HKB
The least of all would arise from going on as we begun, and fared well for 150 years, by letting parliament regulate trade, and our own assemblies all other matters.
As to "the prerogatives not being defined, or limited," it is as much so in the colonies as in Great Britain, and as well understood, and as cheerfully submitted to in the former as the latter.
But "where is the British constitution, that we all agree we are entitled to?" I answer, if we enjoy, and are entitled to more liberty than the British constitution allows, where is the harm? Or, if we enjoy the British constitution in greater purity and perfection than they do in England, as is really the case, whose fault is this? Not ours.
We may find all the blessings "of this constitution in our provincial assemblies." Our houses of Representatives have, and ought to exercise, every power of the House of Commons. The first charter to this colony is nothing to the present argument: but it did grant a power of taxing the people, implicitly, though not in express terms. It granted all the rights and liberties of Englishmen, which include the power of taxing the people.
"Our council boards," in the royal governments, "are destitute of the noble independence and splendid appendages of peerages." Most certainty: they are the meanest creatures and tools in the political creation; dependent every moment for their existence on the tainted breath of a prime minister. But they have the authority of the house of lords, in our little models of the English constitution; and it is this which makes them so great a grievance. The crown has really two branches of our legislature in its power. Let an act of parliament pass at home, putting it in the power of the king, to remove any peer from the house of lords at his pleasure, and what will become of the British constitution? It will be overturned from the foundation. Yet we are perpetually insulted, by being told, that making our council by mandamus, brings us nearer to the British constitution. In this province, by charter, the council certainly hold their seats for the year, after being chosen and approved, independent of both the other branches. For their creation, they are equally obliged to both the other branches; so that there is little or no bias in favour of either, if any, it is in favour of the prerogative. In short, it is not easy without an hereditary nobility, to constitute a council more independent, more nearly resembling the house of lords, than the council of this province has ever been by charter. But perhaps it will be said that we are to enjoy the British constitution in our supreme legislature, the parliament, not in our provincial legislatures.