1704. July. practice." "Let parliament lay what burdens they please on us," he even added, “it is our duty to submit and patiently bear them till they will be pleased to relieve us. If any thing fall from my pen that bears the least aspect but that of obedience, duty, and loyalty to the king and parliament, the candid will impute it to the agony of my heart." "Government," such was his argument, which I shall state as nearly as possible in his own words, "government is founded not on force, as was the theory of Hobbes; nor on compact, as was the theory of Locke and the Revolution of 1688; nor on property, as had been asserted by Harrington. It springs from the necessities of our nature, and has an everlasting foundation in the unchangeable will of God. Man came into the world and into society at the same instant. There must exist in every earthly society a supreme sovereign, from whose final decision there can be no appeal but directly to Heaven. This supreme power is originally and ultimately in the people; and the people. never did in fact freely, nor can rightfully, make an unlimited renunciation of this divine right. Kingcraft and priestcraft are a trick to gull the vulgar. The happiness of mankind demands that this grand and ancient alliance should be broken off for ever. "The omniscient and omnipotent Monarch of the universe has, by the grand charter given to the human race, placed the end of government in the good of the whole. The form of government is left to the individuals of each society; its whole superstructure and administration should be conformed to the law of universal reason. There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the law of nature and the grant of God Almighty, who has given all men a right to be free. If every prince since Nimrod had been a tyrant, it would not prove a right to tyrannize. The administrators of legislative and executive authority, when they verge towards tyranny, are to be resisted; if they prove incorrigible, are to be deposed. "The first principle and great end of government being to provide for the best good of all the people, this can be 1764. July. done only by a supreme legislative and executive ultimately in the people, or whole community, where God has placed it; but the difficulties attending a universal congress gave rise to a right of representation. Such a transfer of the power of the whole to a few was necessary; but to bring the powers of all into the hands of one or some few, and to make them hereditary, is the interested work of the weak and the wicked. Nothing but life and liberty are actually hereditable. The grand political problem is to invent the best combination of the powers of legislation and execution: they must exist in the state, just as in the revolution of the planets; one power would fix them to a centre, and another carry them off indefinitely; but the first and simple principle is EQUALITY and THE POWER OF THE WHOLE. "The best writers on public law contain nothing that is satisfactory on the natural rights of colonies. Even Grotius and Puffendorf establish the matter of right on the matter of fact. Their researches are often but the history of ancient abuses; and the American admiralty courts learn of them to determine controversies by the rules of civil and feudal law. To be too fond of studying them is a ridiculous infatuation. The British colonists do not hold their liberties or their lands by so slippery a tenure as the will of the prince. Colonists are men, the common children of the same Creator with their brethren of Great Britain. "The colonists are men: the colonists are therefore free born; for, by the law of nature, all men are free born, white or black. No good reason can be given for enslaving those of any color. Is it right to enslave a man because his color is black, or his hair short and curled like wool, instead of Christian hair? Can any logical inference in favor of slavery be drawn from a flat nose or a long or a short face? The riches of the West Indies, or the luxury of the metropolis, should not have weight to break the balance of truth and justice. Liberty is the gift of God, and cannot be annihilated. "Nor do the political and civil rights of the British colo nists rest on a charter from the crown. Old Magna Charta was not the beginning of all things, nor did it rise on the borders of chaos out of the unformed mass. A time may come when parliament shall declare every American charter void; but the natural, inherent, and inseparable rights of the colonists, as men and as citizens, would remain, and, whatever became of charters, can never be abolished till the general conflagration. 