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John
Dickinson's Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer, were written in
protest to the passage of the Townshend Duties. Dickinson was
a Philadelphia lawyer. This is an excerpt from his defense
of the legal rights of free-born Englishmen.
1768
There is [a] late act of Parliament, which seems
to me to be
. . . destructive to the liberty of these colonies, . . . that
is the act for
granting duties on paper, glass, etc. It appears to me to be
unconstitutional.
The Parliament unquestionably possesses a legal authority to regulate
the trade of Great Britain and all its colonies. Such an authority
is
essential to the relation between a mother country and its colonies
and
necessary for the common good of all. He who considers these provinces
as states distinct from the British Empire has very slender notions
of
justice or of their interests. We are but parts of a whole; and
therefore
there must exist a power somewhere to preside, and preserve the
connection in due order. This power is lodged in the Parliament,
and we
are as much dependent on Great Britain as a perfectly free people
can
be on another.
I have looked over every statute relating to these colonies, from
their first
settlement to this time; and I find every one of them founded
on this
principle till the Stamp Act administration. All before are calculated
to
preserve or promote a mutually beneficial intercourse between
the several
constituent parts of the Empire. And though many of them imposed
duties on trade, yet those duties were always imposed with design
to
restrain the commerce of one part that was injurious to another,
and thus
to promote the general welfare. . . . Never did the British Parliament,
till
the period abovementioned, think of imposing duties in American
for the
purpose of raising a revenue. . . . This I call an innovation,
and a most
dangerous innovation.
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