66 parliament, and that they could be lawfully taxed by parliament? Nay, such was the state of the electoral system that entire communities of British subjects in England, composing such cities as Leeds, Halifax, Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool, communities as populous and as rich as entire provinces in America, - had no votes whatever for members of parliament. Yet did the people of these several communities in England refuse to pay taxes levied by act of parliament, that is, did they, for that reason, proclaim the nullification of a law of the general government? admit," continued the American Loyalists, "that for all these communities of British subjects for those in England, as well as for these in America-the existing representation is very imperfect; that it should be reformed and made larger and more uniform than it now is; and we are ready and anxious to join in all forms of constitutional agitation, under the leadership of such men as Chatham, and Camden, and Burke, and Barré, and Fox, and Pownall, to secure such reform; and yet it remains true that the present state of representation throughout the British empire, imperfect as it is, is representation in the very sense understood and practiced by the English race whenever hitherto they have alleged the maxim, No taxation without representation.' That old maxim, therefore, can hardly be said to be violated by the present imperfect state of our representative system. The true remedy for the defects of which we complain is reform-reform of the entire representative system both in England and in America - reform by means of vigorous political agitation; reform, then, and not a rejection of the authority of the general government; reform, and not nullification; reform, and not a disruption of the empire." Such is a rough statement and, as I think, a fair one, of the leading argument of the American Loyalists with respect to the first of the two great questions then dividing the American people, namely, the question of what was lawful under the existing constitution of the British empire. Certainly, the position thus taken by the Loyalists was a very strong one, — 30 strong, in fact, that honest and reasonable Americans could take it, and stand upon it, and even offer up their lives in defense of it, without being justly liable to the charge that they were either particularly base or particularly stupid. Indeed, under this aspect of legality, the concession just made by us does scant justice to the Tories-or to the truth. Upon that The dispute, it must be remembered, had arisen among a people who were then subjects of the British empire, and were proud of the fact; who exulted in the blessings of the British constitution; and who, upon the matter at issue, began by confidently appealing to that constitution for support. The contention of the Tories was that, under the constitution, the authority of the imperial parliament was, even for purposes of revenue legislation, binding in America, as in all other parts of the empire, and even though America should have no members in the house of commons. This the Whigs denied. It was, then, a question of British constitutional law. question, which of the two parties was in the right? Is it now possible to doubt that it was the Tories? A learned American writer upon the law, now one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, in referring to the decision of Mr. Chief Justice Hutchinson sustaining the legality of writs of assistance, has given this opinion: "A careful examination of the question compels the conclusion . . . that there was at least reasonable ground for holding, as a matter of mere law, that the British parliament had power to bind the colonies. This view, of course, has been sustained by the highest English authorities upon British constitutional law, from the time of Lord Mansfield to the present. "As a matter of abstract right," says Sir Vernon Harcourt, "the mother country has never parted with the claim of ultimate supreme authority for the imperial legislature. If it did so, it would dissolve the imperial tie, and convert the colonies into foreign and independent states." "The constitutional supremacy of the imperial parliament over all the colonial possessions of the crown," says another eminent English writer, "was formally reasserted, in 1865, by an act passed to remove certain doubts respecting the powers of colonial legislatures. It is clear that imperial acts are binding upon the colonial subjects of the crown, as much as upon all other British subjects, whenever, by express provision or by necessary intendment, they relate to or concern the colonies." But after the question as to what was lawful under the existing constitution of the British empire, came the question as to what was expedient under the existing circumstances of the American colonies. Now, as it happened, this latter question had two aspects, one of which pointed toward the expediency of rejecting the taxing power of parliament, even though such power did exist under the constitution; the other pointed toward the expediency of separation from the empire. Having in view, at present, the former aspect of this question, the American Whigs went forward and took the ground that, if the claim of parliament to tax them was indeed justified by the constitution, then so much the worse for the constitution, since it was a claim too full of political danger to be any longer submitted to: "If parliament, to which we send no members, may tax us three pence on a pound of tea, it may, if it pleases, tax us a shilling, or a guinea. Once concede to it this right to tax us at all, and what security have we against its taxing us excessively? - what security have we for our freedom or our property against any enormity of oppression?" And what was the answer of the American Tories to this - argument? "Yes," said the Tories, "you allege