Here is a plain enunciation of two capital truths: first, that all political society stands only on the consent of the governed; and, secondly, that taxation without representation is an invasion of fundamental right. It was these truths that our fathers embraced in the controversy before them; and these same truths, happily characterized by Hallam as “fertile of great revolutions and perhaps pregnant with more,”[88] are as fertile and as pregnant now as then.
But even this illumination did not begin with these illustrious Englishmen. Two centuries before their testimony, Philippe de Comines, a minister of Louis the Eleventh, in his Memoirs, marking an epoch in historical literature, announced the same principle; so that here France antedates England.
“Is there king or lord on earth who has power, outside his domain [personal estate], to impose a penny upon his subjects, _without grant and consent of those who must pay it_, unless by tyranny or violence?”[89]
That good man, who excelled so much as teacher, and did so much for scholarship and history, Arnold of Rugby, records a conclusion hardly less important than that of his earlier compatriots.
“It seems to be assumed in modern times that the being born of free parents within the territory of any particular state, and the paying towards the support of its government, _conveys a natural claim to the rights of citizenship_.”[90]
Others had said there could be taxation only with the consent of the people taxed. The last authority exhibits citizenship associated with contribution to the support of the government. This same political truth appeared in Virginia as early as 1655-6, where, by solemn enactment, repealing a restriction upon suffrage, it was declared “something hard and unagreeable to reason that any persons shall pay equal taxes and yet have no votes in elections.”[91] And it reappears in the famous Declaration of Rights, adopted unanimously June 12, 1776, which announces that men “cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses without their own consent or that of their representatives so elected.”[92]
Sidney and Locke unquestionably exercised more influence over the popular mind, preceding the Revolution, than any other writers. They were constantly quoted, and their names were held in reverence. But their authority has not ceased. As they spoke to our fathers, they now speak to us: _Sicut patribus, sic nobis_.