Assuming these rights as common to all, whether white or black, he insists that any taxation, whether direct or indirect, without representation, is only another form of Slavery. “I can see no reason to doubt but that the imposition of taxes, whether on trade, or on land, or houses, or ships, on real or personal, fixed or floating property, in the Colonies, is absolutely irreconcilable with the rights of the colonists, as British subjects, _and as men_. I say men, for in a state of Nature no man can take my property from me without my consent. _If he does, he deprives me of my liberty and makes me a slave.…_ The very act of taxing, exercised over those who are not represented, appears to me to be depriving them of one of their most essential rights as freemen, and, if continued, seems to be in effect _an entire disfranchisement of every civil right_. For what one civil right is worth a rush, after a man’s property is subject to be taken from him at pleasure, without his consent?”[104] Such was the voice of James Otis, who was our John the Baptist. It was he who went before in this great controversy. He first stated the case between the Colonies and the mother country, and first developed the principles in issue. But, though first, he was not long alone. Conspicuous among his followers was Samuel Adams, that austere patriot, always faithful and true, who desired to make Puritan Boston “a Christian Sparta.” He was remarkable for the simplicity, accuracy, and harmony of his style, and on this account often held the pen for the Legislature or the town-meeting. In obedience to the latter, he drew up instructions to the Representatives of Boston, afterward adopted in Faneuil Hall, where, repeating the very arguments of Otis, he says, “If our trade may be taxed, why not our lands, why not the produce of our lands, and everything we possess or make use of?” And then, advancing in the subject, he asks: “If taxes are laid upon us in any shape _without our having a legal representation where they are laid_, are we not reduced from the character of free subjects to the miserable state of tributary slaves?”[105] In proposing this question, he leaves no room to doubt the answer it deserved.