Page:An address to the people of England, Ireland, and Scotland.djvu/25

 may, in some very extraordinary conjuncture of opinions and circumstances, be wrong, yet at a time when the representatives had affected an entire independency on, or rather an absolute sovereignty over their constituents, this might be a sufficient reason for many worthy men, as a far lesser evil, to submit to an indefinite obligation of obedience.

Power is regarded by all men as the greatest of temporal advantages. The support given to Power, therefore, is an obligation; and, consequently, the protection given by governors to subjects, a positive duty. The subject can only be bound to obedience on the considerations of public good; but the Sovereign, on these considerations, and a thousand others equally binding, is tied to the exact observance of the laws of that constitution under which he holds his power.

The assertion that "the Americans, tho' "neither adequately, or inadequately