Wesley Corpus

109 I allow that the Americans were strongly exhorted by letters from England, “never to yield or lay down their arms till they had their own terms, which the Government would be constrained to give them in a short time:” But those mea sures were concerted long before this; long before either the Tea Act or the Stamp Act existed; only they were not digested into form,-that was reserved for the good Congress. Forty years ago, when my brother was in Boston, it was the general language there, “We must shake off the yoke; we never shall be a free people till we shake off the English yoke.” These, you see, were even then for “trying the question,” just as you are now; “not by charters,” but by what you call, “the general principles of liberty.” And the late Acts of Parliament were not the cause of what they have since done, but barely the occasion they laid hold on. 41. But “a late Act declares that this kingdom has power to make statutes to bind the colonies in all cases whatever ! Dreadful power indeed! I defy any one to express slavery in stronger terms.” (Page 34.) In all cases whatever ! What is there peculiar in this? Certainly, in all cases, or in none. And has not every supreme Governor this power? This the English Parliament always had, and always exercised, from the first settlement of the American colonies. But it was not explicitly declared, because it was never controverted. The dreadfulness of it was never thought of for above an hundred years; nor is it easy to discern where that dreadfulness lies. Wherein does it consist? The Parliament has power to make statutes, which bind Englishmen likewise, in all cases what ever. And what then? Why, you say, “I defy any one to express slavery in stronger terms.” I think I can “express slavery in stronger terms.” Let the world judge between us. Slavery is a state wherein neither a man’s goods, nor liberty, nor life, are at his own disposal. Such is the state of a thou sand, of ten thousand, Negroes in the American colonies. And are their masters in the same state with them? in just the same slavery with the Negroes? Have they no more disposal of their own goods, or liberty, or lives?