Among the natural
rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to
liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend
them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than
deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law
of nature.
All men have a right to
remain in a state of nature as long as they please; and in case of intolerable
oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and enter
into another.
When men enter into
society, it is by voluntary consent; and they have a right to demand and insist
upon the performance of such conditions and previous limitations as form an
equitable original compact.
Every natural right not
expressly given up, or, from the nature of a social compact, necessarily ceded,
remains.
All positive and civil
laws should conform, as far as possible, to the law of natural reason and
equity.
As neither reason
requires nor religion permits the contrary, every man living in or out of a
state of civil society has a right peaceably and quietly to worship God
according to the dictates of his conscience.
Just and true liberty,
equal and impartial liberty, in matters spiritual and temporal, is a thing that
all men are clearly entitled to by the eternal and immutable laws of God and
nature, as well as by the law of nations and all well-grounded municipal laws,
which must have their foundation in the former.
In regard to religion,
mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and
candid minds in all ages have ever practised, and, both by precept and example,
inculcated on mankind. And it is now generally agreed among Christians that
this spirit of toleration, in the fullest extent consistent with the being of
civil society, is the chief characteristical mark of the Church. Insomuch that
Mr. Locke has asserted and proved, beyond the possibility of contradiction on
any solid ground, that such toleration ought to be extended to all whose doctrines
are not subversive of society. The only sects which he thinks ought to be, and
which by all wise laws are excluded from such toleration, are those who teach
doctrines subversive of the civil government under which they live. The Roman
Catholics or Papists are excluded by reason of such doctrines as these, that
princes excommunicated may be deposed, and those that they call heretics may be
destroyed without mercy; besides their recognizing the Pope in so absolute a
manner, in subversion of government, by introducing, as far as possible into
the states under whose protection they enjoy life, liberty, and property, that
solecism in politics, imperium in imperio, leading directly to the worst
anarchy and confusion, civil discord, war, and bloodshed.
The natural liberty of
man, by entering into society, is abridged or restrained, so far only as is
necessary for the great end of society, the best good of the whole.
In the state of nature
every man is, under God, judge and sole judge of his own rights and of the
injuries done him. By entering into society he agrees to an arbiter or
indifferent judge between him and his neighbors; but he no more renounces his
original right than by taking a cause out of the ordinary course of law, and
leaving the decision to referees or indifferent arbitrators.
In the last case, he
must pay the referees for time and trouble. He should also be willing to pay
his just quota for the support of government, the law, and the constitution;
the end of which is to furnish indifferent and impartial judges in all cases
that may happen, whether civil, ecclesiastical, marine, or military.
The natural liberty of
man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the
will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for
his rule.
In the state of nature
men may, as the patriarchs did, employ hired servants for the defence of their
lives, liberties, and property; and they should pay them reasonable wages.
Government was instituted for the purposes of common defence, and those who
hold the reins of government have an equitable, natural right to an honorable
support from the same principle that the laborer is worthy of his hire. But
then the same community which they serve ought to be the assessors of their
pay. Governors have no right to seek and take what they please; by this,
instead of being content with the station assigned them, that of honorable
servants of the society, they would soon become absolute masters, despots, and
tyrants. Hence, as a private man has a right to say what wages he will give in
his private affairs, so has a community to determine what they will give and
grant of their substance for the administration of public affairs. And, in both
cases, more are ready to offer their service at the proposed and stipulated
price than are able and willing to perform their duty.
In short, it is the
greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at
the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the
means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from
the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence
of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life,
Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms
renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and
the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right
to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to
alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.
These may be best
understood by reading and carefully studying the institutes of the great Law
Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written
and promulgated in the New Testament.
By the act of the
British Parliament, commonly called the Toleration Act, every subject in
England, except Papists, &c., was restored to, and re-established in, his
natural right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.
