AMERICAN POLITICS. BOOK III. GREAT SPEECHES ON GREAT ISSUES. Speech of James Wilson, January, 1775, in the Convention for the Province of IN VINDICATION OF THE COLONIES. "A most daring spirit of resistance and disobedience still prevails in Massachusetts, and has broken forth in fresh violences of a criminal nature. The most proper and effectual methods have been taken to prevent these mischiefs; and the parliament may depend upon a firm resolution to withstand every attempt to weaken or impair the supreme authority of parlia ment over all the dominions of the crown."-Speech of the King of Great Britain to Parliament, Nov., 1774. ful prognostic, that they will continue sufficient for those purposes hereafter. It is not yet exhausted: it will still operate irresistibly whenever a necessary occasion shall call forth its strength. Permit me, sir, by appealing, in a few instances, to the spirit and conduct of the colonists, to evince that what I have said of them is just. Did they disclose any uneasiness at the proceedings and claims of the British parliament, before those claims and proceedings afforded a reasonable cause for it? Did they even disclose any uneasiness, when a reasonable cause for it was first given? Our rights were invaded by their regulations of our internal policy. We submitted to them: we were unwilling to oppose them. The spirit of liberty was slow to act. When those invasions were renewed; when the efficacy and malignancy of them were attempted to be redoubled by the stamp act; when chains were formed for us; and preparations were made for riveting them on our limbs, what measures did we pursue? The spirit of liberty found it necessary now to act; but she acted with the calmness and decent dignity suited to her character. Were we rash or seditious? Did we discover want of loyalty to our sovereign? Did we betray want of affection to our brethren in Britain? Let our dutiful and reverential petitions to the throne; let our respectful, though firm, remonstrances to the parliament; let our warm and affectionate addresses to our brethren and (we will still call them) our friends in Great Britain,--let all those, transmitted from every part of the continent, testify the truth. By their testimony let our conduct be tried. MR. CHAIRMAN:-Whence, sir, proceeds all the invidious and ill-grounded clamor against the colonists of America? Why are they stigmatized in Britain as licentious and ungovernable? Why is their virtuous opposition to the illegal attempts of their governors, represented under the falsest colors, and placed in the most ungracious point of view? This opposition, when exhibited in its true light, and when viewed, with unjaundiced eyes, from a proper situation, and at a proper distance, stands confessed the lovely offspring of freedom. It breathes the spirit of its parent. Of this ethereal spirit, the whole conduct, and particularly the late conduct, of the colonists has shown them eminently possessed. It has animated and regulated every part of their proceedings. It has been recognized to be genuine, by all those symptoms and effects by which it has been distinguished in other ages and other countries. It has been calm and regular: it has not acted without occasion: it has not acted disproportionably to the occasion. As the attempts, open or secret, to undermine or to destroy it, have been repeated or enforced, in a just degree, its As our proceedings, during the existvigilance and its vigor have been exerted ence and operation of the stamp act, prove to defeat or to disappoint them. As its fully and incontestably the painful sensaexertions have been sufficient for those tions that tortured our breasts from the purposes hitherto, let us hence draw a joy-prospect of disunion with Brital; the peals of joy, which burst forth universally, upon the repeal of that odious statute, loudly proclaim the heartfelt delight produced in us by a reconciliation with her. Unsuspicious, because undesigning, we buried our complaints, and the causes of them, in oblivion, and returned, with eagerness, to our former unreserved confidence. Our connection with our parent country, and the reciprocal blessings resulting from it to her and to us, were the favorite and pleasing topics of our public discourses and our private conversations. Lulled into delightful security, we dreamed of nothing but increasing fondness and friendship, cemented and strengthened by a kind and perpetual communication of good cffices. Soon, however, too soon, were we awakened from the soothing dreams! Our enemies renewed their designs against us, not with less malice, but with more art. Under the plausible pretence of regulating our trade, and, at the same time, of making provision for the administration of justice, and the support of governmert, in some of the colonies, they pursued their scheme of depriving us of our property without our consent. As the attempts to distress us, and to degrade us to a rank inferior to that of freemen, appeared now to be reduced into a regular system, it became proper, on our part, to form a regular system for counteracting them. We ceased to import goods from Great Britain. Was this measure dictated by selfishness or by licentiousness? Did it not injure ourselves, while it injured the British merchants and manufacturers? Was it inconsistent with the peaceful demeanor of subjects to abstain from making purchases, when our freedom and our safety rendered it necessary for us to abstain from them? A regard for our freedom and our safety was our only motive; for no sooner had the parliament, by repealing part of the revenue laws, inspired us with the flattering hopes, that they had departed from their intentions of oppressing and of taxing us, than we forsook our plan for defeating those intentions, and began to import as formerly. Far from being peevish or captious, we took no public notice even of their declaratory law of dominion over us our candor led us to consider it as a decent expedient of retreating from the actual exercise of that dominion. rendered impossible to store it up, or to send it back, as was done at other places. A number of persons, unknown, destroyed it. Let us here make a concession to our enemies: let us suppose, that the transaction deserves all the dark and hideous colors in which they have painted it: let us even suppose (for our cause admits of an excess of candor) that all their exaggerated accounts of it were confined strictly to the truth: what will follow? Will it follow, that every British colony in America, or even the colony of Massachusetts