hey do not govern, but the power
that thus takes their money without their consent is the power that
governs; and there is nothing to prevent such a power from using the
money thus obtained to strengthen itself until it can trample upon
people's rights in every direction, and rob them of their homes and
lives as well as of their money. If the British government could tax the
Americans without their consent, it might use the money for supporting a
British army in America, and such an army might be employed in
intimidating the legislatures, in dispersing town-meetings, in
destroying newspaper-offices, or in other acts of tyranny.

[Sidenote: It was the fundamental principle of English liberty.]

The Americans in the middle of the eighteenth century well understood
that the principle of "no taxation without representation" is the
fundamental principle of free government. It was the principle for which
their forefathers had contended again and again in England, and upon
which the noble edifice of English liberty had been raised and
consolidated since the grand struggle between king and barons in the
thirteenth century. It had passed into a tradition, both in England and
in America, that in order to prevent the crown from becoming despotic,
it was necessary that it should only wield such revenues as the
representatives of the people might be pleased to grant it. In England
the body which represented the people was the House of Commons, in each
of the American colonies it was the colonial legislature; and in
dealing with the royal governors, the legislatures acted upon the same
general principles as the House of Commons in dealing with the king.

[Sidenote: Sometimes the royal governors were in the right, as to
the particular question.]

It was not until some time after 1750 that any grand assault was made
upon the principle of "no taxation without representation," but the
frequent disputes with the royal governors were such as to keep people
from losing sight of this principle, and to make them sensitive about
acts that might lead to violations of it. In the particular disputes the
governors were sometimes clearly right and the people wrong. One of the
principal objects, as we shall presently see, for which the governors
wanted money, was to maintain troops for defence against the French and
the Indians; and the legislatures were apt to be short-sighted and
unreasonably stingy about such matters. Again, the pe