HKB
governors and senates. Can Massachusettensis produce from the whole history of Rome, or from the Digest, one example of a Senatus consultum or a Plebiscitum laying taxes on the colony?
Having mentioned the wisdom of the Romans, for not planting colonies out of Italy, and their reasons for it, I cannot help recollecting an observation of Harrington, Oceana, p. 44. "For the colonies in the Indies," says he, "they are yet babes, that cannot live without sucking the breasts of their mother cities; but such as I mistake, if, when they come of age, they do not wean themselves, which causes me to wonder at princes that delight to be exhausted that way." This was written 120 years ago; the colonies are now nearer manhood than ever Harrington foresaw they would arrive, in such a period of time. Is it not astonishing then, that any British minister should ever have considered this subject so little, as to believe it possible for him to new model all our governments, to tax us by an authority that never taxed us before, and subdue us to an implicit obedience to a legislature, that millions of us scarcely ever thought any thing about?
I have said, that the practice of free governments alone can be quoted with propriety, to shew the sense of nations. But the sense and practice of nations is not enough. Their practice must be reasonable, just and right, or it will not govern Americans.
Absolute monarchies, whatever their practice may be, are nothing to us. For as Harrington observes, "Absolute monarchy, as that of the Turks, neither plants its people at home nor abroad, otherwise than as tenants for life or at will; wherefore its national and provincial government is all one."
I deny, therefore, that the practice of free nations, or the opinions of the best writers upon the law of nations, will warrant the position of Massachusettensis, that when a nation takes possession of a distant territory, that becomes a part of the state equally with its ancient possessions. The practice of free nations, and the opinions of the best writers, are in general on the contrary.