At the same time, however, the Prime Minister desired to steer a middle course, and eventually resolved to repeal the Stamp Act, but to preface the measure by a Declaratory Act, enunciating the undoubted right of Parliament to make laws binding the British in all cases. Benjamin Franklin, examined before a Committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire into the American question, while denouncing the Stamp duty as impolitic and injurious to the colonies and expressing his belief that his countrymen would never submit to it in any form, unless compelled by arms, expressed his opinion that, while nothing would induce the Assemblies to revoke their resolutions, they would not object to an act asserting the abstract rights of Parliament to impose taxes as long as the Stamp Act was repealed. Rockingham, thus encouraged, thereupon introduced the Declaratory Act, not because he had any liking for it, but because in his opinion many people of high principles would never have been brought to repeal the Stamp Act without it.[24] "It was not the inclination of Lord Rockingham," said Charles James Fox some years later, "but the necessity of his situation, which was the cause of the Declaratory Act. The Act passed the House of Commons without a division, and, in the House of Lords, when Lord Camden insisted on a division, there were only four peers who voted with him 'non-content.'"[25] [24] _Life of Lord Camden._ [25] _Chatham Correspondence._ "My position is this. I repeat it. I will maintain it to my latest hour. Taxation and representation are inseparable. This position is founded on the laws of nature. It is more. It is an eternal law of nature; for whatever is a man's own is absolutely his own. No man has a right to take it from him without his consent, either expressed by himself or his representatives. Whoever attempts to do so attempts an injury. Whoever does it commits a robbery. He throws down and destroys the distinction between liberty and slavery."--Lord Camden in the House of Lords, February 24, 1766.