Bay, or even the town of Boston, in that colony, merits the imputation of being fac tious and seditious? Let the frequent mobs and riots, that have happened in Great Britain upon much more trivial occasions, shame our calumniators into silence. Will it follow, because the rules of order and regular government were, in that instance, violated by the offenders, that, for this reason, the principles of the constitution, and the maxims of justice, must be violated by their punishment? Will it follow, because those who were guilty could not be known, that, therefore, those who were known not to be guilty must suffer? Will it follow, that even the guilty should be condemned without being heard that they should be condemned upon partial testimony, upon the representations of their avowed and imbittered enemies? Why were they not tried in courts of justice known to their constitution, and by juries of their neighborhood? Their courts and their juries were not, in the case of captain Preston, transported beyond the bounds of justice by their resentment: why, then, should it be presumed, that, in the case of those offenders, they would be prevented from doing justice by their affection? But the colonists, it seems, must be stripped of their judicial, as well as of their legislative powers. They must be bound by a legislature, they must be tried by a jurisdiction, not their own. Their constitutions must be changed: their liberties must be abridged: and those who shall be most infamously active in changing their constitutions and abridging their liberties, must, by an express provision, be exempted from punishment. I do not exaggerate the matter, sir, when I extend these observations to all the colonists. The parliament meant But, alas! the root of bitterness still re- to extend the effects of their promained. The duty on tea was reserved to ceedings to all the colonists. The plan, furnish occasion to the ministry for a new on which their proceedings are formed, effort to enslave and to ruin us; and the extends to them all. From an incident of East India Company were chosen, and con- no very uncommon or atrocious nature, sented to be the detested instruments of which happened in one colony, in one ministerial despotism and cruelty. A cargo town in that colony, and in which only of their tea arrived at Boston. By a low a few of the inhabitants of that town took artifice of the governor, and by the wicked a part, an occasion has been taken by activity of the tools of government, it was those, who probably intended it, and who certainly prepared the way for it, to impose upon that colony, and to lay a foundation and a precedent for imposing upon all the rest, a system of statutes, arbitrary, unconstitutional, oppressive, in every view, and in every degree subversive of the rights, and inconsistent with even the name, of freemen. calumny. Do not those men know-would they have others not to know that it was impossible for the inhabitants of the same province, and for the legislatures of the different provinces, to communicate their sentiments to one another in the modes appointed for such purposes, by their different constitutions? Do not they knowWere the colonists so blind as not to would they have others not to knowdiscern the consequences of these mea- that all this was rendered impossible by sures? Were they so supinely inactive, as those very persons, who now, or whose to take no steps for guarding against them? minions now, urge this objection against They were not. They ought not to have us? Do not they know-would they been so. We saw a breach made in those have others not to know that the barriers, which our ancestors, British and different assemblies, who could be disAmerican, with so much care, with so solved by the governors, were in consemuch danger, with so much treasure, and quence of ministerial mandates, dissolved with so much blood, had erected, cemented by them, whenever they attempted to turn and established for the security of their their attention to the greatest objects, liberties, and-with filial piety let us men- which, as guardians of the liberty of their tion it-of ours. We saw the attack actu- constituents, could be presented to their ally begun upon one part: ought we to view? The arch enemy of the human have folded our hands in indolence, to have race torments them only for those actions lulled our eyes in slumbers, till the attack to which he has tempted, but to which he was carried on, so as to become irresistible, has not necessarily obliged them. Those in every part? Sir, I presume to think not. men refine even upon infernal malice: We were roused; we were alarmed, as we they accuse, they threaten us, (superlative had reason to be But still our measures impudence!) for taking those very steps, have been such as the spirit of liberty and which we were laid under the disagreeable of loyalty directed; not such as the spirit necessity of taking by themselves, or by of sedition or of disaffection would pursue. those in whose hateful service they are enOur counsels have been conducted without listed. But let them know, that our rashness and faction: our resolutions have counsels, our deliberations, our resolutions, been taken without phrensy or fury. if not authorized by the forms, because That the sentiments of every individual that was rendered impossible by our concerning that important object, his lib- enemies, are nevertheless authorized by erty, might be known and regarded, meet- that which weighs much more in the scale ings have been held, and deliberations car- of reason-by the spirit of our constituried on, in every particular district. That tions. Was the convention of the barons at the sentiments of all those individuals Runnymede, where the tyranny of John might gradually and regularly be collected was checked, and magna charta was signed, into a single point, and the conduct of authorized by the forms of the constitueach inspired and directed by the result of tion? Was the convention parliament, the whole united, county committees, pro- that recalled Charles the Second, and revincial conventions, a continental congress, stored the monarchy, authorized by the have been appointed, have met and resolved. forms of the constitution? Was the conBy this means, a chain more inesti-vention of lords and commons, that placed mable, and, while the necessity for it continues, we hope, more indissoluble than one of gold-a chain of freedom has been formed, of which every individual in these colonies, who is willing to preserve the greatest of human blessings, his liberty, has