A. I know there is a clause in the charter, by which the king grants that he will levy no taxes on the inhabitants, unless it be with the consent of the assembly, or by act of parliament.
Q. How then could the assembly of Pensylvania assert, that laying a tax on them by the stamp act was an infringement of their rights?
A. They understand it thus: by the same charter, and otherwise, they are intitled to all the privileges and liberties of Englishmen; they find in the great charters, and the petition and declaration of rights, that one of the privileges of English subjects is, that they are not to be taxed but by their common consent; they have therefore relied upon it, from the first settlement of the province, that the parliament never would, nor could, by colour of that clause in the charter, assume a right of taxing them, till it had qualified itself to exercise such right, by admitting representatives from the people to be taxed, who ought to make a part of that common consent.
Q. Are there any words in the charter that justify that construction?
A. The common rights of Englishmen, as declared by Magna Charta, and the petition of right, all justify it.
Q. Does the distinction between internal and external taxes exist in the words of the charter?
A. No, I believe not.
Q. Then may they not, by the same interpretation, object to the parliament's right of external taxation?
A. They never have hitherto. Many arguments have been lately used here to show them that there is no difference, and that if you have no right to tax them internally, you have none to tax them externally, or make any other law to bind them. At present they do not reason so; but in time they may possibly be convinced by these arguments.
Q. Do not the resolutions of the Pensylvania assembly say—all taxes?