“The supreme power cannot justly take from any man any part of his property without his consent in person or by his representatives.”[114]
Against all Parliamentary taxation, as often as it showed itself, this impenetrable buckler was lifted. But the mother country was perverse. Ship-loads of tea arrived. At Boston the tea was thrown into the dock. The Colonies entered into an agreement of non-importation. Then came troops, and the Boston Port Bill, by which this harbor was vindictively closed against commerce. The whole country, including even South Carolina, made common cause with Massachusetts. Gadsden exclaimed, “Massachusetts sounded the trumpet, but to Carolina is it owing that it was attended to.”[115] And Virginia exclaimed, “_We will never be taxed but by our own representatives._ This is the great badge of Freedom.… Whether the people in Boston were warranted by justice, when they destroyed the tea, we know not; but this we know, that the Parliament, by their proceedings, have made us and all North America parties in the present dispute.”[116] Meanwhile more troops arrived. All things portended strife; and yet the colonists did not ask for independence. They only asked for rights, insisting always that there should be no taxation without representation. “The patriots of this Province,” said John Adams in 1774, “desire nothing new; they wish only to keep their old privileges. They were for one hundred and fifty years allowed to tax themselves, and govern their internal concerns as they thought best. Parliament governed their trade as they thought fit. This plan they wish may continue forever.”[117] Thus stood the two parties face to face.
Then came the Continental Congress, which at once put forth resolutions, where, after claiming the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, as natural rights, it was insisted that the colonists could be bound by no law to which they had not consented by representatives. Here was the original programme of James Otis: first, the rights of men, according to Natural Law; and, secondly, the principle that government, including of course taxation, depended on the consent of the governed. “_The foundation_ of English Liberty and _of all free government_,” said these resolutions, “is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council.”[118] In harmony with these resolutions were the several addresses of the Continental Congress,--to the people of Great Britain, to the inhabitants of the Province of Quebec, and to the king himself,--always pleading for Human Rights in the largest sense. The address to the people of Great Britain begins by an appeal for “the rights of men and the blessings of Liberty,” and then insists “that no power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent.”[119] The address to the inhabitants of the Province of Quebec, in similar spirit, says: “_The first grand right is that of the people having a share in their own government by their representatives chosen by themselves_, and, in consequence, of being ruled by laws which they themselves approve, not by edicts of men over whom they have no control. This is a bulwark surrounding and defending their property.”[120] And the petition to the king has the same key-note: “Duty to your Majesty, and regard for the preservation of ourselves and our posterity, _the primary obligations of Nature and society_, command us to entreat your royal attention.”[121] Thus constantly, down to the last moment, did our fathers set forth the principles they sought to establish as essential to free government. Thus constantly did they testify to the cause for which I now plead.