the pleasure of beholding himself a link. king William on the throne, and secured the monarchy and liberty likewise, authorized by the forms of the constitution? I cannot conceal my emotions of pleasure, when I observe, that the objections of our adversaries cannot be urged against us, but in common with those venerable assemblies, whose proceedings formed such an accession to British liberty and Britisn renown. * * * * * * Are these measures, sir, the brats of disloyalty, of disaffection? There are miscreants among us, wasps that suck poison from the most salubrious flowers, who tell We can be at no loss in resolving, us they are. They tell us that all those that the king cannot, by his prerogative, assemblies are unlawful, and unauthorized alter the charter or constitution of the by our constitutions; and that all their colony of Massachusetts Bay. Upon what deliberations and resolutions are so many principle could such an exertion of pretransgressions of the duty of subjects. The rogative be justified? On the acts of parutmost malice brooding over the utmost liament? They are already proved to be baseness, and nothing but such a hated void. On the discretionary power which commixture, must have hatched this the king has of acting where the laws are silent? That power must be subservient to And now, sir, let me appeal to the im the interest and happiness of those con- partial tribunal of reason and truth; let cerning whom it operates. But I go fur-me appeal to every unprejudiced and ther. Instead of being supported by law, judicious observer of the laws of Britain, or the principles of prerogative, such an and of the constitution of the British govalteration is totally and absolutely repug- ernment; let me appeal, I say, whether nant to both. It is contrary to express law. the principles on which I argue, or the The charter and constitution, we speak of, principles on which alone my arguments are confirmed by the only legislative power can be opposed, are those which ought to capable of confirming them; and no other be adhered to and acted upon; which of power, but that which can ratify, can them are most consonant to our laws and destroy. If it is contrary to express law, liberties; which of them have the strongthe consequence is necessary, that it is con- est, and are likely to have the most effecttrary to the principles of prerogative; for ual tendency to establish and secure the prerogative can operate only when the law royal power and dignity. is silent. In no view can this alteration be justified, or so much as excused. It cannot be justified or excused by the acts of parliament; because the authority of parliament does not extend to it; it cannot be justified or excused by the operation of prerogative; because this is none of the cases in which prerogative can operate: it cannot be justified or excused by the legislative authority of the colony; because that authority never has been, and, I presume, never will be given for any such purpose. If I have proceeded hitherto, as I am persuaded I have, upon safe and sure ground, I can, with great confidence, advance a step further, and say that all attempts to alter the charter or constitution of that colony, unless by the authority of its own legislature, are violations of its rights, and illegal. Are we deficient in loyalty to his majesty? Let our conduct convict, for it will fully convict, the insinuation that we are, of falsehood. Our loyalty has always appeared in the true form of loyalty; in obeying our sovereign according to law; let those, who would require it in any other form, know, that we call the persons who execute his commands, when contrary to law, disloyal and traitors. Are we enemies to the power of the crown? No, sir, we are its best friends: this friendship prompts us to wish, that the power of the crown may be firmly established on the most solid basis: but we know, that the constitution alone will perpetuate the former, and securely uphold the latter. Are our principles irreverent to majesty? They are quite the reverse: we ascribe to it perfection almost divine. We say, that the king can do no wrong: we say, that to do wrong is the property, not of power, but of weak If those attempts are illegal, must not all force, employed to carry them into ex-ness. ecution, be force employed against law, and without authority? The conclusion is unavoidable. Have not British subjects, then, a right to resist such force-force acting without authority-force employed contrary to law -force employed to destroy the very existence of law and of liberty? They have, sir, and this right is secured to them both by the letter and the spirit of the British constitution, by which the measures and the conditions of their obedience are appointed. The British liberties, sir, and the means and the right of defending them, are not the grants of princes; and of what our princes never granted they surely can never deprive us. * * * * * Id rex potest," says the law, "quod de jure potest.' The king's power is a power according to law. His commands, if the authority of lord chief justice Hale may be depended upon, are under the directive power of the law; and consequently invalid, if unlawful. "Commissions," says my lord Coke, are legal; and are like the king's writs; and none are lawful, but such as are allowed by the common law, or warranted by some act of parliament." We feel oppression, and will oppose it; but we know, for our constitution tells us, that oppression can never spring from the throne. We must, therefore, search elsewhere for its source: our infallible guide will direct us to it. Our constitution tells us, that all oppression springs from the ministers of the throne. The attributes of perfection, ascribed to the king, are, neither by the constitution, nor in fact, communicable to his ministers. They may do wrong; they have often done wrong; they have been often punished for doing wrong. Here we may discern the true cause of all the impudent clamor and unsupported accusations of the ministers and of their minions, that have been raised and made against the conduct of the Americans. Those ministers and minions are sensible, that the opposition is directed, not against his majesty, but against them; because they have abused his majesty's confidence, brought discredit upon his government, and derogated from his justice. They see the public vengeance collected in dark clouds around them: their consciences tell them, that it should be hurled, like a thunderbolt, at their guilty heads. Appalled with guilt and fear, they skulk be |