7280. REPRESENTATION, Government without.—[continued].
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 the singular
circumstances, 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)
