Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/233

 -1775] The King as source of authority. 201 To this Hamilton replied, that the Act of Parliament was not the efficient cause of his Majesty's being the King of America ; it was only the occasion of it. He was " King of America by virtue of a compact between us and the [former] Kings of Great Britain. These colonies were planted and settled by the grants and under the protection of English Kings, who entered into covenants with us, for themselves, their heirs, and successors." From these covenants the duty of protection by them and of obedience by us arose. "Our compact takes no cognizance of the manner of their accession to the throne. 1 " It could therefore make no difference that King James and the first and second Charles were in truth parliamentary Kings. Passing to the distinction itself between allegiance to the King and subjection to Parliament, Hamilton said that there were valid reasons for such a distinction. The people of America held their lands, by virtue of charters, from the King ; they were under no obligation to Lords or Commons for them. "Our title is similar, and equal, to that by which they possess their lands ; and the King is the legal fountain of both." But the chief reason was, that the colonists had the right to claim protection from the King of Great Britain. It had been said that they owed this to Great Britain. That was not true; the King, as executive, was the supreme protector of the empire. He it was who had defended the colonies; to him alone were the colonies bound to render allegiance and submission. "The law of nature and the British Constitution both confine allegiance to the person of the King." Calvin's case had so decided. That is, allegiance was " con- fined" to a "person" who simply bore the name and title of King of Great Britain. Hamilton made no reference to the fact that the Stewart Kings, under whose charters most of the colonies held, had claimed authority above Parliament, probably because in the contest with Charles I the colonists mainly were with Parliament; and he was replying to Seabury, not to Galloway, who wrote perhaps a little later. With Galloway's argument before him for answer, there can be little difficulty in supposing that Hamilton would have alluded to the professions of the Stewarts. Was it true, he would have been likely to say, that the Stewart Kings affixed the great seal to the charters as representatives of another ? And even if they had forgotten, for the moment, the divine right of Kings, could any King, by using the great seal, or in any other way, without sufficient notice to the grantees, constitute himself a representative of others, to the prejudice of the grantees ? This part of the subject may be closed with a statement of the chief resolutions of the Continental Congress, of the year 1774, as the final summing up of the whole case. In virtue of the three sources of right above considered, the Congress resolved First, that the inhabitants of the British colonies in North America were entitled to life, liberty, and property, and that they had never ceded to any foreign power whatever CH. VI.