George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 7, 4th edition.

‘ [133] are an unsafe reliance, for the king's right to grant

Chap. XI.} 1774. Sept.

them has itself been denied. Besides, the right to life, and the right to liberty are inalienable.’ Jay of New York likewise recurred to the laws of nature. He would not admit the pretension to dominion founded on discovery, and he enumerated among natural rights, the right to emigrate, and the right of the emigrants to erect what government they pleased. John Rutledge, on the contrary, held that allegiance is inalienable; that the first emigrants had not had the right to elect their king; that American claims were derived from the British constitution rather than from the law of nature. But Sherman of Connecticut deduced allegiance from consent, without which the colonies were not bound by the act of settlement. Duane, like Rutledge, shrunk back from the appeal to the law of nature, and founded the power of government on property in land.

Behind all these views lay the question of the power of parliament over the colonies. Dickinson, not yet a member of congress, was fully of opinion that no officer under the new establishment in Massachusetts ought to be acknowledged, but advocated ‘allowing to parliament the regulation of trade upon principles of necessity, and the mutual interest of both countries.’ ‘A right of regulating trade,’ said Gadsden, true to the principle of 1765, ‘is a right of legislation, and a right of legislation in one case is a right in all;’ and he denied the claim with peremptory energy.

Amidst such varying opinions and theories, the congress, increased by delegates from North Carolina, and intent upon securing absolute unanimity, was