which
means the acquisition of lands being rendered difficult, the
population of our country is likely to be checked. It is time,
therefore for us to lay this matter before his majesty, and to
declare that he has no right to grant lands himself. From the nature
and purpose of civil institutions, al the lands within the limits
which any particular society has circumscribes around itself are
assumed by the society, and subject to their allotment only. This
may be done by themselves, assembled collectively, or by legislature,
to whom they may have delegated sovereign authority; and if they may
have delegated sovereign authority; and if they are allotted in
neither of there ways, each individual of the society may appropriate
to himself such lands as he finds vacant, and occupancy will give him
title.
That in order to enforce the
arbitrary measures before complained of, his majesty has from time to
time sent amoung us large bodies of armed forces, not made up of the
people here, nor raised by the authority of our laws: Did his majesty
posses such a right as this, it might swallow up all our other rights
whenever he should think proper. But his majesty has no right to land
a single armed man on our shores, and those whom he sends here are
liable to our laws made for the suppression and punishment of riots,
routs, and unlawful assemblies; or are hostile bodies, invading us in
defiance of law. When in the courts of the late war it became
expedient that a body of Hanoverian troops should be brought over for
the defense of Great Britain, his majesty's grandfather, our late
sovereign, did not pretend to introduce them under any authority he
possessed. Such a measure would have given just alarm to his subjects
in Great Britain, whose liberties would not be sale if armed men of
another country, and of anouther spirit, might be brought into the
realm at any time without the consent of their legislature. He
therefore applied to parliament, who passed an act for that purpose,
limiting the number to be brought in and the time they were to
continue. In like manner is his majesty restrained in every part of
the empire. He possesses, indeed the executive power of the laws in
every state; but they are the laws of the particular state which he
is to administer within that state, and not those of any one within
the limits of another. Every state must judge for itself the number
of armed men which they may safely trust amoung them, of whom they
are to consist, and under what restrictions they shall be laid.
To render these proceedings still
more criminal against our laws, instead of subjecting the military to
the civil powers, his majesty has expressly made the civil
subordinate to the military. But can his majesty thus put down all
law under his feet? Can he erect power superior to that which erected
himself? He has done it indeed by force; but let him remember that
force cannot give right.
That these are our grievances
which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of
language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their
rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as a gift of
their magistrate: Let those flatter who fear; it is not an American
art. To give praise which is not due might be well from venal, but
would ill beseem those who are asserting the right of human nature.
They know, and will therefore say, that kings are servants, not the
protector of people. Open your breath, fire to liberal and expanded
thought. Let not the name of George the third be a blot in the page
of history. You are surrounded by British counsellors, but remember
that they are parties. You have no ministers for American affairs,
because you have none taken from amoung us, nor amendable to the laws
on which they are to give you advice. It behoves you, therefore, to
think and to act for yourself and your people. The great principles
of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them
requires not the aid of many counsellors. The whole art of government
conflicts in the art of being honest. Only aim to do your duty, and
mankind will give you credit where you fail. No longer persevere in
sacrificing the rights of one part of the empire to the inordinate
desires of another. This is the important post in which fortune has
placed you , holding the balance of a great, if a well poised empire.
This, fire, is the advice of your great American council, on the
observance of which may perhaps depend your felicity and future fame,
and the preservation of that harmony which alone can continue both to
Great Britain and America the reciprocal advantages of their
connection. It is neither our wish, nor our interest, to separate
from her. We are willing, on our part, to sacrifice every thing
which reason can ask to the restoration of that tranquility for which
all must wish. On their part, let them be ready to establish union
on a generous plan. Let them name their terms, but let them be just.
Accept of every commercial preference it is in our power to give for
such things as we can raise for their use, or they make for ours. But
let them not think to exclude us from going to other markets to
dispose of those commodities which they cannot use, or supply those
wants which they cannot supply. Still less let it be proposed that
our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated
by any power on earth but our own. The God who gave us life gave us
liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot
disjoin them. This, fire, is our las, our determined resolution; and
that you will be pleased to interpose with that efficacy which your
earnest endeavors may ensure to procure redress of these our great
grievances, to quiet the minds of your subjects in British America,
against any apprehensions of future encroachment, to establish
fraternal love and harmony through the whole empire, and that these
may continue to the latest ages of time, is the fervent prayer of all
British America!
END
Transcipt by Douglas Dedrick
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