A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal | Page 4

in everything, or, as the act expressed it, in all cases whatsoever: and what
renders this act the more offensive, is, that it appears to have been passed as an act of
mercy; truly then may it be said, that the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.
All the original charters from the Crown of England, under the faith of which, the
adventurers from the old world settled in the new, were by this act displaced from their
foundations; because, contrary to the nature of them, which was that of a compact, they
were now made subject to repeal or alteration at the mere will of one party only. The
whole condition of America was thus put into the hands of the Parliament or the Ministry,
without leaving to her the least right in any case whatsoever.
There is no despotism to which this iniquitous law did not extend; and though it might
have been convenient in the execution of it, to have consulted manners and habits, the
principle of the act made all tyranny legal. It stopt no where. It went to everything. It took
in with it the whole life of a man, or, if I may so express it, an eternity of circumstances.
It is the nature of law to require obedience, but this demanded servitude; and the
condition of an American, under the operation of it, was not that of a subject, but a vassal.
Tyranny has often been established without law, and sometimes against it, but the history
of mankind does not produce another instance, in which it has been established by law. It
is an audacious outrage upon civil government, and cannot be too much exposed, in order
to be sufficiently detested.
Neither could it be said after this, that the legislature of that country any longer made
laws for this, but that it gave out commands; for wherein differed an act of Parliament
constructed on this principle, and operating in this manner, over an unrepresented people,
from the orders of a military establishment?
The Parliament of England, with respect to America, was not septennial but perpetual. It
appeared to the latter a body always in being. Its election or expiration were to her the
same, as if its members succeeded by inheritance, or went out by death, or lived for ever,
or were appointed to it as a matter of office. Therefore, for the people of England to have
any just conception of the mind of America, respecting this extraordinary act, they must
suppose all election and expiration in that country to cease forever, and the present
Parliament, its heirs, &c., to be perpetual; in this case, I ask, what would the most
clamorous of them think, were an act to be passed, declaring the right of such a
Parliament to bind them in all cases whatsoever? For this word whatsoever would go as
effectually to their Magna Charta, Bill of Rights, trial by Juries, &c. as it went to the
charters and forms of government in America.

I am persuaded, that the Gentleman to whom I address these remarks will not, after the
passing of this act, say, "That the principles of administration had not been changed in
America, and that the maxims of government had there been always the same." For here
is, in principle, a total overthrow of the whole; and not a subversion only, but an
annihilation of the foundation of liberty and absolute dominion established in its stead.
The Abbe likewise states the case exceedingly wrong and injuriously, when he says, "that
that the whole question was reduced to the knowing whether the mother country had, or
had not, a right to lay, directly or indirectly, a slight tax upon the colonies." This was not
the whole of the question; neither was the quantity of the tax the object, either to the
Ministry, or to the Americans. It was the principle, of which the tax made but a part, and
the quantity still less, that formed the ground on which America opposed.
The tax on tea, which is the tax here alluded to, was neither more or less than an
experiment to establish the practice of a declaratory law upon; modelled into the more
fashionable phrase of the universal supremacy of Parliament. For until this time the
declaratory law had lain dormant, and the framers of it had contented themselves with
barely declaring an opinion.
Therefore the whole question with America, in the opening of the dispute, was, Shall we
be bound in all cases whatsoever by the British Parliament, or shall we not? For
submission to the tea or tax act, implied an acknowledgment of the declaratory act, or, in
other words, of the universal supremacy of Parliament, which as they never intended to
do, it was