In this pamphlet definite limitations of the legislative power "which have been established by God and by Nature" are already enumerated in the form of the later bills of rights. As the center of the whole stood the principal occasion of strife between the colonies and the mother-country, the right of taxation. That the levying of taxes or duties without the consent of the people or of representatives of the colonies was not indeed contrary to the laws of the country, but contrary to the eternal laws of liberty.[101] But these limitations were none other than those enumerated by Locke, which "the law of God and of Nature has set for every legislative power in every state and in every form of government". But these propositions of Locke's are here found in a very radical transformation. They are changing namely from law to personal right. While Locke, similar to Rousseau later, places the individuals in subjection to the will of the majority of the community, upon which, however, restrictions are placed by the objects of the state, now the individual establishes the conditions under which he will enter the community, and in the state holds fast to these conditions as rights. He has accordingly rights in the state and claims upon the state which do not spring from the state. In opposition to England's attempt to restrict these rights, the idea formally to declare them and to defend them grew all the stronger. This formulation was influenced by a work that was published anonymously at Oxford in 1754, in which for the first time "absolute rights" of the English are mentioned.[102] It originated from no less a person than Blackstone.[103] These rights of the individual were voiced in Blackstone's words for the first time in a Memorial to the legislature, which is given in an appendix to Otis's pamphlet.[104] On November 20, 1772, upon the motion of Samuel Adams a plan, which he had worked out, of a declaration of rights of the colonists as men, Christians and citizens was adopted by all the assembled citizens of Boston. It was therein declared, with an appeal to Locke, that men enter into the state by voluntary agreement, and they have the right beforehand in an equitable compact to establish conditions and limitations for the state and to see to it that these are carried out. Thereupon the colonists demanded as men the right of liberty and of property, as Christians freedom of religion, and as citizens the rights of Magna Charta and of the Bill of Rights of 1689.[105] Finally, on October 14, 1774, the Congress, representing twelve colonies, assembled in Philadelphia adopted a declaration of rights, according to which the inhabitants of the North American Colonies have rights which belong to them by the unchangeable law of nature, by the principles of the constitution of England and by their own constitutions.[106]