Washington

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the artisan in his work-shop, gains day by day a manlier confidence, proportioned to the growing size and strength of the community to which he belongs. So early as the year 1692 the legislature of Massachusetts, employed in establishing a system of laws under their new charter, passed an act containing the general principles respecting the liberty of the subject, which are asserted in Magna Charta, and in which was this memorable advice: No aid, tax, tollage, assessment, custom, loan, benevolence, or imposition whatsoever, shall be laid, assessed or imposed on any of their majesties' subjects or their estates on any pretence whatsoever, but by the act and consent of the governor, council and representatives of the people assembled in general court V In 1704, the Legislative Assembly of New York reiterated the same declarations, and resolved, That the imposing and levying of any moneys upon Her Majesty's subjects of this colony, under any .pretence or colour whatsoever, without their consent in General Assembly, is a grievance and violation of the people's property. The British government repelled these declarations, either in silence, or by a policy which was always somewhat evasive and reserved. The colonists on their side frequently allowed these assertions of their principles to pass away, without following them out to all their consequences. But these principles spread throughout the colonial community hand in hand with the growing powers which were to be devoted, at some future day, to their service and to their success. Story's Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, i. p. 62. Marshall's Life of Washington, i. 306. It is almost unnecessary to add that this act was disallowed by the crown. Hence, when that day came, when King George III. and his ...