Family-histories and genealogies : containing a series of ...

©fltren=3Jo|inson
more than any thing which has happened to them since their first existence. All
the people see this specious maxim, so applied, is contrary to the truth of fact. And
it is likewise contrary to the concession here made, viz. ' That the particular colonies
have certain rights, powers and priveleges circumscribed within their respective
limits.' These rights must be such as we have had in possession and exercise ever
since we were colonies ;
the rights superceeded and vacated by the act— if we have not
these we have none—and, if these be our rights, they are ours to have and to hold, to
possess and defend, against all claimants whatsoever. They are indeseasible rights;
we can not yield them up, nor can they be taken away from us. Were we so base,
we could not yield them up because they are the birthright inheritance of our chil-
dren, to which they are born ;
and
so are ours to hold, but not to give up ; nor can
any claimants rightfully take them from us—this would make them rights and no
rights, or ours and not ours, at the same time ; for such claimants could take them
away only on account of their having a better right to them than we ;
and
if so, in
fact they are our rights only in name, but theirs in reality ; which is contrary to the
supposition and concession allowed us in the introduction. So that this grand argu-
ment, brought from a great nation, and set out by ' Civis ' with sufficient parade,
seems to savor of such great weakness that it can by no means support itself. . .
No legislature on earth we so highly revere as the British parliament, and feel it our
greatest calamity we have not the fullness of their patronage of our liberties, at this
time as ever heretofore ; yet cannot think it within any power to make our rights no
rights, or rightfully to take away (without forfeiture or trial) the ' certain rights,
powers and privileges ' which
are allowed to belong to particular colonies and British
subjects as such. Nor can we think these measures less likely to be injurious as a
precedent than if effected by royal prerogative only. The latter has often been tried
in vain, and the nation are so much awakened and guarded, on that hand, it can never
be enslaved by it. And it has long been the opinion of our best politicians that
' England can never be undone by a parliament.' As how, but by gradually dimin-
ishing their rights .? And
how can it be practised but first on the colonies, then upon
Ireland, then upon Great Britain itself ? . . ."
The paper of November i, the sixth in order, is unmistakably a
continuation of the series begun on the 20''' of September ;
for it takes up
the second and third points laid out for discussion in the latter, namely
" 2'^''', what British subjects in America may do, and what, likely, they
will do," and
" 3*'^, what the governments have done, may, and we humbly
337
: