this power, in that part of
his empire called Great Britain. But, by change of circumstances, other
principles than those of justice simply, have obtained an influence on
their determinations. The addition of new states to the British empire,
has produced an addition of new, and sometimes, opposite interests.
It is now, therefore, the great office of his Majesty, to resume the
exercise of his negative power, and to prevent the passage of laws by
any one legislature of the empire, which might bear injuriously on the
rights and interests of another. Yet this will not excuse the wanton
exercise of this power, which we have seen his Majesty practise on the
laws of the American legislatures. For the most trifling reasons, and
sometimes for no conceivable reason at all, his Majesty has rejected
laws of the most salutary tendency. The abolition of domestic slavery is
the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was, unhappily,
introduced in their infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of
the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations
from Africa. Yet our repeated attempts to effect this, by prohibitions,
and by imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition, have
been hitherto defeated by his Majesty's negative: thus preferring the
immediate advantages of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests
of the American States, and to the rights of human nature, deeply
wounded by this infamous practice. Nay, the single interposition of an
interested individual against a law, was scarcely ever known to fail
of success, though in the opposite scale were placed the interests of
a whole country. That this is so shameful an abuse of a power, trusted
with his Majesty for other purposes, as if, not reformed, would call for
some legal restrictions.

'With equal inattention to the necessities of his people here, has
his Majesty permitted our laws to lie neglected in England for years,
neither confirming them by his assent, nor annulling them by his
negative: so that such of them as have no suspending clause, we hold on
the most precarious of all tenures, his Majesty's will; and such of them
as suspend themselves till his Majesty's assent be obtained, we have
feared might be called into existence at some future and distant
period, when time and change of circumstances shall have rendered them
destructive to his people here. And, to render this grievance still more
oppressive, his Majesty,