Novanglus, and Massachusettensis / or, Political Essays, Published in the Years 1774 and 1775, on the Principal Points of Controversy, between Great Britain and Her Colonies

by John Adams; Daniel Leonard

But will any man soberly contend, that America was ever annexed to the realm? to what realm? When New England was settled, there was a realm of England, a realm of Scotland, and a realm of Ireland. To which of these three realms was New England annexed? To the realm of England, it will be said. But by what law? no territory could be annexed to the realm of England, but by an act of parliament. Acts of parliament have been passed to annex Wales, &c. &c. to the realm. But none ever passed to annex America. But if New-England was annexed to the realm of England, how came she annexed to the realm of, or kingdom of Great Britain? The two realms of England and Scotland were, by the act of union, incorporated into one kingdom by the name of Great Britain: but there is not one word about America in that act.

Besides, if America was annexed to the realm, or a part of the kingdom, every act of parliament that is made, would extend to it, named or not named. But every body knows that every act of parliament, and every other record, constantly distinguishes between this kingdom, and his majesty's other dominions. Will it be said that Ireland is annexed to the realm, or a part of the kingdom of Great Britain? Ireland is a distinct kingdom, or realm, by itself, notwithstanding British parliament claims a right of binding it in all cases, and exercises it in some. And even so the Massachusetts is a realm, New York is a realm, Pennsylvania another realm, to all intents and purposes, as much as Ireland is, or England or Scotland ever were. The king of Great Britain is the sovereign of all these realms.

This writer says, "that in denying that the Colonies are annexed to the realm, and subject to the authority of parliament, individuals and bodies of men subvert the fundamentals of government, deprive us of British liberties, and build up absolute monarchy in the colonies."

This is the first time that I ever heard or read that the colonies are annexed to the realm. It is utterly denied that they are, and that it is possible they should be, without an act of parliament, and acts of the colonies. Such an act of parliament cannot be produced, nor any such law of any one colony. Therefore as this writer builds the whole authority of parliament upon this fact, viz: That the colonies are annexed to the realm, and as it is certain they never were so annexed, the consequence is, that his whole superstructure falls.

When he says, that they subvert the fundamentals of government, he begs the question. We say that the contrary doctrines subvert the fundamentals of government. When he says that they deprive us of British liberties, he begs the question again. We say that the contrary doctrine deprives us of English liberties; as to British liberties, we scarcely know what they are, as the liberties of England and Scotland are not precisely the same to this day. English liberties are but certain rights of nature, reserved to the citizen, by the English constitution, which rights cleaved to our ancestors, when they crossed the Atlantic, and would have inhered in them, if instead of coming to New-England they had gone to Outaheite, or Patagonia, even although they had taken no patent or charter from the king at all. These rights did not adhere to them the less, for their purchasing patents and charters, in which the king expressly stipulates with them, that they and their posterity should forever enjoy all those rights and liberties.

The human mind is not naturally the clearest atmosphere; but the clouds and vapours which have been raised in it, by the artifices of temporal and spiritual tyrants, have made it impossible to see objects in it distinctly. Scarcely any thing is involved in more systematical obscurity, than the rights of our ancestors, when they arrived in America. How, in common sense, came the dominions of king Philip, king Massachusetts, and twenty other sovereigns, independent princes here, to be within the allegiance of the kings of England, James and Charles? America was no more within the allegiance of those princes, by the common law of England, or by the law of nature, than France and Spain were. Discovery, if that was incontestible, could give no title to the English king, by common law, or by the law of nature, to the lands, tenements, and hereditaments of the native Indians here. Our ancestors were sensible of this, and therefore honestly purchased their lands of the natives. They might have bought them to hold allodially, if they would.

But there were two ideas, which confused them, and have continued to confuse their posterity, one derived from the feudal, the other from the canon law. By the former of these systems, the prince, the general, was supposed to be sovereign lord of all the lands, conquered by the soldiers in his army; and upon this principle, the king of England was considered in law as sovereign lord of all the land within the realm. If he had sent an army here to conquer king Massachusetts, and it had succeeded, he would have been sovereign lord of the land here upon these principles; but there was no rule of the common law, that made the discovery of a country by a subject, a title to that country in the prince. But conquest would not have annexed the country to the realm, nor have given any authority to the parliament. But there was another mist cast before the eyes of the English nation from another source. The pope claimed a sovereign propriety in, as well as authority over the whole earth. As head of the christian church, and vicar of God, he claimed this authority over all Christendom; and, in the same character, he claimed a right to all the countries and possessions of heathens and infidels; a right divine to exterminate and destroy them at his discretion, in order to propagate the catholic faith. When king Henry VIII. and his parliament, threw off the authority of the pope, stripped his holiness of his supremacy, and invested it in himself by an act of parliament, he and his courtiers seemed to think that all the rights of the holy see were transferred to him; and it was a union of these two, the most impertinent and fantastical ideas that ever got into an human pericranium, viz: that as feudal sovereign and supreme head of the church together, a king of England had a right to all the land their subjects could find, not possessed by any christian state, or prince, though possessed by heathen or infidel nations, which seems to have deluded the nation about the time of the settlement of the colonies. But none of these ideas gave or inferred any right in parliament, over the new countries conquered or discovered; and therefore denying that the colonies are a part of the realm, and that as such they are subject to parliament, by no means deprives us of English liberties. Nor does it "build up absolute monarchy in the colonies." For admitting these notions of the common and feudal law to have been in full force, and that the king was absolute in America, when it was settled; yet he had a right to enter into a contract with his subjects, and stipulate that they should enjoy all the rights and liberties of Englishmen forever, in consideration of their undertaking to clear the wilderness, propagate christianity, pay a fifth part of ore, &c. Such a contract as this has been made with all the colonies; royal governments, as well as charter ones. For the commissions to the governors contain the plan of the government, and the contract between the king and subject, in the former, as much as the charters in the latter.

Indeed this was the reasoning, and upon these feudal and catholic principles in the time of some of the predecessors of Massachusettensis. This was the meaning of Dudley, when he asked, "Do you think that English liberties will follow you to the ends of the earth?" His meaning was, that English liberties were confined to the realm, and out of that the king was absolute. But this was not true; for an English king had no right to be absolute over Englishmen, out of the realm, any more than in it, and they were released from their allegiance, as soon as he deprived them of their liberties.

But "our charters suppose regal authority in the grantor." True they suppose it, whether there was any or not. "If that authority be derived from the British (he should have said English) crown, it presupposes this territory to have been a part of the British (he should have said English) dominion, and as such subject to the imperial sovereign." How can this writer shew this authority to be derived from the English crown, including in the idea of it lords and commons? Is there the least color for such an authority but in the popish and feudal ideas before mentioned? And do these popish and feudal ideas include parliament? Was parliament, were lords and commons parts of the head of the church, or was parliament, that is, lords and commons, part of the sovereign feudatory? Never. But why was this authority derived from the English, any more than the Scottish or Irish crown? It is true the land was to be held in soccage, like the manor of East Greenwich; but this was compact, and it might have been as well to hold, as they held in Glasgow or Dublin.

But, says this writer, "if that authority was vested in the person of the king in a different capacity, the British constitution and laws are out of the question, and the king must be absolute as to us, as his prerogatives have never been limited." Not the prerogatives limited in our charters, when in every one of them all the rights of Englishmen are secured to us! Are not the rights of Englishmen sufficiently known, and are not the prerogatives of the king among those rights?