Complete Works. Hamilton Alexander
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it upon others. If there be any chimera in your fond imagination which you express by that term, you must allow others to think it such. In short, if by the term you mean an authority resident in one part of his Majesty's dominions to make laws for every other part of them, you ought not to apply it in this sense till you have proved that such an authority does really exist; especially in a controversy about that very matter.
By the British dominions I mean the countries subject to his Britannic Majesty, in his royal capacity. By the British legislature I will suppose you intend simply the Parliament of Great Britain. Let us now try whether “to suppose there may be a part of his Britannic Majesty's dominions which is not subject to the Parliament be no better sense than to suppose a country, at one and the same time to be, and not to be, a part of the British dominions.” It is impossible for any thing to be and not to be; but it involves no contradictions to say that a country may be in subjection to his Britannic Majesty and, in that sense, a part of the British dominions, without being at all dependent on the Parliament of Great Britain. The colony of New York, therefore, may be a branch of the British empire, though not subordinate to the legislative authority of Britain.
Upon the whole, if by the British dominions you mean territories subject to the Parliament, you adhere to your usual fallacy, and suppose what you are bound to prove. I deny that we are dependent on the legislature of Great Britain; and yet I maintain that we are a part of the British empire—but in this sense only, as being the freeborn subjects of his Britannic Majesty.
Thus I have fully examined that argument, which is esteemed the bulwark of the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy, and, I flatter myself, clearly refuted it. The main pillar being now broken down, the whole structure may easily be demolished. I shall, therefore, proceed with alacrity in the completion of the work. But it is worthy of observation that a cause must be extremely weak which admits of no better supports.
Your next argument (if it deserve the name) is this: “Legislation is not an inherent right in the colonies; many colonies have been established and subsisted long without it. The Roman colonies had no legislative authority. It was not till the latter period of their republic that the privileges of Roman citizens, among which that of voting in assemblies of the people at Rome was the principal one, were extended to the inhabitants of Italy. All the laws of the empire were enacted at Rome. Neither their colonies nor conquered countries had any thing to do with legislation.”
The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms, and false reasonings, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race, and that civil liberty is founded in that, and cannot be wrested from any people without the most manifest violation of justice. Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice, but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society.
Upon this principle colonists, as well as other men, have a right to civil liberty. For if it be conducive to the happiness of society (and reason and experience testify that it is), it is evident that every society, of whatsoever kind, has an absolute and perfect right to it, which can never be withheld without cruelty and injustice. The practice of Rome toward her colonies cannot afford the shadow of an argument against this. That mistress of the world was often unjust. And the treatment of her dependent provinces is one of the greatest blemishes in her history. Through the want of that civil liberty for which we are so warmly contending, they groaned under every species of wanton oppression. If we are wise we shall take warning from thence, and consider a like state of dependence as more to be dreaded than pestilence and famine.
The right of colonists, therefore, to exercise a legislative power, is an inherent right. It is founded upon the rights of all men to freedom and happiness. For civil liberty cannot possibly have any existence where the society for whom laws are made have no share in making them, and where the interest of their legislators is not inseparably interwoven with theirs. Before you asserted that the right of legislation was derived “from the indulgence or grant of the parent state,” you should have proved two things: that all men have not a natural right to freedom; and that civil liberty is not advantageous to society.
“The position,” you say, “that we are bound by no laws but those to which we have assented, either by ourselves or by our representatives, is a novel position, unsupported by any authoritative record of the British constitution, ancient or modern. It is republican in its very nature, and tends to the utter subversion of the English monarchy.
“This position has arisen from an artful change of terms. To say that an Englishman is not bound by any laws but those to which the representatives of the nation have given their consent, is to say what is true. But to say that an Englishman is bound by no laws but those to which he hath consented, in person, or by his representatives, is saying what never was true and never can be true. A great part of the people have no vote in the choice of representatives, and therefore are governed by laws to which they never consented, either by themselves or by their representatives.”
The foundation of the English constitution rests upon this principle: that no laws have any validity or binding force without the consent and approbation of the people, given in the persons of their representatives, periodically elected by themselves. This constitutes the democratical part of the government.
It is also undeniably certain, that no Englishman who can be deemed a free agent in a political view can be bound by laws to which he has not consented, either in person or by his representative. Or, in other words, every Englishman (exclusive of the mercantile and trading part of the nation) who possesses a freehold to the value of forty shillings per annum has a right to share in the legislature, which he exercises by giving his vote in the election of some person he approves of as his representative.
“The true reason,” says Blackstone, “of requiring any qualification with regard to property in voters, is to exclude such persons as are in so mean a situation that they are esteemed to have no will of their own. If these persons had votes, they would be tempted to dispose of them under some undue influence or other. This would give a great, an artful, or a wealthy man a larger share in elections than is consistent with general liberty. If it were probable that every man would give his vote freely and without influence of any kind, then, upon the true theory and genuine principles of liberty, every member of the community, however poor, should have a vote in electing these delegates, to whose charge is committed the disposal of his property, his liberty, and his life. But since that can hardly be expected in persons of indigent fortunes, or such as are under the immediate dominion of others, all popular states have been obliged to establish certain qualifications, whereby some who are suspected to have no will of their own are excluded from voting, in order to set other individuals, whose wills may be supposed independent, more thoroughly upon a level with each other.”
Hence, it appears that such “of the people as have no vote in the choice of representatives, and therefore are governed by laws to which they have not consented, either by themselves or by their representatives,” are only those “persons who are in so mean a situation that they are esteemed to have no will of their own.” Every free agent, every free man, possessing a freehold of forty shillings per annum, is, by the British constitution, entitled to a vote in the election of those who are invested with the disposal of his life, his liberty, and property.
It is therefore evident, to a demonstration, that unless a free agent in America be permitted to enjoy the same privilege, we are entirely stripped of the benefits of the constitution, and precipitated into an abyss of slavery. For we are deprived of that immunity which is the grand pillar and support of freedom. And this cannot be done without a direct violation of the constitution, which decrees to every free agent a share in the legislature.
It deserves to be remarked here, that those very persons in Great Britain who are in so mean a situation as to be excluded from a part in elections, are in