6406. PARLIAMENT, Misgovernment by.—
Not only the principles of common sense, but the feelings of human nature, must
be surrendered up before his Majesty's subjects
here, can be persuaded to believe that they
hold their political existence at the will of a
British Parliament. Shall these governments
be dissolved, their property annihilated, and
their people reduced to a state of nature, at the
imperious breath of a body of men whom they
never saw, in whom they never confided, and
over whom they have no powers of punishment
or removal, let their crimes against the American
public be ever so great? Can any one reason
be assigned why one hundred and sixty
thousand electors in the Island of Great Britain
should give law to four millions in the States
of America, every individual of whom is equal
to every individual of them, in virtue, in understanding,
and in bodily strength? Were this
to be admitted, instead of being a free people,
as we have hitherto supposed, and mean to continue
ourselves, we should suddenly be found
the slaves, not of one, but of one hundred and
sixty thousand tyrants, distinguished, too, from
all others by this singular circumstance, that
they are removed from the reach of fear, the
only restraining motive which may hold the
hand of a tyrant.—
Rights of British America. Washington ed. i, 131.
Ford ed., i, 436.
(1774)
