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The conduct of America was regulated by the congress at New York, in which no colony was better represented than South Carolina. Her delegation gave a chief to two of the three great committees, and in all that was done well her mind visibly appeared. The difficult task of defining the rights and "setting forth the liberty" which America "ought to enjoy " led the assembly to debate for two weeks on liberty, privileges, and prerogative." In these debates, "not one appeared to be so complete a master of every subject, or threw so much light on every question, as Otis," of Boston.

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It was proposed to "insist upon a repeal of all acts laying duties on trade, as well as the stamp act." "If we do not make an explicit acknowledgment of the power of Britain to regulate our trade," said the too gentle Livingston, "she will never give up the point of internal taxation." But he was combated with great heat, till the congress, by the hand of Rutledge, of South Carolina, erased from the declaration of rights the unguarded concession; and the restrictions on American commerce, though practically acquiesced in, were enumerated as grievances.

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Still Gadsden and Lynch were not satisfied. With vigorous dialectics, they proceeded, from a denial of the power of parliament in America, to deny the propriety of approaching either house with a petition. "The house of commons," reasoned Gadsden, "refused to receive the addresses of the colonies, when the matter was pending; besides, we neither hold our rights from them nor from the lords." But, yielding to the majority, Gadsden suppressed his opposition; "for," said he, “union is most certainly all in all."

The carefully considered documents, in which the congress embodied the demands of America, dwell mainly on the right to trial by jury in opposition to the extension of the admiralty jurisdiction, and the right to freedom from taxation except through the respective colonial legislatures. These were promulgated in the declaratory resolutions, with the further assertion that the people of the colonies not only are not, but, from their local circumstances, never can

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be, represented in the house of commons in Great Britain; that taxes never have been, and never can be, constitutionally imposed on the colonies but by their respective legislatures; that all supplies to the crown are free gifts; and that for the people of Great Britain to grant the property of the colonists was neither reasonable nor consistent with the principles or spirit of the British constitution. The same immunities were claimed, in the address to the king, as "inherent rights and liberties," of which the security was necessary to the "most effectual connection of America with the British empire." They also formed the theme of the memorial to the house of lords, mingled with complaints of the "late restrictions on trade."

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The congress purposely employed a different style in the address to the house of commons, insisting chiefly on the disadvantages the new measure might occasion, as well to the mother country as to the colonies. They disclaimed for America the "impracticable" idea of a representation in any but American legislatures. Acknowledging "all due subordination to the parliament of Great Britain," and extolling the "English constitution as the most perfect form of government," the source of "all their civil and religious liberties," they argued that, in reason and sound policy, there exists a material distinction between the exercise of a parliamentary jurisdiction in general acts of legislation for the amendment of the common law or the regulation of trade through the whole empire, and the exercise of that jurisdiction by imposing taxes on the colonies; from which they, therefore, entreated to be relieved.

While the congress were still weighing each word and phrase which they were to adopt, a ship laden with stamps arrived. At once, all the vessels in the harbor lowered their colors. The following night, papers were posted up at the doors of every public office and at the corners of the streets, in the name of the country, threatening the first man that should either distribute or make use of stamped paper. "Assure yourselves," thus the stamp distributors were warned, "the spirit of Brutus and Cassius is yet alive." The people grew more and more inflamed, declar

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ing: "We will not submit to the stamp act upon any account or in any instance.” "In this, we will no more submit to parliament than to the divan at Constantinople." "We will ward it off till we can get France or Spain to protect us." From mouth to mouth flew the words of John Adams: "You have rights antecedent to all earthly government; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the great Legislator of the universe." In the midst of this intense excitement, the congress brought its deliberations to a close. Ruggles, of Massachusetts, full of scruples and timidities, and Ogden, of New Jersey, who insisted that it was better for each province to petition separately for itself, pretended that the resistance to the stamp act through all America was treason, argued strenuously in favor of the supreme authority of parliament, and, cavilling to the last at particular expressions, refused to sign the papers prepared by the congress. “Union,” said Dyer, of Connecticut, "is so necessary, disunion so fatal, in these matters, that, as we cannot agree upon any alteration, they ought to be signed as they are, by those who are authorized to do so."

On the morning of the twenty-fifth, the anniversary of the accession of George III., the congress assembled for the last time; and the delegates of six colonies, being empowered to do so,—namely, all the delegates from Massachusetts, except Ruggles; all from New Jersey, except Ogden; all those of Rhode Island; all of Pennsylvania, excepting Dickinson, who was absent, but adhered; all of Delaware; and all of Maryland; with the virtual assent of New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, South Carolina, and Georgia,

set their hands to the papers, by which the colonies became, as they expressed it, "a bundle of sticks, which could neither be bent nor broken."

CHAPTER XIX.

AMERICA ANNULS THE STAMP ACT. ROCKINGHAM'S ADMINISTRATION CONTINUED.

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OCTOBER-DECEMBER, 1765.

On the day on which the congress consummated the union, the legislature which first proposed it, having been reassembled at Boston, and now cheered and invigorated by the presence of Samuel Adams, imbodied, in their reply to Bernard, the opinion on the power of parliament, from which the colony was never to recede.

"Your excellency tells us," they said, "that the province seems to be upon the brink of a precipice! To despair of the commonwealth is a certain presage of its fall. The representatives of the people are awake to the sense of its danger, and their utmost prudence will not be wanting to prevent its ruin.

"Of the power of parliament, there undoubtedly are boundaries. The church, in the name of the sacred Trinity, in the presence of King Henry III. and the estates of the realm, solemnly denounced that most grievous sentence of excommunication against all those who should make statutes, or observe them, being made contrary to the liberties of Magna Charta. Such acts as infringed upon the rights of that charter were always repealed. We have the same confidence in the rectitude of the present parliament. To require submission to an act as a preliminary to granting relief from the unconstitutional burdens of it supposes such a wanton exercise of mere arbitrary power as ought never to be surmised of the patrons of liberty and justice.

"The charter of the province invests the general assembly with the power of making laws for its internal govern

ment and taxation; and this charter has never yet been forfeited.

"There are certain original inherent rights belonging to the people, which the parliament itself cannot divest them of: among these is the right of representation in the body which exercises the power of taxation. There is a necessity that the subjects of America should exercise this power within themselves; for they are not represented in parlia ment, and indeed we think it impracticable.

"To suppose an indisputable right in parliament to tax the subjects without their consent, includes the idea of a despotic power.

"The people of this province have a just value for their inestimable rights, which are derived to all men from nature, and are happily interwoven in the British constitution. They esteem it sacrilege ever to give them up; and, rather than lose them, they would willingly part with every thing else.

"The stamp act wholly cancels the very conditions upon which our ancestors, with much toil and blood and at their sole expense, settled this country, and enlarged his majesty's dominions. It tends to destroy that mutual confidence and affection, as well as that equality, which ought ever to subsist among all his majesty's subjects in this wide and extended empire; and, what is the worst of all evils, if his majesty's American subjects are not to be governed according to the known and stated rules of the constitution, their minds may, in time, become disaffected."

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In addition to this state paper, which was the imprint of the mind of Samuel Adams, and had the vigor and polished elegance of his style, the house adopted "the best, and the best digested series of resolves," prepared by him, "to ascertain the just rights of the province," which the preamble said "had been lately drawn into question" by the British parliament.

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The answer of the house was regarded in England as the ravings of "a parcel of wild enthusiasts:"in America, nothing was so much admired through the whole course of the controversy; and John Adams, who recorded at the

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