And, by the charter of this Province, it is granted, ordained, and established
(that is, declared as an original right) that there shall be liberty of
conscience allowed in the worship of God to all Christians, except Papists,
inhabiting, or which shall inhabit or be resident within, such Province or
Territory. Magna Charta itself is in substance but a constrained declaration or
proclamation and promulgation in the name of the King, Lords, and Commons, of
the sense the latter had of their original, inherent, indefeasible natural
rights, as also those of free citizens equally perdurable with the other. That
great author, that great jurist, and even that court writer, Mr. Justice
Blackstone, holds that this recognition was justly obtained of King John, sword
in hand. And peradventure it must be one day, sword in hand, again rescued and
preserved from total destruction and oblivion.
A commonwealth or state
is a body politic, or civil society of men, united together to promote their
mutual safety and prosperity by means of their union.
The absolute rights of
Englishmen and all freemen, in or out of civil society, are principally
personal security, personal liberty, and private property.
All persons born in the
British American Colonies are, by the laws of God and nature and by the common
law of England, exclusive of all charters from the Crown, well entitled, and by
acts of the British Parliament are declared to be entitled, to all the natural,
essential, inherent, and inseparable rights, liberties, and privileges of
subjects born in Great Britain or within the realm. Among those rights are the
following, which no man, or body of men, consistently with their own rights as
men and citizens, or members of society, can for themselves give up or take
away from others.
First, The first
fundamental, positive law of all common wealths or states is the establishing
the legislative power. As the first fundamental natural law, also, which is to
govern even the legislative power itself, is the preservation of the society.
Secondly, The
Legislative has no right to absolute, arbitrary power over the lives and
fortunes of the people; nor can mortals assume a prerogative not only too high
for men, but for angels, and therefore reserved for the exercise of the Deity
alone.
The Legislative cannot
justly assume to itself a power to rule by extempore arbitrary decrees; but it
is bound to see that justice is dispensed, and that the rights of the subjects
be decided by promulgated, standing, and known laws, and authorized independent
judges; that is, independent, as far as possible, of Prince and people. There
should be one rule of justice for rich and poor, for the favorite at court, and
the countryman at the plough.
Thirdly, The supreme
power cannot justly take from any man any part of his property, without his
consent in person or by his representative.
These are some of the
first principles of natural law and justice, and the great barriers of all free
states and of the British Constitution in particular. It is utterly
irreconcilable to these principles and to many other fundamental maxims of the
common law, common sense, and reason that a British House of Commons should
have a right at pleasure to give and grant the property of the Colonists. (That
the Colonists are well entitled to all the essential rights, liberties, and
privileges of men and freemen born in Britain is manifest not only from the
Colony charters in general, but acts of the British Parliament.) The statute of
the 13th of Geo. 2, C. 7, naturalizes even foreigners after seven years’
residence. The words of the Massachusetts charter are these: And further, our
will and pleasure is, and we do hereby for us, our heirs, and successors,
grant, establish, and ordain, that all and every of the subjects of us, our
heirs, and successors, which shall go to, and inhabit within our said Province
or Territory, and every of their children, which shall happen to be born there
or on the seas in going thither or returning from thence, shall have and enjoy
all liberties and immunities of free and natural subjects within any of the
dominions of us, our heirs, and successors, to all intents, constructions, and
purposes whatsoever as if they and every one of them were born within this our
realm of England.
Now what liberty can
there be where property is taken away without consent? Can it be said with any
color of truth and justice, that this continent of three thousand miles in
length, and of a breadth as yet unexplored, in which, however, it is supposed
there are five millions of people, has the least voice, vote, or influence in
the British Parliament? Have they all together any more weight or power to
return a single member to that House of Commons who have not inadvertently, but
deliberately, assumed a power to dispose of their lives, liberties, and
properties, than to choose an Emperor of China? Had the Colonists a right to
return members to the British Parliament, it would only be hurtful; as, from
their local situation and circumstances, it is impossible they should ever be
truly and properly represented there. The inhabitants of this country, in all
probability, in a few years, will be more numerous than those of Great Britain
and Ireland together; yet it is absurdly expected by the promoters of the
present measures that these, with their posterity to all generations, should be
easy, while their property shall be disposed of by a House of Commons at three
thousand miles’ distance from them, and who cannot be supposed to have the
least care or concern for their real interest; who have not only no natural
care for their interest, but must be in effect bribed against it, as every
burden they lay on the Colonists is so much saved or gained to themselves.
