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.

He that denies the English parliament the right of taxation, denies it, likewise, the right of making any other laws, civil or criminal, yet this power over the colonies was never yet disputed by themselves.  They have always admitted statutes for the punishment of offences, and for the redress or prevention of inconveniencies; and the reception of any law draws after it, by a chain which cannot be broken, the unwelcome necessity of submitting to taxation.

That a freeman is governed by himself, or by laws to which he has consented, is a position of mighty sound; but every man that utters it, with whatever confidence, and every man that hears it, with whatever acquiescence, if consent be supposed to imply the power of refusal, feels it to be false.  We virtually and implicitly allow the institutions of any government, of which we enjoy the benefit, and solicit the protection.  In wide extended dominions, though power has been diffused with the most even hand, yet a very small part of the people are either primarily or secondarily consulted in legislation.  The business of the publick must be done by delegation.  The choice of delegates is made by a select number, and those who are not electors stand idle and helpless spectators of the commonweal, “wholly unconcerned in the government of themselves.”

Of the electors the hap is but little better.  They are often far from unanimity in their choice; and where the numbers approach to equality, almost half must be governed not only without, but against their choice.

How any man can have consented to institutions established in distant ages, it will be difficult to explain.  In the most favourite residence of liberty, the consent of individuals is merely passive; a tacit admission, in every community, of the terms which that community grants and requires.  As all are born the subjects of some state or other, we may be said to have been all born consenting to some system of government.  Other consent than this the condition of civil life does not allow.  It is the unmeaning clamour of the pedants of policy, the delirious dream of republican fanaticism.

But hear, ye sons and daughters of liberty, the sounds which the winds are wafting from the western continent.  The Americans are telling one another, what, if we may judge from their noisy triumph, they have but lately discovered, and what yet is a very important truth:  “That they are entitled to life, liberty, and property; and that they have never ceded to any sovereign power whatever a right to dispose of either without their consent.”