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.

’That, in order to enforce the arbitrary measures before complained of, his Majesty has, from time to time, sent among us large bodies of armed forces, not made up of the people here, nor raised by the authority of our laws.  Did his Majesty possess such a right as this, it might swallow up all our other rights whenever he should think proper.  But his Majesty has no right to land a single armed man on our shores; and those whom he sends here are liable to our laws for the suppression and punishment of riots, routs, and unlawful assemblies, or are hostile bodies invading us in defiance of law.  When, in the course of the late war, it became expedient that a body of Hanoverian troops should be brought over for the defence of Great Britain, his Majesty’s grandfather, our late sovereign, did not pretend to introduce them under any authority he possessed.  Such a measure would have given just alarm to his subjects of Great Britain, whose liberties would not be safe if armed men of another country, and of another spirit, might be brought into the realm at any time, without the consent, of their legislature.  He, therefore, applied to Parliament, who passed an act for that purpose, limiting the number to be brought in, and the time they were to continue.  In like manner is his Majesty restrained in every part of the empire.  He possesses indeed the executive power of the laws in every state; but they are the laws of the particular state, which he is to administer within that state, and not those of any one within the limits of another.  Every state must judge for itself, the number of armed men which they may safely trust among them, of whom they are to consist, and under what restrictions they are to be laid.  To render these proceedings still more criminal against our laws, instead of subjecting the military to the civil power, his Majesty has expressly made the civil subordinate to the military.  But can his Majesty thus put down all law under his feet?  Can he erect a power superior to that which erected himself?  He has done it indeed by force; but let him remember that force cannot give right.

’That these are our grievances, which we have thus laid before his Majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people, claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their Chief Magistrate.  Let those flatter, who fear:  it is not an American art.  To give praise where it is not due, might be well from the venal, but would ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of human nature.  They know, and will, therefore, say, that Kings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people.  Open your breast, Sire, to liberal and expanded thought.  Let not the name of George the Third be a blot on the page of history.  You are surrounded by British counsellors, but remember that they are parties.  You have no ministers for American affairs, because you have none taken from among us, nor amenable to

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Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.