all things at home,
immediately, and by no other instrument than the executive power; the
other, and I think her nobler capacity, is what I call her _imperial
character_, in which, as from the throne of heaven, she superintends all
the several inferior Legislatures, and guides and controls them all,
without annihilating any. As all these Provincial Legislatures are only
co-ordinate with each other, they ought all to be subordinate to her,
else they can neither preserve mutual peace, nor hope for mutual
justice, nor effectually afford mutual assistance. It is necessary to
coerce the negligent, to restrain the violent, and to aid the weak and
deficient, by the overruling plenitude of its power. She is never to
intrude into the place of the others while they are equal to the common
ends of their institution. But in order to enable Parliament to answer
all these ends of provident and beneficent superintendence, her powers
must be boundless. The gentlemen who think the powers of Parliament
limited, may please themselves to talk of requisitions. But suppose the
requisitions are not obeyed? What! Shall there be no reserved power in
the empire to supply a deficiency which may weaken, divide, and
dissipate the whole? We are engaged in war; the Secretary of State calls
upon the colonies to contribute; some would do it; I think most would
cheerfully furnish whatever is demanded. One or two, suppose, hang back,
and, easing themselves, let the stress of the draft be on the
others--surely it is proper that some authority might legally say, 'Tax
yourselves for the common supply, or Parliament will do it for you.'
This backwardness was, as I am told, actually the case of Pennsylvania,
for some short time towards the beginning of the last war, owing to some
internal dissensions in the colony. But whether the act were so, or
otherwise, the case is equally to be provided for by a competent
sovereign power. But then this ought to be no ordinary power, nor ever
used in the first instance. This is what I meant when I have said at
various times that I consider the power of taxing in Parliament as an
instrument of empire, and not as a means of supply."[286]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 283: History of the United States, Vol. V., Chap, xx., pp.
366, 367.]

[Footnote 284: Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. III.,
Chap. i, pp. 65, 66.]

[Footnote 285: Colonial History, Vol. I., pp. 327, 328.]

[Footnote 286: Speech on American taxat