Hitherto, many of the Colonists have been free from quit rents; but if the
breath of a British House of Commons can originate an act for taking away all
our money, our lands will go next, or be subject to rack rents from haughty and
relentless landlords, who will ride at ease, while we are trodden in the dirt.
The Colonists have been branded with the odious names of traitors and rebels
only for complaining of their grievances. How long such treatment will or ought
to be borne, is submitted.
All accounts of the
discontent so general in our colonies have of late years been industriously
smothered and concealed here; it seeming to suit the views of the American
minister [Lord Hillsborough], to have it understood that by his great abilities
all faction was subdued, all opposition suppressed, and the whole country
quieted. That the true state of affairs there may be known, and the true causes
of that discontent well understood, the following piece (not the production of
a private writer, but the unanimous act of a large American city), lately
printed in New England, is republished here. This nation, and the other nations
of Europe, may thereby learn, with more certainty, the grounds of a dissension
that possibly may, sooner or later, have consequences interesting to them all.
The colonies had from
their first settlement been governed with more ease than perhaps can be
equalled by any instance in history of dominions so distant. Their affection
and respect for this country, while they were treated with kindness, produced
an almost implicit obedience to the instructions of the Prince, and even to
acts of the British Parliament; though the right of binding them by a
legislature in which they were unrepresented was never clearly understood. That
respect and affection produced a partiality in favor of everything that was
English; whence their preference of English modes and manufactures; their
submission to restraints on the importation of foreign goods, which they had
but little desire to use; and the monopoly we so long enjoyed of their
commerce, to the great enriching of our merchants and artificers.
The mistaken policy of
the Stamp Act first disturbed this happy situation; but the flame thereby
raised was soon extinguished by its repeal, and the old harmony restored, with
all its concomitant advantage to our commerce. The subsequent act of another
administration, which, not content with an established exclusion of foreign
manufactures, began to make our own merchandise dearer to the consumers there,
by heavy duties, revived it again; and combinations were entered into
throughout the continent to stop trading with Britain till those duties should
be repealed. All were accordingly repealed but one, the duty on tea. This was
reserved (professedly so) as a standing claim and exercise of the right assumed
by Parliament of laying such duties.
The colonies, on this
repeal, retracted their agreement, so far as related to all other goods, except
that on which the duty was retained. This was trumpeted here by the minister
for the colonies as a triumph; there it was considered only as a decent and
equitable measure, showing a willingness to meet the mother country in every
advance towards a reconciliation, and a disposition to a good understanding so
prevalent that possibly they might soon have relaxed in the article of tea
also. But the system of commissioners of customs, officers without end, with
fleets and armies for collecting and enforcing those duties, being continued,
and these acting with much indiscretion and rashness (giving great and
unnecessary trouble and obstruction to business, commencing unjust and vexatious
suits, and harassing commerce in all its branches, while that the minister kept
the people in a constant state of irritation by instructions which appeared to
have no other end than the gratifying his private resentments), occasioned a
persevering adherence to their resolutions in that particular; and the event
should be a lesson to ministers not to risk through pique the obstructing any
one branch of trade; since the course and connection of general business may be
thereby disturbed to a degree impossible to be foreseen or imagined. For it
appears that the colonies finding their humble petitions to have this duty
repealed were rejected and treated with contempt, and that the produce of the
duty was applied to the rewarding with undeserved salaries and pensions every
one of their enemies, the duty itself became more odious, and their resolution
to share it more vigorous and obstinate.
