Sir, this act of supreme magnanimity has been represented as if it had been a measure of an administration that, having no scheme of their own, took a middle line, pilfered a bit from one side and a bit from the other.  Sir, they took no middle lines.  They differed fundamentally from the schemes of both parties; but they preserved the objects of both.  They preserved the authority of Great Britain; they preserved the equity of Great Britain.  They made the Declaratory Act; they repealed the Stamp Act.  They did both fully:  because the Declaratory Act was without qualification; and the repeal of the Stamp Act total.  This they did in the situation I have described.

Now, Sir, what will the adversary say to both these acts?  If the principle of the Declaratory Act was not good, the principle we are contending for this day is monstrous.  If the principle of the repeal was not good, why are we not at war for a real, substantial, effective revenue?  If both were bad, why has this ministry incurred all the inconveniences of both and of all schemes? why have they enacted, repealed, enforced, yielded, and now attempt to enforce again?

Sir, I think I may as well now as at any other time speak to a certain matter of fact not wholly unrelated to the question under your consideration.  We, who would persuade you to revert to the ancient policy of this kingdom, labor under the effect of this short current phrase, which the court leaders have given out to all their corps, in order to take away the credit of those who would prevent you from that frantic war you are going to wage upon your colonies.  Their cant is this:  “All the disturbances in America have been created by the repeal of the Stamp Act.”  I suppress for a moment my indignation at the falsehood, baseness, and absurdity of this most audacious assertion.  Instead of remarking on the motives and character of those who have issued it for circulation, I will clearly lay before you the state of America, antecedently to that repeal, after the repeal, and since the renewal of the schemes of American taxation.

It is said, that the disturbances, if there were any before the repeal, were slight, and without difficulty or inconvenience might have been suppressed.  For an answer to this assertion I will send you to the great author and patron of the Stamp Act, who, certainly meaning well to the authority of this country, and fully apprised of the state of that, made, before a repeal was so much as agitated in this House, the motion which is on your journals, and which, to save the clerk the trouble of turning to it, I will now read to you.  It was for an amendment to the address of the 17th of December, 1765.

“To express our just resentment and indignation at the outrageous tumults and insurrections which have been excited and carried on in North America, and at the resistance given, by open and rebellious force, to the execution of the laws in that part of his Majesty’s dominions; to assure his Majesty, that his faithful Commons, animated with the warmest duty and attachment to his royal person and government, ... will firmly and effectually support his Majesty in all such measures as shall be necessary for preserving and securing the legal dependence of the colonies upon this their mother country,” &c., &c.