Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/215

 CH. XVII.], as well as those for the regulation of commerce, even by the imposition of duties, provided these duties were imposed for the purpose of regulation, had been at all times admitted. Bui these colonies, however they might acknowledge the supremacy of parliament in other respects, denied the right of that body to tax them internally." If there were any exceptions to the general accuracy of this statement, they seem to have been too few mid fugitive to impair the general result. In the charter of Pennsylvania, an express reservation was made of the power of taxation by an act of parliament, though this was argued not to be a sufficient foundation for the exercise of it.

§ 190. Perhaps the best general summary of the rights and liberties asserted by all the colonies is contained in the celebrated declaration drawn up by the Congress of the Nine Colonies, assembled at New-York, in October, 1765. That declaration asserted, that the colonists "owe the same allegiance to the crown of Great Britain, that is owing from his subjects born within the realm, and all due subordination to that august body, the parliament of Great Britain." That the colonists "are entitled to all the inherent rights and liberties of his [the king's] natural born subjects within the kingdom of Great Britain." "That it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people, and the undoubted right of Englishmen, that no taxes be imposed on them, but with their own consent, given personally, or by their representatives." That the people of the "