The Dutch, the Danes,
and French took this opportunity thus offered them by our imprudence, and began
to smuggle their teas into the plantation. At first this was something
difficult; but at length, as all business is improved by practice, it became
easy. A coast fifteen hundred miles in length could not in all parts be
guarded, even by the whole navy of England; especially when their restraining
authority was by all the inhabitants deemed unconstitutional, the smuggling of
course considered as patriotism. The needy wretches, too, who, with small
salaries, were trusted to watch the ports day and night, in all weathers, found
it easier and more profitable not only to wink, but to sleep in their beds; the
merchant’s pay being more generous than the King’s. Other India goods, also,
which, by themselves, would not have made a smuggling voyage sufficiently
profitable, accompanied tea to advantage; and it is feared the cheap French
silks, formerly rejected, as not to the tastes of the colonies, may have found
their way with the wares of India, and now established themselves in the
popular use and opinion.
It is supposed that at
least a million of Americans drink tea twice a day, which, at the first cost
here, can scarce be reckoned at less than half a guinea a head per annum. This
market, that in the five years which have run on since the act passed, would
have paid two million five hundred thousand guineas for tea alone, into the
coffers of the Company, we have wantonly lost to foreigners.
Meanwhile it is said
the duties have so diminished that the whole remittance of the last year
amounted to no more than the pitiful sum of eighty-five pounds, for the expense
of some hundred thousands, in armed ships and soldiers, to support the
officers. Hence the tea, and other India goods, which might have been sold in
America, remain rotting in the Company’s warehouses; while those of foreign
ports are known to be cleared by the American demand. Hence, in some degree,
the Company’s inability to pay their bills; the sinking of their stock, by
which millions of property have been annihilated; the lowering of their
dividend, whereby so many must be distressed; the loss to government of the
stipulated four hundred thousand pounds a year, which must make a
proportionable reduction in our savings towards the discharge of our enormous
debt; and hence, in part, the severe blow suffered by credit in general, to the
ruin of many families; the stagnation of business in Spitalfields and
Manchester, through want of vent for their goods; with other future evils,
which, as they cannot, from the numerous and secret connections in general
commerce, easily be foreseen, can hardly be avoided.
Mr. Adams’s motion,
creating the Committee of Correspondence, had specified three distinct duties
to be performed, -- to draw up a statement of the rights of the Colonists as
men, as Christians, and as subjects; a declaration of the infringement and
violation of those rights; and a letter to be sent to the several towns in the
Province and to the world as the sense of the town. The drafting of the first
was assigned to Samuel Adams, the second to Joseph Warren, and the last to
Benjamin Church.
When the reports of the
several committees were prepared, they were presented on the 20th of November
to a town meeting at Faneuil Hall by James Otis, who now, as chairman, made his
final appearance in public, -- the wreck of one of the most brilliant men of
genius that America has produced, but yet sustained by the care and sympathy of
some friends and the tender reverence of the people, whose cause he had ever
ardently and sincerely supported.
Samuel Adams, says
Hutchinson, writing to a friend, had prepared a long report, but he let Otis
appear in it; and again, in another letter: the Grand Incendiary of the
Province prepared a long report for a committee appointed by the town, in
which, after many principles inferring independence were laid down, many
resolves followed, all of them tending to sedition and mutiny, and some of them
expressly denying Parliamentary authority.
The report created a
powerful sensation, both in America and in England, where it was for some time
attributed to Franklin, by whom it was republished. It is divided into the
three subjects specified in the original motion. The first, in three
subdivisions, considering the rights of the Colonists as men, as Christians,
and as subjects, was from the pen of Samuel Adams; his original draft, together
with the preparatory rough notes or headings, being in perfect preservation. It
is important, not only as a platform upon which were afterwards built many of
the celebrated state papers of the Revolution, but as the first fruits of the
Committee of Correspondence.
The error of John
Adams, when, fifty years afterwards, he attributed this pamphlet to James Otis,
gave rise to some interesting letters from both Jefferson and Adams a few years
before their death. John Adams, while questioning the credit due to Jefferson,
as the author of the Declaration of Independence, had called that document a
recapitulation of the Declaration of Rights by the Congress of 1774; and, again,
writing to Mr. Pickering, he says: As you justly observe, there is not an idea
in it [the Declaration of Independence] but what had been hackneyed in Congress
two years before. The substance of it is contained in the Declaration of
Rights, and the Violations of those Rights, in the journals of Congress in
1774. Indeed, the essence of it is contained in a pamphlet voted and printed by
the town of Boston before the first Congress met, composed by James Otis, as I
suppose, in one of his lucid intervals, and pruned and polished by Samuel
Adams. (John Adams’s Works, II. 514).
