Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/214

 174 colonies. As late as 1757, the general court of Massachusetts admitted the constitutional authority of parliament in the following words:—"The authority of all acts of parliament, which concern the colonies, and extend to them, is ever acknowledged in all the courts of law, and made the rule of all judicial proceedings in the province. There is not a member of the general court, and we know no inhabitant within the bounds of the government, that ever questioned this authority." And in another address in 1761, they declared, that "every act we make, repugnant to an act of parliament extending to the plantations, is ipso facto null and void. And at a later period, in 1768, in a circular address to the other colonies, they admitted, "that his majesty's high court of Parliament is the supreme legislative power over the whole empire;" contending, however, that as British subjects they could not be taxed without their own consent.

§ 189. "In the middle and southern provinces," (we are informed by a most respectable historian, ) "no question respecting the supremacy of parliament in matters of general legislation existed. The authority of such acts of internal regulation, as were made for