They took
infinite pains to inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that in all
monarchies the people must in effect themselves, mediately or immediately,
possess the power of granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty can
subsist. The Colonies draw from you, as with their life-blood, these ideas
and principles. Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and attached on
this specific point of taxing. Liberty might be safe, or might be
endangered, in twenty other particulars, without their being much pleased
or alarmed. Here they felt its pulse; and as they found that beat, they
thought themselves sick or sound. I do not say whether they were right or
wrong in applying your general arguments to their own case. It is not
easy, indeed, to make a monopoly of theorems and corollaries. The fact is,
that they did thus apply those general arguments; and your mode of
governing them, whether through lenity or indolence, through wisdom or
mistake, confirmed them in the imagination that they, as well as you, had
an interest in these common principles.
They were further confirmed in this pleasing error by the form of their
provincial legislative assemblies. Their governments are popular in an
high degree; some are merely popular; in all, the popular representative
is the most weighty; and this share of the people in their ordinary
government never fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, and with a
strong aversion from whatever tends to deprive them of their chief
importance.
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