Is the power who is
jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to govern us? Whoever says
NO to this question is an INDEPENDANT, for independancy means no
more, than, whether we shall make our own laws, or, whether the king,
the greatest enemy this continent hath, or can have, shall tell us,
"THERE SHALL BE NO LAWS BUT SUCH AS I LIKE."
But the king you will say has a negative in England; the people
there can make no laws without his consent. In point of right and
good order, there is something very ridiculous, that a youth of
twenty-one (which hath often happened) shall say to several millions
of people, older and wiser than himself, I forbid this or that act of
yours to be law. But in this place I decline this sort of reply,
though I will never cease to expose the absurdity of it, and only
answer, that England being the King's residence, and America not so,
make quite another case. The king's negative HERE is ten times more
dangerous and fatal than it can be in England, for THERE he will
scarcely refuse his consent to a bill for putting England into as
strong a state of defence as possible, and in America he would never
suffer such a bill to be passed.
Pages:
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76