Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/229

 1768-75] Whig view. The Virginia charters. 197 words, but to no purpose. Finally, the Crown could neither alienate part of the British dominions nor impair the supreme power of the empire. The Whig contention was best put by Samuel Adams, by Dulany, and by Hamilton. Adams and Dulany, taking the same ground substantially, treated the charters as contracts, or "compacts," this being a term generally in use at the time with a somewhat broader, and, at its borders, vaguer meaning than contract. As the term however was applied by jurists to the charters, it appears generally to have been used in the sense of contract, i.e. binding agreement. The original contract between the King and the first planters was, said Adams, writing in 1768, a promise on behalf of the nation, by authority not till lately questioned, that if the adventurers, at their own cost, would purchase the country, subdue the wilderness, and thereby enlarge the King's dominions, they and their posterity should enjoy such rights and privileges as in their respective charters were expressed ; which in general were all the rights, liberties, and privileges of his Majesty's natural born subjects within the realm. The principal privilege, implied by some and expressed by other charters, was freedom from all taxes but such as they should consent to in person or by representatives chosen by themselves. Hamilton, "the marvellous boy" he was then an undergraduate in college, little more than eighteen years of age made the most original and telling argument in the great debate. He took the position that the colonies were "without the realm and jurisdiction of Parliament," and that the charters, and British action touching them, showed the fact. He argued the case thus : King James had granted three charters to the Virginia Company. The first one ordained that the colonies to be established should have a council which should govern all matters within them, according to such laws, ordinances, and instructions, as should be given and signed by the King; and that the colonists should have and enjoy all liberties, franchises, and immunities within the King's "other" dominions, as if abiding and born in England. The King could not have granted such a charter if the colonies had been part of the realm, or within the jurisdiction of Parliament. The second and third charters only enlarged the first. The present government of Virginia was modelled after the third charter ; by this the company were to have " one great, general, and solemn assembly," to dispose of affairs of every sort, with full power to make laws for the good of the plantation, " so always as the same be not contrary to the laws and statutes of this our realm of England." By this charter King James had divested himself wholly both of legislative and executive authority, but for his own security had prescribed a model for their civil constitution. The laws were not to be contrary to those of England; this was inserted in all later charters, with some little variation. The object of the provision was only to present to the CH. VI.