Wesley Corpus

38. We come now to more matter entirely new : “No country can lawfully surrender their liberty, by giving up the power of legislating for themselves, to any extraneous jurisdiction; such a cession, being inconsistent with the unalienable rights of human nature, would either not bind at all, or bind only the individuals that made it.” (Page 25.) This is a home thrust. If this be so, all the English claim either to Ireland, Scotland, or America, falls at once. But can we admit this without any proof? Ought assertions to pass for arguments? If they will, here are more of the same kind: “No one generation can give up this for another.” That is, the English settlers in America could not “give up their power of legislating for themselves.” True, they could not give up what they never had. But they never had, either before or after they left England, any such power of making laws for themselves as exempted them from the King and Parliament; they never pretended to any such power till now; they never advanced any such claim; nay, when this was laid to their charge, they vehemently denied it, as an absolute slander. But you go further still: “When this power” (of independency) “is lost, the people have always a right to resume it.” Comfortable doctrine indeed! perfectly well calculated for the support of civil government! 39. To the same good end, you observe: “Without an equal representation of all that are governed, government becomes complete tyranny.” (Page 27.) Now, you had told us before, “There is not such an equal representation in England:” It follows, “The English Government is complete tyranny!” We have, however, the comfort to know that it never was any better since the Parliament subsisted. For who can say that there ever was an equal representation since the conquest?