1775. Aug. CHAP. into a poison only in its excess. It may take a diXLVIII versity of names as it comes into flower respectively among savages or the civilized, in kingdoms, in empires, or in republics; and yet every party has an honest origin in human nature and the necessities of life in a community. To fail in impartiality with regard to men, is not merely at variance with right; it is also sure to defeat itself. The fame which shines only in an eclipse of that of others, is necessarily transitory; the eclipse soon passes away and the brighter light recovers its lustre. The fond biographer who con structs the road to the monument of his idol over the graves of the reputation of great men, will find the best part of his race refusing to travel it. Besides, superior merit, to be discerned, must be surrounded by the meritorious; the glory of the noblest genius of his age would be sacrificed by detraction from the ability of his antagonists, his competitors, and his associates. Real worth delights to be environed by the worthy; it is serene, and can be duly estimated only by the serene; the chord of human sympathy does not vibrate to eulogy that grates with malignity. The idea of humanity, which, by its ever increasing clearness, furnishes the best evidence of the steady melioration of the race, teaches to judge with equity the reciprocal relations of states. The free development of all inherent powers is the common aim, and the acknowledgment of the universal right to that free development is the bond of unity. Between Britain and the new empire which she founded, the duty of impartiality belongs equally to the men of the two countries; but experience has shown that it is practised XLVIII Aug. with most difficulty by those of the parent land. The CHAP. moral world knows only one rule of right; but men in their pride create differences among themselves. The 1775. ray from the eternal fountain of justice suffers a deflection, as it falls from absolute princes on their subjects, from an established church on heretics, from masters of slaves on men in bondage, from hereditary nobles on citizens and peasants, from a privileged caste on an oppressed one. Something of this perverseness of pride has prevailed in the metropolitan state towards its colonies; it is stamped indelibly on the statute book of Great Britain, where all may observe and measure its intensity. That same pride ruled without check in the palace, and was little restrained in the house of lords: it broke forth in the conduct of the administration and its subordinates; it tinged the British colonial state papers of the last century so thoroughly, that historians who should follow them implicitly as guides, would be as erroneous in their facts as the ministers of that day were in their policy. This haughty feeling has so survived the period of revolutionary strife, that even now it sometimes hangs as a heavy bias on the judgment even of Eng lishmen professing liberal opinions. The Americans more easily recovered their equanimity. They intended resistance to a trifling tax and a preamble, and they won peace with liberty; the vastness of the acquisition effaced the remembrance of a transient attempt at oppression, and left no rankling discontent behind. The tone of our writers has often been deferentially forbearing; those of our countrymen who have written most fully of the war of our revolution, brought to their task no prejudices against England, CHAP. and while they gladly recall the relations of kindred, XLVIII no one of them has written a line with gall. 1775. Aug. Nor are citizens of a republic most tempted to evil speaking of kings and nobles; it takes men of the privileged class to scandalize their peers and princes without stint. The shameless slanders which outrage nature in the exaggerations of the profligacy of courts have usually originated within palaces, and been repeated by men of rank;-American writers have no motive to take them up; the land of equality recognises sovereigns and aristocrats as men, and places them under the protection of the tribunal of humanity. The Americans, entering most reluctantly on a war with Britain, preserved an instinctive feeling, that the relations of affinity were suspended rather than destroyed; they held themselves called to maintain "the rights of mankind," the liberties of the English people, as well as their own; they never looked upon the transient ministers who were their oppressors as the type of the parent country. The moment approaches when the king proclaimed his irrevocable decision; to understand that decision it is necessary to state with precision the question at issue. The administration of numerous colonies, each of which had a representative government of its own, was conducted with inconvenience from a want of unity; in war, experience showed a difficulty in obtaining proportionate aid from them all; in peace, the crown officers were impatient of owing their support to the periodical votes of colonial legislatures. To remedy this seeming evil by a concentration of XLVIII power, James the Second usurped all authority over CHAP. the country north of the Potomac, and designed to consolidate and govern it by his own despotic will. The revolution of 1688 restored to the colonies their representative governments, and the collision between the crown officers and the colonial legislatures was renewed; threats of parliamentary intervention were sometimes heard; but for nearly three quarters of a century no minister had been willing to gratify the pertinacious entreaties of placemen by disturbing America in the enjoyment of her liberties. Soon after the accession of George the Third, the king, averse to governing so many prosperous and free and loyal colonies by consent, resolved, through the paramount power of parliament, to introduce a new colonial system, which Halifax, Bedford, and especially Charles Townshend, had matured, and which was to have sufficient vigor to control the unwilling. First: the charter governments were to be reduced to one uniform direct dependence on the king, by the abolition of the jurisdiction of the proprietaries in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and by the alteration or repeal of the charters of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Secondly: for the pay of the crown officers, the British parliament was to establish in each colony a permanent civil list, independent of the assemblies, so that every branch of the judicial and executive government should be wholly of the king's appointment and at the king's will. Thirdly: the British parliament was, by its own act of taxation, to levy on the colonies a revenue towards maintaining their military establishment. Townshend, as the head 1775. Aug. XLVIII CHAP. of the board of trade, was unfolding the plan in the house of commons just before Bute retired. 1775. Aug. The execution of the design fell to George Grenville. Now Grenville conceived himself to be a whig of the straitest sect, for he believed implicitly in the absolute power of parliament, and this belief he regarded as the great principle of the revolution of 1688. He was pleased with the thought of moulding the whole empire into closer unity by means of parliamentary taxation; but he also preserved some regard for vested rights, and this forbade him to consent to a wilful abrogation of charters. The Americans complained to him that a civil list raised by the British parliament would reduce the colonial assemblies to a nullity; Grenville saw the justice of the objection, disclaimed the purpose, dropped that part of the plan also, and proposed to confine the use of the parliamentary revenue to the expenses of the military establishment. The colonists again interposed with the argument, that by the theory of the British constitution, taxation and representation are inseparable correlatives; to this Grenville listened and answered, that the whole empire was represented collectively, though not distributively, in parliament as the common council; but that, as even in Britain some reform by an increase of the number of voters was desirable, so taxation of the colonies ought to be followed by a special colonial representation; and, with this theory of constitutional law, he passed the stamp act. When a difference at court drove Grenville from office, his theory lost its importance, for no party in England or America undertook its support. The |