ines. They differed fundamentally
from the schemes of both parties; but they preserved the objects of
both. They preserved the authority of Great Britain; they preserved the
equity of Great Britain. They made the Declaratory Act; they repealed
the Stamp Act. They did both _fully_: because the Declaratory Act was
_without qualification_; and the repeal of the Stamp Act _total_. This
they did in the situation I have described.

Now, Sir, what will the adversary say to both these acts? If the
principle of the Declaratory Act was not good, the principle we are
contending for this day is monstrous. If the principle of the repeal was
not good, why are we not at war for a real, substantial, effective
revenue? If both were bad, why has this ministry incurred all the
inconveniences of both and of all schemes? why have they enacted,
repealed, enforced, yielded, and now attempt to enforce again?

Sir, I think I may as well now as at any other time speak to a certain
matter of fact not wholly unrelated to the question under your
consideration. We, who would persuade you to revert to the ancient
policy of this kingdom, labor under the effect of this short current
phrase, which the court leaders have given out to all their corps, in
order to take away the credit of those who would prevent you from that
frantic war you are going to wage upon your colonies. Their cant is
this: "All the disturbances in America have been created by the repeal
of the Stamp Act." I suppress for a moment my indignation at the
falsehood, baseness, and absurdity of this most audacious assertion.
Instead of remarking on the motives and character of those who have
issued it for circulation, I will clearly lay before you the state of
America, antecedently to that repeal, after the repeal, and since the
renewal of the schemes of American taxation.

It is said, that the disturbances, if there were any before the repeal,
were slight, and without difficulty or inconvenience might have been
suppressed. For an answer to this assertion I will send you to the great
author and patron of the Stamp Act, who, certainly meaning well to the
authority of this country, and fully apprised of the state of that,
made, before a repeal was so much as agitated in this House, the motion
which is on your journals, and which, to save the clerk the trouble of
turning to it, I will now read to you. It was for an amendment to the
address of the 17th of December, 1765.

"To express our