3 2044 024 440 711

BE CHARGED

The borrower must return this item on or before the last date stamped below. If another user places a recall for this item, the borrower will be notified of the need for an earlier return.

Non-receipt of overdue notices does not exempt the borrower from overdue fines.

The

words, "whose enormous weight spreads horror and destruction on all inferior movements." first is a power subject to a constitutional check. Great-Britain cannot injure us by taking away our

Ireland. In queen Elizabeth's reign, " Gerrade, chancellor of Ireland, moved that question to the council of the queen, and it was held by Wray, Dier, and Gerrarde, attorney general, he could not, because he was a subject of Ireland and not of England, and if tried in England, he could not be tried by his peers.” Dier, 360. Afterwards, to gratify the queen's resentment against some rebe!s, they were tried in England; and thus passion and complaisance made very good law against reason and justice.

Having mentioned Calvin's case, it may not be improper to observe, that if the author of " the controversy" had taken the trouble of reading it, he might have found his perplexities removed on the question that has given him so much anxiety, and brought such a load of reproaches on the colonies. He is provoked at our insolence for pretending to be any thing more than aliens in England, while we deny the power of parliament to bind us" in all cases whatever." In that case, the gentleman would have discovered, that the judges of England held, that a man born in Scotland, under the allegiance of James the first, after his accession to the throne of England, was intitled to all the rights of a subject born in England; though the objection, that statutes of England could not bind Scotland, or a man residing there, who held lands in England, was mentioned in the course of the argument. That great difficulty be-, ing got over, if the gentleman, will go a step farther, and perceive some little distinction between colonies proceeding out of the loins of England, and the conquered" countries of Ireland and Wales,-the countries of Gascoigny, Guienne, and Calais, "united by mutual pact to England"--and the islands of Guernsey, &c." lying within the four seas, whose sovereigns annexed them to England:" and will only allow the colonists a little more regard than is profest in law books for those countries, and about as much as has been actually observed towards them by parliament, he will have no further occasion to say severe things of those, who are willing to esteem him; and then, if he can persuade his worthy countrymen to adopt his sentiments, their anger will no longer give pain to those who almost adore them.

commerce without hurting herself immediately. The last is a power without check or limit. She

might ruin us by it. The injury thereby to herself might be so remote as to be despised by her.

THE power of regulation was the only band that could have held us together; formed on one of those " original contracts," which only can be a foundation of just authority. Without such a band, our general commerce with foreign nations, might have been injurious and destructive to her. Reason and duty reject such a licence. This our duty resembles that of children to a parent. The parent has a power over them: but they have rights, which the parent cannot take away. Heaven grant that our mother country may regard us as her children, that if by the dispensation of Providence, the time shall come, when her power decreases, the memory of former kindnesses may supply its decays, and her colonies like dutiful children, may serve and guard their aged parent, for ever revering the arms that held them in their infancy, and the breasts that supported their lives, while they were little ones.

It seems, as if the power of regulation might not inaptly be compared to the prerogative of making peace, war, treaties, or alliances, whereby

"the whole nation are bound, AGAINST THEIR CONSENT" and yet the prerogative by no means implies a supreme legislature. The language held in the commentaries" on this point is very remarkable. "With regard to foreign concerns the king is the delegate or representative of the people; and in him, as in a center, all the rays of his people are united; and the SOVEREIGN POWER quoad boc is vested in his person." Will any Englishman say these expressions are descriptive of the king's authority, within the realm. "Is the sovEREIGN POWER within that vested in his person?” He is stiled" sovereign" indeed; "his realm is declared by many acts of parliament an empire, and his crown imperial." But do these splendid appellations, the highest known in Europe signify, that " Sovereign POWER is vested in his person within the realm ?" We have a full answer in the commentaries. "The meaning of the legislature, when it uses these terms of empire and imperial, and applies them to the realm and crown of England, is only to assert, that our king is equally sovereign and independent within these his dominions; and owes no kind of subjection to any potentate upon earth." Thus we maintain, that with regard to foreign affairs, the parent original state, "is the delegate or representative," of the entire

* 1 Blackft. 252, 257.

† Idem. 252.

+ Idem. 257.

dominions, "the sovereign power QUOAD HOC is vested" in her. Her acts under this power, "irrevocably bind the whole nation." But yet this power by no means implies a supreme legislature.

THE exercise of this power by statutes was absolutely necessary; because it was, and could only be lodged, as the laws of the parent state stand, in the supreme legislature of that state, consisting of king, lords, and commons; and statutes are the modes by which their united sentiments and resolutions are exprest. It is universally acknowledged in Great-Britain, that it infers no power of taxation in king and lords, that their limited authority is used in cloathing, gifts and grants of the commons with the forms of law-nor does it infer supreme legislature over us, that the limited authority of king, lords, and commons is used in cloathing regulations of trade with the forms of law.

THIS power of regulation appears to us to have been pure in its principle, simple in its operation, and salutary in its effects. But for some time past we have observed, with pain, that it hath been turned to other purposes, than it was originally designed for, and retaining its title, hath become an engine of intolerable oppressions and grievous taxations. The argument of an eminent judge, states