Chap. XLIX.} 1773. Jan. |
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mode of dealing with the Governor's positions.1
Like the Council, they traced the disturbed state of Government to taxation of the colonists by Parliament; but as to the supremacy of that body, they took the Governor at his word.
‘It is difficult, perhaps impossible,’ they agreed, ‘to draw a line of distinction between the universal authority of Parliament over the Colonies, and no authority at all;’ and laying out all their strength to prove the only point that Hutchinson's statement required to be proved, that that authority was not universal, they opened the door to his own inference.
‘If there be no such line,’ said they, ‘between the supreme authority of Parliament and the total independence of the Colonies, then, either the Colonies are vassals of the Parliament, or they are totally independent.
As it cannot be supposed to have been the intention of the parties in the compact, that one of them should be reduced to a state of vassalage, the conclusion is, that it was their sense, that we were thus independent.’
‘But it is impossible,’ the Governor had insisted, ‘that there should be two independent Legislatures in one and the same State.’
‘Then,’ replied the House, ‘the Colonies were by their Charters, made distinct States from the Mother Country.’
‘Although there may be but one head, the King,’ Hutchinson had said, ‘yet the two legislative bodies will make two governments as distinct as the kingdoms of England and Scotland before the union.’
‘Very true, may it please your Excellency,’ replied the House; ‘and if they interfere not with each ’
1 For the authorship of the paper see the contemporary letter of Hutchinson to Sir Francis Bernard, 23 February, 1773.
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