The first article averred the principle also found in Jefferson's "Commonplace Book" that "this colony and Dominion of Virginia cannot be considered as a conquered country, and as it was, that the present inhabitants are not of the conquered, but of the conquerors." It added that: Our ancestors, when they left their native land, and settled in America, brought over with them, even if the same is not confirmed by Charters, the civil constitution and form of Government of the country they came from and were by the laws of nature and nations entitled to all its privileges, immunities and advantages, which have descended to us, their posterity, and ought of right to be as fully enjoyed as if we had still continued with the realm of England. The second article enunciated the most essential and "fundamental principle of government", that the people "could be governed by no laws to which they had not given their consent by Representatives freely chosen by themselves." The third article declared that the colonies had some duty to fulfill towards the mother country and admitted that the British Parliament might, "directed with wisdom and moderation", take measures to regulate "American commerce", although such action was in some degree repugnant to the principles of the Constitution.[32] Whether or not Jefferson had received the Fairfax resolutions before writing the Albemarle declaration, this is the capital difference between the two documents and the two doctrines. On the one hand, George Mason accepted the theory that the first settlers had brought over with them the civil constitution and form of government of the mother country, and consequently admitted a permanent connection between the colony and the metropolis. Jefferson, on the contrary, asserted with great strength and clarity the complete independence of the colonists from the British constitution. They were subject to no laws except those they had freely adopted when they had consented to a new compact and formed a new society. He was perfectly justified when he declared in his "Autobiography": Our other patriots, Randolph, the Lees, Nicholas, Pendleton, stopped at the half-way house of John Dickinson, who admitted that England had a right to regulate our commerce, and to lay duties on it for the purpose of regulation, but not of raising revenue. But for this ground there was no foundation in compact, in any acknowledged principles of colonisation, nor in reason; expatriation being a natural right, and acted on as such by all nations, in all ages.