NOTES BURKE'S RESOLUTIONS. THE speech was made for the purpose of moving certain resolutions, which therefore, considered politically, form the most important part of the whole. There is, accordingly, the following appendix in Dodsley's edition : "As the propositions were opened separately in the body of the speech, the reader perhaps may wish to see the whole of them together, in the form in which they were moved for. MOVED, That the Colonies and Plantations of Great Britain in North America, consisting of Fourteen separate Governments, and containing Two Millions and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any Knights and Burgesses, or others, to represent them in the high Court of Parliament. That the said Colonies and Plantations have been made1 liable to, and bounden by, several subsidies, payments, rates, and taxes, given and granted by Parliament, though the said Colonies and Plantations have not their Knights and Burgesses in the said high Court of Parliament, of their own election, to represent the condition of their country; by lack whereof they have been oftentimes touched and grieved by subsidies given, granted, and assented to in the said Court, in a manner prejudicial to the common wealth, quietness, rest, and peace of the subjects inhabiting within the same. That, from the distance of the said Colonies, and from other circumstances, no method hath hitherto been devised for procuring a representation in Parliament for the said Colonies. That each of the said Colonies hath within itself a body, chosen, in part or in the whole, by the freemen, freeholders, or other free inhabitants thereof, commonly called the General Assembly, or General Court; with powers legally to raise, levy, and assess, according to the several usage of such Colonies 1 Otherwise in the speech; cf. 54 15. 6 duties and taxes towards defraying all sorts of public services.1 That the said General Assemblies, General Courts, or other bodies legally qualified as aforesaid, have at sundry times freely granted several large subsidies and public aids for his Majesty's service, according to their abilities, when required thereto by letter from one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State; and that their right to grant the same, and their cheerfulness and sufficiency in the said grants, have been at sundry times acknowledged by Parliament. That it hath been found by experience, that the manner of granting the said supplies and aids by the said General Assemblies hath been more agreeable to the inhabitants of 2 the said Colonies, and more beneficial and conducive to the public service, than the mode of giving and granting aids and subsidies in Parliament, to be raised and paid in the said Colonies. That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the seventh year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, An act for granting certain duties in the British Colonies and Plantations in America; for allowing a drawback of the duties of customs upon the exportation from this kingdom of coffee and cocoa-nuts of the produce of the said Colonies or Plantations; for discontinuing the drawbacks payable on China earthenware exported to America; and for more effectually preventing the clandestine running of goods in the said Colonies and Plantations. 4 That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, An act to discontinue, in such manner, and for such time, as are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping, of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the town and within the harbour of Boston, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America. 5 That' it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, An act for the impartial administration of justice, in cases of persons questioned for any acts done by them in the execution of the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England. 1 The first four motions and the last had the previous question put on them. The others were negatived. The words in italics were, by an amendment that was carried, left out of the motion; which will appear in the Journals, though it is not the practice to insert such amendments in the votes. [Original Note in Dodsley's Edition.] 1 That it is proper to repeal an act, made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, An act for the better regulating the government of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England. That it is proper to explain and amend an act made in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, intituled, An act for the trial of treasons committed out of the King's Dominions. That, from the time when the General Assembly or General Court of any Colony or Plantation in North America shall have appointed, by act of Assembly duly confirmed, a settled salary to the offices of the Chief Justice and Judges' of the Superior Courts, it may be proper that the said Chief Justice and other Judges of the Superior Courts of such Colony shall hold his and their office and offices during their good behaviour; and shall not be removed therefrom but when the said removal shall be adjudged by his Majesty in Council, upon a hearing on complaint from the General Assembly, or on a complaint from the Governor, or Council, or the House of Representatives, severally, of the Colony in which the said Chief Justice and other Judges have exercised the said office.* That it may be proper to regulate the Courts of Admiralty, or Vice-Admiralty, authorized by the fifteenth chapter of the Fourth of George the Third, in such a manner as to make the same more commodious to those who sue, or are sued, in the said Courts, and to provide for the more decent maintenance of the Judges of3 the same. THE RECEPTION OF BURKE'S SPEECH BY THE HOUSE. (Annual Register,*xviii. (1775), Fourth Edition, pp. 109-110.) On this motion, and on the whole matter, the debate was long and animated. It was objected, in general, that these resolutions abandoned the whole object for which we were contending; that in words, indeed, they did not give up the right of taxing, but they did so in effect. The first resciution, they said, was artfully worded, as containing in appearance nothing but matters of fact; but, if adopted, con 1 Otherwise in the speech; cf. 62 23. 