, that I may not
be able to attend on the day that may be fixed by this House for the
consideration of America, I must now, though somewhat unseasonably,
leaving the expediency of the Stamp Act to some other time, speak to a
point of infinite moment--I mean the right. On a question that may
mortally wound the freedom of three millions of virtuous and brave
subjects beyond the Atlantic Ocean, I cannot be silent. America being
neither really nor virtually represented in Westminster, cannot be held
legally, or constitutionally, or reasonably subject to obedience to any
money bill of this kingdom. The colonies are, equally with yourselves,
entitled to all the natural rights of mankind, and the peculiar
privileges of Englishmen; equally bound by the laws, and equally
participating in the constitution of this free country. The Americans
are the sons, not the bastards, of England. As subjects, they are
entitled to the common right of representation, and cannot be bound to
pay taxes without their consent....

"The Commons of America, represented in their several Assemblies, have
ever been in possession of the exercise of this their constitutional
right, of giving and granting their own money. They would have been
slaves if they had not enjoyed it....

"If this House suffers the Stamp Act to continue in force, France will
gain more by your colonies than she ever could have done if her arms in
the last war had been victorious.

"I never shall own the justice of taxing America internally until she
enjoys the right of representation. In every other point of legislation
the authority of Parliament is like the north star, fixed for the
reciprocal benefit of the parent country and her colonies. The British
Parliament, as the supreme gathering and legislative power, has always
bound them by her laws, by her regulations of their trade and
manufactures, and even in the more absolute interdiction of both. The
power of Parliament, like the circulation from the human heart, active,
vigorous, and perfect in the smallest fibre of the arterial system, may
be known in the colonies by the prohibition of their carrying a hat to
market over the line of one province into another; or by breaking down
the loom in the most distant corner of the British empire in America;
and if this power were denied, I would not permit them to manufacture a
lock of wool, or form a horse-shoe or hob-nail. But I repeat the House
has no right to lay an internal tax u