Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/221

 CH. XVII.] § 195. The principal grounds, on which parliament asserted the right to make laws to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever, were, that the colonics were originally established under charters from the crown; that the territories were dependencies of the realm, and

, for raising a revenue on the subjects in America without their consent. "Resolved, N. C. D. 5. That the respective colonies are entitled to the common law of England, and more especially to the great and inestimable privilege of being tried by then peers of the vicinage, according to the course of that law. "Resolved, 6. That they are entitled to the benefit of such of the English statutes, as existed at the time of their colonization; and which they have, by experience, respectively found to be applicable to their several local and other circumstances. "Resolved, N. C. D. 7. That these, his majesty's colonies, are likewise entitled to all the immunities and privileges granted and confirmed to them by royal charters, or secured by their several codes of provincial laws. "Resolved, N. C. D. 8. That they have a right peaceably to assemble, consider of their grievances, and petition the king; and that all prosecutions, prohibitory proclamations, and commitments for the same, are illegal. "Resolved, N. C. D. 9. That the keeping a standing army in these colonies, in times of peace, without the consent of the legislature of that colony, in which such army is kept, is against law. "Resolved, N. C. D. 10. It is indispensably necessary to good government, and rendered essential by the English constitution, that the constituent branches of the legislature be independent of each other; that, therefore, the exercise of legislative pou er in several colonies, by a council appointed, during pleasure, by the crown, is unconstitutional, dangerous, and destructive to the freedom of American legislation. "All, and each of which, the aforesaid deputies in behalf of themselves, and their constituents, do claim, demand, and in list on, as their indubitable rights and liberties; which cannot he legally taken from them, altered, or abridged by any power whatever, without their own consent, by their representatives in their several provincial legislatures." The plan of conciliation proposed by the provincial convention of New-York in 1775, explicitly admits, "that from the necessity of the case Great Britain should regulate the trade of the whole empire for the general benefit of the whole, but not for the separate benefit of any particular part." 1 Pitk. Hist. ch. 9, p. 314.