necting representation with taxation was susceptible of a similar justification. A Parliament elected by a considerable part of the English people, drawn from the English people, sitting in the midst of them, and exposed to their social and intellectual influence, was assumed to represent the whole nation, and the decision of its majority was assumed to be the decision of the whole. If it be asked how these assumptions could be defended, it can only be answered that they had rendered possible a form of government which had arrested the incursions of the royal prerogative,12 had given England a longer period and a longer measure of self-government than was enjoyed by any other great European nation, and had created a public spirit sufficiently powerful to defend the liberties that had been won. Such arguments, however worthless they might appear to a lawyer or a theorist, ought to be very sufficient to a statesman. Manchester and Sheffield had no more direct representation in Parliament than Boston or Philadelphia; but the relations of unrepresented Englishmen and of colonists to the English Parliament were very different. Parliament could never long neglect the fierce beatings of the waves of popular discontent around its walls. It might long continue perfectly indifferent to the wishes of a population 3,000 miles from the English shore. When Parliament taxed the English people, the taxing body itself felt the weight of the burden it imposed; but Parliament felt no part of the weight of colonial taxation, and had therefore a direct interest in increasing it. The English people might justly complain that they were taxed by a body in which they were very imperfectly represented; but this was a widely different thing from being taxed by the Legislature of another country. To adopt the powerful language of an Irish writer, no free people will ever admit that persons distant from them 1,000 leagues are to tax them to

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12 A right of government, or a power to perform certain acts of government claimed by the king as inherent in the kingly office; for the exercise of the prerogative he need give no account to his people.

what amount they please, without their consent, without knowing them or their concerns, without any sympathy of affection or interest, without even sharing themselves in the taxes they impose on the contrary, diminishing their own burdens exactly in the degree they increase theirs."

W. E. H. Lecky: The American Revolution, 1762-1783. Being the Chapters and Passages Relating to America from the Author's History of England in the Eighteenth Century. Arranged and Edited by J. A. Woodburn, pp. 51-56, 7579. D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1898.

QUESTIONS

was

Name the three divisions of Grenville's policy toward the Colonies. How did he plan to make the execution of the Navigation Acts more effectual? (The policy of enforcing, the acts by no means entirely original with Grenville.) Why were the means that he employed sure to irritate the Colonists? Describe the trade of New England with the West Indies. How did rum and slaves become indirectly a part of this commerce? Why was it essential to New England's welfare? What were the provisions of the Act of 1733? How were they modified by the Act of 1764? How had the principle of no taxation without representation been illustrated in English history? Did it recognize a difference between an ordinary law and one levying a tax? How far were the English people actually represented in Parliament in the eighteenth century? Could all men vote for members of Parliament? In what sense could a part of the English people be said to be taxed without representation in Parliament? In what ways could people in England influence the House of Commons that sat in their midst even when they had no voice in choosing members? Would it be possible for the Colonists so to influence the House of Commons? In case the interests of the Colonies and the interests of England were opposed to each other, would the Colonists be able to have their side presented in Parliament as effectually as the English side would be?

ΧΙ

TAXATION AND REPRESENTATION

The following extracts are taken from two speeches delivered in Parliament, January 14, 1766, by William Pitt, the friend

of America, the great English minister who did so much to sustain England and lead her on to victory in the Seven Years' War. They constitute an arraignment of the policy of the Grenville ministry in passing the Stamp Act. While Pitt insists that Parliament had the full right to legislate for the Colonies, he draws a sharp line between legislation and taxation and insists that there is a practical and theoretical difference. The Englishmen were wont to insist that there was no distinction between taxation and general legislation; if Parliament had the right to do one, it had the right to do the other. With pleadings for a right of taxation based on legal reasonings and with finespun theories Pitt had no patience, though even by the precedents of English liberty taxation and representation went together; he might himself use the books of law but he prefers to demand the recognition of principles of common justice.

