Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 704 pages of information about Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1.

Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 704 pages of information about Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1.
they are there placed to awe the members from such purposes as these?  When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then, indeed, their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the state, and calls for an exercise of the power of dissolution.  Such being the causes for which the representative body should, and should not, be dissolved, will it not appear strange, to an unbiassed observer, that that of Great Britain was not dissolved, while those of the colonies have repeatedly incurred that sentence?

* On further inquiry, I find two instances of dissolutions before the Parliament would, of itself, have been at an end:  viz. the Parliament called to meet August 24, 1698, was dissolved by King William, December 19, 1700, and a new one called, to meet February 6, 1701, which was also dissolved November 11, 1701, and a new one met December 30, 1701.

But your Majesty or your Governors have carried this power beyond every limit known or provided for by the laws.  After dissolving one House of Representatives, they have refused to call another, so that, for a great length of time, the legislature provided by the laws has been out of existence.  From the nature of things, every society must at all times possess within itself the sovereign powers of legislation.  The feelings of human nature revolt against the supposition of a state so situated, as that it may not, in any emergency, provide against dangers which perhaps threaten immediate ruin.  While those bodies are in existence to whom the people have delegated the powers of legislation, they alone possess, and may exercise, those powers.  But when they are dissolved, by the lopping off one or more of their branches, the power reverts to the people, who may use it to unlimited extent, either assembling together in person, sending deputies, or in any other way they may think proper.  We forbear to trace consequences further; the dangers are conspicuous with which this practice is replete.

’That we shall, at this time also, take notice of an error in the nature of our land-holdings, which crept in at a very early period of our settlement.  The introduction of the feudal tenures into the kingdom of England, though ancient, is well enough understood to set this matter in a proper light.  In the earlier ages of the Saxon settlement, feudal holdings were certainly altogether unknown, and very few, if any, had been introduced at the time of the Norman conquest.  Our Saxon ancestors held their lands, as they did their personal property, in absolute dominion, disencumbered with any superior, answering nearly to the nature of those possessions which the Feudalists term Allodial.  William the Norman first introduced that system generally.  The lands which had belonged to those who fell in the battle of Hastings, and in

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