Page:American History Told by Contemporaries, v2.djvu/167

No. 49] For such is the End of all Colonies, & if this Use cannot be made of them, it wou'd be much better for the State to be without them. . ..

From what has been said of the Nature of Colonies & the restriction that ought to be laid on their Trade, is in [it is] plain that none of the English Plantations in America can with any reason or good sence pretend to claim an Absolute Legislative Power within themselves ; so that let their several Constitutions be founded on Ancient Charters, Royal Patent, Custom, Prescription or what other Legal Authority You please, yet still they cannot be possessed of any rightfull Capacity to contradict or evade the force of any Act of Parliament wherewith the Wisdom of Great Britain may think fit to effect them from time to time, & in discoursing of their Legislative Power (improperly so called in a dependant Government) we are to consider them only as so many Corporations at a distance invested with Ability to make Temporary By Laws for themselves agreeable to their Respective Situations & Clymates, but no ways interfering with the Legal Prerogative of the Crown or the true Legislative Power of the Mother State.

If the Governors & General Assemblys of the Several Colonies wou'd be pleas'd to consider themselves in this Light, one wou'd think it was impossible that they wou'd be so weak as to fancy, they represented the King, Lords & Commons of Great Britain within their little Districts ; And indeed the useless or rather hurtfull & inconsistent Constitution of a Negative Council in all the Kings Provincial Governments has it is beleived contributed to lead them into this mistake, For so long as the King [h]as reserved unto himself in his Privy Council the Consideration of, & Negative upon all their Laws, the Method of appointing a few of the Richest & Proudest Men in a small Colony as an upper House, with a Negative on the Proceedings of the King's Lieutenant Governor, & the People's Representations seem not only to Cramp the natural Liberty of the Subject there, but also the Kings Just Power & Prerogative. . ..

It is generally acknowledged in the Plantations that the Subject is entituled by Birth & Right unto the benefit of the Common Law of England, but then as the common Law has been altered from time to time, & restricted by Statutes it is still a Question in many of the American Courts of Judicature wether any of the English Statutes which do not particularly mention the Plantations can be of Force there until they brought it over by some Act of Assembly in that Colony where they are pleaded ; And this creates such Confusion, that according to the Art or influence of the Lawyers, before Judges who by their Education are but