3 Cf. 64 14. 4 Cf. 64 25. 2 Cf. 62 28. • It should be remembered that the Annual Register was instituted, and for many years edited, by Burke, and that this passage may be from his own hand-at any rate had his full approval. A full analysis of the speech immediately precedes our extract. sequences would follow highly prejudicial to the public good : that the mere truth of a proposition did not of course make it necessary or proper to resolve it. As they had frequently resolved not to admit the unconstitutional claims of the Americans, they could not admit resolutions directly leading to them. They had no assurance that, if they should adopt these propositions, the Americans would make any dutiful returns on their side; and thus the scheme, pursued through so many difficulties, of compelling that refractory people to contribute their fair proportion to the expenses of the whole empire, would fall to the ground. The House of Lords would not, they said, permit another plan, somewhat of the same kind, so much as to lie on their table; and the House of Commons had in this session already adopted one which they judged to be conciliatory, upon a ground more consistent with the supremacy of Parliament. It was asserted that the American Assemblies had made provision upon former occasions— but this, they said, was only when pressed by their own immediate danger, and for their own local use. But if the dispositions of the Colonies had been as favourable as they were represented, still it was denied that the American Assemblies ever had a legal power of granting a revenue to the Crown. This they insisted to be a privilege of Parliament only, and a privilege which could not be communicated to any other body whatsoever. In support of this doctrine, they quoted the following clause from that palladium of the English Constitution, and of the rights and liberties of the subject, commonly called the Bill or Declaration of Rights:1 viz., that Levying money for, or to the use of the Crown, by pretence of prerogative, without grant of Parliament, for a longer time, or in other manner, than the same is or shall be granted, is illegal." 66 This clause, they insisted, clearly enforced the exclusive right in Parliament of taxing every part of the Empire. And this right, they said, was not only prudent but necessary. The right of taxation must be inherent in the supreme power, and, being the most essential of all others, was the most necessary, not only to be reserved in theory, but exercised in practice, or it would in effect be lost, and all other powers along with it. This principle was carried so far that it was said any minister ought to be impeached who suffered the grant of any sort of revenue from the Colonies to the Crown; that such a practice in time of war might possibly be tolerated from the necessity of the case, but that a revenue in time of peace could not be granted by any of the Assemblies without subverting the Constitution. In the warmth of prosecuting this idea, it was asserted by more than one gentleman on that side that the 1 Drawn up in 1689, at the accession of William and Mary. establishment of a Parliament in Ireland did not by any means preclude Great Britain from taxing that kingdom whenever it was thought necessary; that that right had always been maintained, and exercised too, whenever it was judged expedient; and that the British Parliament had no other rule in that exercise than its own discretion; that all inferior Assemblies in this empire were only like the corporate towns in England, which had a power, like them, of making by-laws for their own municipal government, and nothing more. It On the other side it was urged that the clause in the Declaration of Rights, so much relied on, was calculated merely to restrain the prerogative from the raising of any money within the realm without the consent of Parliament; but that it did not at all reach, nor was intended to interfere with, the taxes levied, or grants passed by legal Assemblies out of the kingdom, for the public service. On the contrary, Parliament knew at the time of passing that law that the Irish grants were subsisting, and taxes constantly levied in consequence of them, without their once thinking, either then or at any other time, of censuring the practice, or condemning the mode as unconstitutional. was also said that different Parliaments, at different periods, had not only recognized the right, but gratefully acknowledged the benefit which the public derived from the taxes levied, and the grants passed, by the American Assemblies. As to the distinctions taken of a time of war and the necessity of the case they said it was frivolous and wholly groundless. The power of the subject in granting, or of the Crown in receiving, no way differs in time of war from the same power in time of peace; nor is any distinction on such a supposition made in the article of the Bill of Rights. They argued, therefore, that this article of the Bill of Rights is confined to what it was always thought confined, the prerogative in this kingdom, and bound indeed the Crown, but could not, in securing the rights and liberties of the subject in this kingdom, intend to annihilate them everywhere else. That as the Constitution had permitted the Irish Parliament and American Assemblies to make grants to the Crown, and that experience had shown that these grants had produced both satisfaction and revenue, it was absurd to risk all in favour of theories of supremacy, unity, sovereign rights, and other names, which hitherto had led to nothing but confusion and beggary on all sides, and would continue to produce the same miserable effects as long as they were persisted in. That the mover had very wisely avoided these speculative questions, and confined himself to experience; and it would be well if they could persuade themselves to follow that example. The previous question was moved on the first proposition, and carried by 270 to 78. |