1764. July. "There is no foundation for distinction between external and internal taxes; if parliament may tax our trade, they may lay stamps, land-taxes, tithes, and so indefinitely; there are no bounds. But such an imposition of taxes in the colonies, whether on trade or on land, on houses or ships, on real or personal, fixed or floating property, is absolutely irreconcilable with the rights of the colonists as British subjects and as men. Acts of parliament against the fundamental principles of the British constitution are void. "Yet the colonists know the blood and treasure independence would cost. They will never think of it, till driven to it as the last fatal resort against ministerial oppression, which will make the wisest mad and the weakest strong. The world is at the eve of the highest scene of earthly power and grandeur that has ever yet been displayed to the view of mankind. Who will win the prize is with God. But human nature must and will be rescued from the general slavery that has so long triumphed over the species.' Thus Otis reasoned for his country and for the race, bringing into the living intelligence of the people the first principles of free government and human rights, ignorant of the beauty of the edifice which he was rearing. He Wrought in a sad sincerity; Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew. The book of Otis was reprinted in England. Lord Mansfield, who had read it, rebuked those who spoke of it with contempt. But they rejoined: "The man is mad." "What then?" answered Mansfield, in parliament. "One madman often makes many. Massaniello was mad: nobody doubted it; yet, for all that, he overturned the government of Naples." But Otis was a prophet, not the leader of a party; full of sagacity in his inspirations, unsteady in conduct. His colleague, Oxenbridge Thacher, was less enthusiastic and less variable. Connection with Great Britain was to him no blessing, if Great Britain would impose burdens unconstitutionally. He vindicated the right of resisting arbitrary taxation by the frequent example of the British parliament; and he dwelt on the danger to the inhabitants of England, if the ministers could disfranchise a million and a half of subjects in America. "Here," said Mayhew, as he lamented the cold adhesion of "the timid good,” and for himself trod the thorny path of resistance to the grandeurs of the world, "here there are many who 'see the right, and yet the wrong pursue.' But it is my fixed resolution, notwithstanding many discouragements, in my little sphere to do all I can that neither the republic nor the churches of New England may sustain any injury." Men began to enter into an agreement not to use a single article of British manufacture, not even to wear black clothes for mourning. To encourage the growth and manufacture of wool, nearly all Boston signed a covenant to eat no lamb. 1764. July. While the people heartened one another in the conviction that taxation by parliament was tyranny, Hutchinson addressed his thoughts to the secretary of the chancellor of the exchequer. "The colonists," said he, "claim a power of making laws, and a privilege of exemption from taxes, unless voted by their own representatives. In Rome, not only the colonies when first planted, but the provinces when changed into colonies, were freed from taxes for the Roman exchequer of every sort. It can be of no purpose to mention modern colonies. In Europe, the inhabitants of Britain only are free, and the inhabitants of British colonies only feel the loss of freedom; and they feel it more sensibly, because they thought it doubly secured as their natural right and their possession by virtue of the most solemn engagements. Nor are the privileges of the people less affected by duties laid for the sake of the money arising from them than by an internal tax. 1764. July. "Not one tenth part of the people of Great Britain have a voice in elections to parliament, and therefore the colonies can have no claim to it; but every man of property in England may have his voice, if he will. Besides, acts of parliament do not generally affect individuals, and every interest is represented. But the colonies have an interest distinct from the interest of the nation; and shall the parliament be at once party and judge? Is it not a continual question, What can be done to make the colonies further beneficial to the nation? And nobody adds, consistently with their rights. You consider us as your property, to improve in the best way you can for your advantage. "The nation treats her colonies as a father who should sell the services of his sons to reimburse him what they had cost him, but without the same reason; for none of the colonies, except Georgia and Halifax, occasioned any charge to the crown or kingdom in the settlement of them. The people of New England fled for the sake of civil and religious liberty; multitudes flocked to America with this dependence, that their liberties should be safe. They and their posterity have enjoyed them to their content, and therefore have endured with greater cheerfulness all the hardships of settling new countries. No ill use has been made of these privileges; but the dominion and wealth of Great Britain have received amazing addition. Surely the services we have rendered the nation have not subjected us to any forfeitures. "I know it is said the colonies are a charge to the nation, and they should contribute to their own defence and protection. But, during the last war, they annually contributed so largely that the parliament was convinced the burden would be insupportable, and from year to year made them compensation; in several of the colonies, for several years together, more men were raised, in proportion, than by the nation. In the trading towns, one fourth part of the profit |