History for ready reference, Volume 5, Tunnage to Zyp and SupplementLarned, J. N. (Josephus Nelson)
History
History for ready reference, Volume 5, Tunnage to Zyp and Supplement
Larned, J. N. (Josephus Nelson)
History -- Dictionaries
Q. Is this all you mean, a letter from the secretary of state?
A. I mean the usual way of requisition, in a circular letter
from the secretary of state, by his Majesty's command,
reciting the occasion, and recommending it to the colonies to
grant such aids as became their loyalty, and were suitable to
their abilities.
Q. Did the secretary of state ever write for money for the
crown?
A. The requisitions have been to raise clothe, and pay men,
which cannot be done without money.
Q. Would they grant money alone, if called on?
A. In my opinion they would, money as well as men, when they
have money, or can procure it.
Q. If the parliament should repeal the Stamp Act, will the
assembly of Pennsylvania rescind their resolutions?
A. I think not.
Q. Before there was any thought of the Stamp Act, did they
wish for a representation in parliament?
A. No.
Q. Don't you know that there is, in the Pennsylvania charter,
an express reservation of the right of parliament to lay taxes
there?
A. I know there is a clause in the charter, by which the King
grants that he will levy no taxes on the inhabitants, unless
it be with the consent of the assembly, or by an act of
parliament.
Q. How then could the assembly of Pennsylvania assert, that
laying a tax on them by the Stamp Act was an infringement of
their rights?
A. They understand it thus: by the same charter, and
otherwise, they are entitled to all the privileges and
liberties of Englishmen; they find in the Great Charters, and
the Petition and Declaration of Rights, that one of the
privileges of English subjects is, that they are not to be
taxed but by their common consent; they have therefore relied
upon it, from the first settlement of the province, that the
parliament never would, nor could, by colour of that clause in
the charter, assume a right of taxing them, till it had
qualified itself to exercise such right, by admitting
representatives from the people to be taxed, who ought to make
a part of that common consent.
Q. Are there any words in the charter that justify that
construction?
A. The common rights of Englishmen, as declared by Magna
Charta, and the Petition of Right, all justify it.
Q. Does the distinction between internal and external taxes
exist in the words of the charter?
A. No, I believe not.
Q. Then may they not, by the same interpretation, object to
the parliament's right of external taxation?
A. They never have hitherto. Many arguments have been lately
used here to shew them that there is no difference, and that
if you have no right to tax them internally, you have none to
tax them externally, or make any other law to bind them. At
present they do not reason so, but in time they may possibly
be convinced by these arguments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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