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But the privileges of an American scorn the limits of place; they are part of himself, and cannot be lost by departure from his country; they float in the air, or glide under the ocean:

“Doris amara suam non intermisceat undam.”

A planter, wherever he settles, is not only a freeman, but a legislator: “ubi imperator, ibi Roma.” “As the English colonists are not represented in the British parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several legislatures, in all cases of taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of the sovereign, in such manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed. We cheerfully consent to the operation of such acts of the British parliament, as are, bona fide, restrained to the regulation of our external commerce–excluding every idea of taxation, internal or external, for raising a revenue on the subjects of America, without their consent.”

Their reason for this claim is, “that the foundation of English liberty, and of all government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council.”

“They inherit,” they say, “from their ancestors, the right which their ancestors possessed, of enjoying all the privileges of Englishmen.” That they inherit the right of their ancestors is allowed; but they can inherit no more. Their ancestors left a country, where the representatives of the people were elected by men particularly qualified, and where those who wanted qualifications, or who did not use them, were bound by the decisions of men, whom they had not deputed.

The colonists are the descendants of men, who either had no vote in elections, or who voluntarily resigned them for something, in their opinion, of more estimation; they have, therefore, exactly what their ancestors left them, not a vote in making laws, or in constituting legislators, but the happiness of being protected by law, and the duty of obeying it.

What their ancestors did not carry with them, neither they nor their descendants have since acquired. They have not, by abandoning their part in one legislature, obtained the power of constituting another, exclusive and independent, any more than the multitudes, who are now debarred from voting, have a right to erect a separate parliament for themselves.

Men are wrong for want of sense, but they are wrong by halves for want of spirit. Since the Americans have discovered that they can make a parliament, whence comes it that they do not think themselves equally empowered to make a king? If they are subjects, whose government is constituted by a charter, they can form no body of independent legislature. If their rights are inherent and underived, they may, by their own suffrages, encircle, with a diadem, the brows of Mr. Cushing.

It is further declared, by the congress of Philadelphia, “that his majesty’s colonies are entitled to all the privileges and immunities granted and confirmed to them by royal charters, or secured to them by their several codes of provincial laws.”

The first clause of this resolution is easily understood, and will be readily admitted. To all the privileges which a charter can convey, they are, by a royal charter, evidently entitled. The second clause is of greater difficulty; for how can a provincial law secure privileges or immunities to a province? Provincial laws may grant, to certain individuals of the province, the enjoyment of gainful, or an immunity from onerous offices; they may operate upon the people to whom they relate; but no province can confer provincial privileges on itself. They may have a right to all which the king has given them; but it is a conceit of the other hemisphere, that men have a right to all which they have given to themselves.

A corporation is considered, in law, as an individual, and can no more extend its own immunities, than a man can, by his own choice, assume dignities or titles.