Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/219

 CH. XVII.] to the crown. The latter was admitted; but the former was resolutely opposed. It is remarkable, that the Declaration of Independence, which sets forth our grievances in such warm and glowing colors, does not once mention parliament, or allude to our connexion with it; but treats the acts of oppression therein referred to, as acts of the king, in combination "with others" for the overthrow of our liberties.

§ 194. The colonies generally did not, however, at this period concur in these doctrines of Massachusetts, and some difficulties arose among them in the discussions on this subject. Even in the declaration of rights drawn up by the continental congress in 1774, and presented to the world, as their deliberate opinion of colonial privileges, while it was asserted, that they were entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their provincial legislatures, in all cases of taxation and internal policy, they admitted from the necessity of the case, and a regard to the mutual interests of both countries, that parliament might pass laws bona fide for the regulation of external commerce, though not to raise a revenue, for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the whole empire to the mother country, and the commercial benefits of its respective members. An utter denial of all parliamentary