a grave political danger. But does it really exist? Is it likely ever to exist? Are you not guilty of the fallacy of arguing against the use of a power, simply from the possibility of its abuse? In this world every alleged danger must be estimated in the light of common sense and of reasonable probability. In that light, what ground have we for alarm? The line drawn by the supreme legislature itself for the exercise of its own power is a perfectly distinct one, that it should tax no part of the empire to a greater amount than its just and equitable proportion. As respects America, the supreme legislature has not yet overstepped that line; it has shown no disposition to overstep that line; we have not the slightest reason to suppose that it ever will overstep that line. Moreover, all the instincts of the English race are for fair play, and would be overwhelmingly against such an injustice, were parliament to attempt it. It is thought in England that as we, British subjects in America, receive our share of the benefits of membership of the empire, so we ought to pay our share toward the cost of those benefits. In apportioning our share of the cost, they have not fixed upon an amount which anybody, even here, calls excessive; indeed, it is rather below than above the amount that might justly be named. Now, in this world, affairs cannot be conducted civilization cannot go on- without confidence in somebody. And in this matter we deem it reasonable and prudent to have confidence in the good sense and in the justice of the English race, and especially of the house of commons, which is the great council of the commoners of the English race. True, we do not at present send members to that great council, any more than do certain great taxpaying communities in England; but then no community even in England has, in reality, so many representatives in parliament - so many powerful friends and champions in both houses of parliament as we American communities have: not only a great minority of silent voters, but many of the ablest debaters and party leaders there, Barré, and Pownall, and Conway, and Fox, and Edmund Burke in the lower house, and in the upper house Lord Camden and, above all, the great Earl of Chatham himself. Surely, with such men as these to speak for us, and to represent our interests in parliament and before the English people, no ministry could long stand which should propose any measure liable to be condemned as grossly beyond the line of equity and fair play." The Americans who took this line of reasoning in those days were called Tories. And what is to be thought of this line of reasoning to-day? Is it not at least rational and fair? Even though not irresistible, has it not a great deal of strength in it? Even though we, perhaps, should have declined to adopt it, are we not obliged to say that it might have been adopted by Americans who were both clear-headed and honestminded? THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE AMERICAN AFFAIRS. BY THOMAS PAINE. (From "Common Sense.") [THOMAS PAINE, polemic writer and devotee of human rights, was born in Norfolk, England, January 29, 1737; was first a stay maker, then exciseman, teacher, and Dissenting lay preacher, and a pamphleteer of such ability as to attract the attention of Franklin, on whose invitation he came to America in 1774. He became editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine; wrote "Common Sense," a pamphlet advocating total separation of the colonies from Great Britain; and The Crisis, a sort of occasional journal to keep up the courage of the new confederacy. He was aid to General Greene, secretary to the congressional committee on foreign affairs, clerk of the Pennsylvania legislature, and associated with Colonel Laurens in obtaining loans from France and Holland. Going to France at the opening of the Revolution, he published a pamphlet advocating the abolition of monarchy. In 1791 he published in England the "Rights of Man," in reply to Burke, was outlawed for it, and returned to France, where the Jacobins were enraged at his opposition to the beheading of the king, and Robespierre imprisoned him for a year. His "Age of Reason" was published in 1794-1795. He returned to the United States in 1801, and died June 8, 1809.] IN the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves; that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day. Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle between England and America. Men of all ranks have embarked in the controversy, from different motives, and with various designs; but all have been ineffectual, and the period of debate is closed. Arms, as the last resource, must decide the contest; the appeal was the choice of the king, and the continent hath accepted the challenge. It has been reported of the late Mr. Pelham (who, though an able minister, was not without his faults) that on his being attacked in the house of commons, on the score that his measures were only of a temporary kind, replied, “They will last my time." Should a thought so fatal or unmanly possess the colonies in the present contest, the name of ancestors will be remembered by future generations with detestation. 'Tis not The sun never shone on a cause of greater worth. the affair of a city, a county, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seedtime of continental union, faith, and honor. least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full-grown characters. The By referring the matter from argument to arms, a new area for politics is struck; a new method of thinking hath arisen. All plans, proposals, etc., prior to the nineteenth of April, i.e. to the commencement of hostilities, are like the almanacs of last year; which, though proper then, are superseded and useless now. Whatever was advanced by the advocates on either side of the question then, terminated in one and the same point, |