To him that considers the nature, the original, the progress, and the constitution of the colonies, who remembers that the first discoverers had commissions from the crown, that the first settlers owe to a charter their civil forms and regular magistracy, and that all personal immunities and legal securities, by which the condition of the subject has been, from time to time, improved, have been extended to the colonists, it will not be doubted, but the parliament of England has a right to bind them by statutes, and to bind them in all cases whatsoever; and has, therefore, a natural and constitutional power of laying upon them any tax or impost, whether external or internal, upon the product of land, or the manufactures of industry, in the exigencies of war, or in the time of profound peace, for the defence of America, for the purpose of raising a revenue, or for any other end beneficial to the empire. There are some, and those not inconsiderable for number, nor contemptible for knowledge, who except the power of taxation from the general dominion of parliament, and hold, that whatever degress of obedience may be exacted, or whatever authority may be exercised in other acts of government, there is still reverence to be paid to money, and that legislation passes its limits when it violates the purse. Of this exception, which, by a head not fully impregnated with politicks, is not easily comprehended, it is alleged, as an unanswerable reason, that the colonies send no representatives to the house of commons. It is, say the American advocates, the natural distinction of a freeman, and the legal privilege of an Englishman, that he is able to call his possessions his own, that he can sit secure in the enjoyment of inheritance or acquisition, that his house is fortified by the law, and that nothing can be taken from him, but by his own consent. This consent is given for every man by his representative in parliament. The Americans, unrepresented, cannot consent to English taxations, as a corporation, and they will not consent, as individuals. Of this argument, it has been observed by more than one, that its force extends equally to all other laws, for a freeman is not to be exposed to punishment, or be called to any onerous service, but by his own consent. The congress has extracted a position from the fanciful Montesquieu that, "in a free state, every man, being a free agent, ought to be concerned in his own government." Whatever is true of taxation, is true of every other law, that he who is bound by it, without his consent, is not free, for he is not concerned in his own government.