Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/392

 354 Readings in European History 376. Pitt on the question of withdraw- ing the Eng- lish troops from Boston (January, 1775)- This resistance to your arbitrary system of taxation might have been foreseen ; it was obvious from the nature of things and of mankind, and, above all, from the Whiggish spirit flourishing in that country. The spirit which now resists your taxation in America is the same which formerly opposed loans, benevolences, and ship money in England; the same spirit which called all England on its legs, and by the Bill of Rights vindicated the English constitution ; the same spirit which established the great, fundamental, essen- tial maxim of your liberties, that no subject of England shall be taxed but by his own consent. This glorious spirit of Whiggism animates three millions in America, who prefer poverty with liberty to gilded chains and sordid affluence, and who will die in the defense of their rights as men, as free men. What shall oppose this spirit, aided by the congenial flame glowing in the breast of every Whig in England, to the amount, I hope, of double the American numbers? Ireland they have to a man. In that country, joined as it is with the cause of the colonies, and placed at their head, the distinction I contend for is and must be observed. This country superintends and controls their trade and navigation, but they tax themselves. And this distinction between external and internal control is sacred and insurmountable ; it is involved in the abstract nature of things. Property is private, individual, absolute. Trade is an extended and complicated consideration ; it reaches as far as ships can sail or winds can blow; it is a great and various machine. To regulate the numberless movements of the several parts and combine them into effect for the good of the whole, requires the superintending wisdom and energy of the supreme power in the empire. But this supreme power has no effect towards internal tax- ation, for it does not exist in that relation ; there is no such thing, no such idea in this constitution, as a supreme power operating upon property. Let this distinction then remain forever ascertained: taxation is theirs, commercial regulation is ours. As an American, I would recognize to England her supreme right of regulating commerce and navigation ; as