If we have indeed that power which we claim over the legislations, and internal rights of the Colonies, may we not, whenever we please, subject them to the arbitrary power of the crown?—I do not mean, that this would be a disadvantageous change: For I have before observed, that if a people are to be subject to an external power over which they have no command, it is better that power should be lodged in the hands of one man than of a multitude. But many persons think otherwise; and such ought to consider that, if this would be a calamity, the condition of the Colonies must be deplorable.—“A government by King, Lords, and Commons, (it has been said) is the perfection of government;” and so it is, when the Commons are a just representation of the people; and when also, it is not extended to any distant people, or communities, not represented. But if this is the best, a government by a king only must be the worst; and every claim implying a right to establish such a government among any people must be unjust and cruel.—It is self-evident, that by claiming a right to alter the constitutions of the Colonies, according to our discretion, we claim this power: And it is a power that we have thought fit to exercise in one of our Colonies; and that we have attempted to exercise in another.—Canada, according to the late extension of its limits, is a country almost as large as half Europe; and it may possibly come in time to be filled with British subjects. The Quebec act makes the king of Great Britain a despot over all that country.—In the Province of Massachuset’s Bay the same thing has been attempted and begun.
The act for BETTER regulating their government, passed at the same time with the Quebec act, gives the king the right of appointing, and removing at his pleasure, the members of one part of the legislature; alters the mode of chusing juries, on purpose to bring it more under the influence of the king; and takes away from the province the power of calling any meetings of the people without the king’s consent.[20]—The judges, likewise, have been made dependent on the king, for their nomination and pay, and continuance in office.—If all this is no more than we have a right to do; may we not go on to abolish the house of representatives, to destroy all trials by juries, and to give up the province absolutely and totally to the will of the king?—May we not even establish popery in the province, as has been lately done in Canada, leaving the support of protestantism to the king’s discretion?—Can there be any Englishman who, were it his own case, would not sooner lose his heart’s blood than yield to claims so pregnant with evils, and destructive to every thing that can distinguish a Freeman from a Slave?
I will take this opportunity to add, that what I have now said, suggests a consideration that demonstrates, on how different a footing the Colonies are with respect to our government, from particular bodies of men within the kingdom, who happen not to be represented. Here, it is impossible that the represented part should subject the unrepresented part to arbitrary power, without including themselves. But in the Colonies it is not impossible. We know that it has been done.
SECT. II.
Whether the War with America is justified by the Principles of the Constitution.
I have proposed, in the next place, to examine the war with the Colonies by the principles of the constitution.—I know, that it is common to say that we are now maintaining the constitution in America. If this means that we are endeavouring to establish our own constitution of government there; it is by no means true; nor, were it true, would it be right. They have chartered governments of their own, with which they are pleased; and which, if any power on earth may change without their consent, that power may likewise, if it thinks proper, deliver them over to the Grand Seignior.—Suppose the Colonies of France had, by compacts, enjoyed for many years, free governments open to all the world, under which they had grown and flourished; what should we think of that kingdom, were it to attempt to destroy their governments, and to force upon them its own mode of government? Should we not applaud any zeal they discovered in repelling such an injury?—But the truth is, in the present instance, that we are not maintaining but violating our own constitution in America. The essence of our constitution consists in its independency. There is in this case no difference between subjection and annihilation. Did, therefore, the Colonies possess governments perfectly the same with ours, the attempt to subject them to ours would be an attempt to ruin them. A free government loses its nature from the moment it becomes liable to be commanded or altered by any superior power.
But I intended here principally to make the following observation.
The fundamental principle of our government is, “The right of a people to give and grant their own money.”—It is of no consequence, in this case, whether we enjoy this right in a proper manner or not. Most certainly we do not. It is, however, the principle on which our government, as a free government, is founded. The spirit of the constitution gives it us; and, however imperfectly enjoyed, we glory in it as our first and greatest blessing. It was an attempt to encroach upon this right, in a trifling instance, that produced the civil war in the reign of Charles the First.—Ought not our brethren in America to enjoy this right as well as ourselves? Do the principles of the constitution give it us, but deny it to them? Or can we, with any decency, pretend that when we give to the king their money, we give him our own?[21]—What difference does it make, that in the time of Charles the First the attempt to take away this right was made by one man: but that, in the case of America, it is made by a body of men?
In a word. This is a war undertaken not only against the principles of our own constitution; but on purpose to destroy other similar constitutions in America; and to substitute in their room a military force. See [page 23, 24].—It is, therefore, a gross and flagrant violation of the constitution.