The fact that Otis was
allowed to present the report as his final public act may have given John Adams
this impression; for, at this time (1772), he himself took no part in public
affairs, but devoted his time to professional pursuits. Otis, however, had
nothing to do with preparing the paper, and, to the grief of his friends and
his country, had long been incapable of any public service. Jefferson, adopting
the supposition of John Adams as to the authorship of the Rights of the
Colonists, wrote to Mr. Madison a year later that the Otis pamphlet he never
saw, and upon this his biographer, continuing the subject in defence of
Jefferson’s originality, refers repeatedly to the pamphlet in question as the
production of Otis. (Randall’s Jefferson, I. 189.) There certainly is a
similarity between the Rights of the Colonists in 1772 and the Declaration of
Rights in 1774, and between them both and the Declaration of Independence; but,
as all are founded on the time-honored principles of Locke, Hooker, Sydney, and
Harrington, some of whom are duly quoted by Samuel Adams in his treatise, the
disputes as to the originality are needless.
But John Adams’s memory
failed him in relation to the Declaration of Rights made by the first Congress,
as well as in attributing the pamphlet now under consideration to James Otis.
He implies that there were two Declarations, the one of Rights, and the other
of Violations, which is manifestly incorrect. It would seem, too, that any
attempt to lessen the credit of Jefferson, by showing that the essence of the
Declaration of Independence was contained in Samuel Adams’s pamphlet of 1772
and the Declaraton of Rights in 1774, must reflect upon whoever claims the
authorship of the latter (since the sentiments are identical), unless it be
conceded that Samuel Adams, as is more than probable, was largely engaged in
composing the Declaration of Rights, and introduced into that paper the same
principles he had advanced in 1772.
Here [in the paper of
1772] is embodied the whole philosophy of human rights, condensed from the
doctrines of all time, and applied to the immediate circumstances of America.
Upon this paper was based all that was written or spoken on human liberty in the
Congress which declared independence; and the immortal instrument itself is, in
many features, but a repetition of the principles here enunciated, and of
Joseph Warren’s list of grievances, which followed the Rights of the Colonists
in the report. -- Wells, Life of Samuel Adams.
The report was the
boldest exposition of the American grievances which had hitherto been made
public, and was drawn up with as much ability as freedom. Hutchinson says of
this report of the committee, that, although at its first appearance it was
considered as their own work, yet they had little more to do than to make the
necessary alterations in the arrangement of materials prepared for them by
their great director in England, whose counsels they obeyed, and in whose
wisdom and dexterity they had an implicit faith. Such principles in government
were avowed as would be sufficient to justify the colonies in revolting, and
forming an independent state; and such instances were given of the infringement
of their rights by the exercise of Parliamentary authority as, upon like
reasons, would justify an exception to the authority in all cases whatever;
nevertheless, there was color for alleging that it was not ’expressly’ denied
in ’every’ case. The whole frame of it, however, was calculated to strike the
colonists with a sense of their just claim to independence, and to stimulate
them to assert it.
The person alluded to
by Governor Hutchinson, as the great director in England, was Dr. Franklin, and
it is insinuated that he was in effect the author of the report, but this is in
no sense true; nor did he wholly approve the measures adopted at that meeting.
He thought the affair was carried a little farther than the occasion required
at the time, and was afraid that ill consequences would result. It was only the
time and manner of bringing the subject forward, however, upon which he had any
doubts. To the sentiments expressed in the report of the committee, and adopted
by the inhabitants of the town, he fully assented. This is proved by his
sending a copy of the proceedings to the press, as soon as he received it in
London, with a prefatory notice written by himself. The pamphlet was entitled
The Votes and Proceedings of the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the Town
of Boston, in Town Meeting assembled, according to Law. Published by Order of
the Town. -- Sparks.