We should notice that England did not actually have a broad and generous basis in her own representative system, and this Pitt in part acknowledged in speaking of the rotten part of the Constitution; but the Americans, and Pitt with them, were appealing to an idea of representation that was in advance of actual English practice. These extracts are given here, not because we must necessarily hold that Parliament in strict law had no legal right to tax America, for much can be said in defense of that legal right or power, but because it is an eloquent defense of the American position; the question at bottom was not whether Parliament had the right from the legal point of view, but whether that body would recognize broad principles of justice even though those principles had not as yet full place in the English constitution, or at least in the working practice of England in those days.

It is a long time, Mr. Speaker, since I have attended in Parliament. When the resolution was taken in the House to tax America, I was ill in bed. If I could have endured to have been carried in my bed, so great was the agitation of my mind for the consequences, I would have solicited some kind hand to have laid me down on this floor, to have borne my testimony against it. It is now an act that has passed; I would speak with decency of every act of this House,

but I must beg the indulgence of the House to speak of it with freedom.

I hope a day may be soon appointed to consider the state of the nation with respect to America. I hope gentlemen will come to this debate with all the temper and impartiality that His Majesty recommends, and the importance of the subject requires.1 A subject of greater importance than ever, engaged the attention of this House, that subject only excepted when near a century ago it was the question whether you yourselves were to be bound, or free.2 In the meantime, as I cannot depend upon health for any future day, such is the nature of my infirmities, I will beg to say a few words at present, leaving the justice, the equity, the policy, the expediency of the act, to another time. I will only speak to one point, a point which seems not to have been generally understood, I mean to the right.

...

. . . It is my opinion, that this kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the Colonies. At the same time, I assert the authority of this kingdom over the Colonies to be sovereign and supreme, in every circumstance of government and legislation whatsoever. They are the subjects of this kingdom, equally entitled with yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen. Equally bound by its laws, and equally participating of the constitution of this free country. The Americans are the sons, . . . of England. Taxation is no part of the governing or legislative power. The taxes are a voluntary gift and grant of the Commons alone. In legislation the three estates of the realm are alike concerned, but the concurrence of the peers and the Crown to a tax, is only necessary to close with the form of a law. The gift and grant is of the Commons alone. In ancient days, the Crown, the barons, and the clergy pos

1 The occasion of debate was the King's speech to Parliament. 2 The allusion is to the Revolution of 1688, which ended forever a power the kings had claimed of overriding the laws when they saw fit.

sessed the lands. In those days, the barons and the clergy gave and granted to the Crown. They gave and granted what was their own. At present, since the discovery of America, and other circumstances permitting, the Commons are become the proprietors of the land. The Crown has divested itself of its great estates. The Church (God bless it) has but a pittance. The property of the Lords, compared with that of the Commons, is as a drop of water in the ocean and this House represents those Commons, the proprietors of the lands; and those proprietors virtually represent the rest of the inhabitants. When, therefore, in this House we give and grant, we give and grant what is our own. But in an American tax, what do we do? We, Your Majesty's Commons of Great Britain, give and grant to Your Majesty, what? Our own property? No. We give and grant to Your Majesty, the property of Your Majesty's Commons of America. It is an absurdity in

terms.

The distinction between legislation and taxation is essentially necessary to liberty. The Crown, the Peers, are equally legislative powers with the Commons. If taxation be a part of simple legislation, the Crown, the Peers, have rights in taxation as well as yourselves: rights which they will claim, which they will exercise, whenever the principle can be supported by power.

There is an idea in some that the Colonies are virtually represented in this House. I would fain know by whom an American is represented here? Is he represented by any knight of the shire in any county in this kingdom? Would to God that respectable representation was augmented to a greater number! Or will you tell him, that he is represented by any representative of a borough-a borough which, perhaps, its own representative never saw. This is what is called "the rotten part of the constitution."

3 Members elected by the land owners; two of them sat for each shire or county.