640. AUTHORITY, Resistance to usurped.—
It is a dangerous lesson to say to the people “whenever your functionaries exercise
unlawful authority over you, if you do
not go into actual resistance, it will be
deemed acquiescence and confirmation.” How
long had we acquiesced under usurpations of
the British parliament? Had that confirmed
them in right, and made our Revolution a
wrong? Besides no authority has yet decided
whether this resistance must be instantaneous:
when the right to resist ceases,
or whether it has yet ceased?—
To John Hambden Pleasants. Washington ed. vii, 345.
Ford ed., x, 302.
(M.
1824)
