by Nathan Allen
And thus the community may be said in this respect to be always the supreme power, but not as considered under any form of government, because this power of the people can never take place, till the government be dissolved.” Locke on Government, B. II. C. 13.
This he says may be done, “from without by conquest; from within, 1st. When the legislative is altered. Which is often by the prince, but sometimes by the whole legislative. As by invading the property of the subject, and making themselves arbitrary disposers of the lives, liberties and fortunes of the people; reducing them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence. Whensoever, therefore, the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to gain themselves, or put into the hands of any other an absolute power over the lives, liberties and estates of the people, by this breach of trust, they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and by the establishment of a new legislative (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society.” Idem Chap. 9
Of Colonies in general
This subject has never, been very clearly and fully handled by any modern writer, that I have had the good fortune to meet with; and to do it justice, would require much greater abilities than I pretend to, and more leisure than I ever expect will fall to my share. Even the English writers and lawyers, have either intirely wav’d any considerations of the nature of Colonies, or very lightly touched upon it, for the people of England never discovered much concern for the prosperity of the Colonies, ‘till the revolution; and even now some of their great men and writers, by their discourses of, and conduct towards them, consider them all rather as a parcel of little insignificant conquered islands, than as a very extensive settlement on the continent. Even their law-books and very dictionaries of law, in editions so late as 1750, speak of the British plantations abroad as consisting chiefly of islands; and they are reckoned up in some of them in this order – Jamaica, Barbados,Virginia, Maryland, New-England, New-York, Carolina, Bermudas. At the head of all these Islands (for there is no distinction made) stands Jamaica, in truth a conquered island; and as such, this and all the other little West-India islands deserve to be treated, for the conduct of their inhabitants and proprietors with regard to the Northern Colonies: Divers of these colonies are larger than all those islands together; and are well settled, not as the common people of England foolishly imagine, with a compound mongrel mixture of English, Indian and Negro, but with freeborn British white subjects, whose loyalty has never yet been suspected.
There is a man now living, or but lately dead, who once was a secretary of state; during whose wonderful conduct of national affairs, without knowing whether Jamaica lay in the Mediterranean, the Baltic, or in the Moon, letters were often received, directed to the Governor of the island of New-England. Which island of New-England is a part of the continent of North-America, comprehending two provinces and two colonies; and according to the undoubted bounds of their charters, containing more land than there is in the three kingdoms. But I must confine myself to matters of more importance than detecting the geographical blunders, or refuting the errors of dead, superannuated or any otherwise stupified secretaries of state, who are now all out of place.
If I were to define the modern Colonists, I should say, they are the noble discoverers and settlers of a new world; from whence as from an endless source, wealth, and plenty, the means of power, grandeur and glory, in a degree unknown to the hungry chiefs of former ages, have been pouring into Europe for 300 years past: In return for which those Colonists have received from the several states of Europe, except from Great-Britain, only since the revolution, nothing but ill-usage, slavery and chains, as fast as the riches of their own earning, could furnish the means of forging them.
A plantation or colony, is a settlement of subjects, in a territory disjoined or remote from the mother country, and may be made by private adventurers or the public; but in both cases the Colonists are entitled to as ample rights, liberties and priviledges as the subjects of the mother country are, and in some respects to more.
Of the natural Rights of Colonists.
Those who expect to find any thing very satisfactory on this subject in particular, or with regard to the law of nature in general, in the writings of such authors as Grotius and Pufendorf, will find themselves much mistaken. It is their constant practice to establish the matter of right on the matter of fact: This the celebrated Rousseau expressly says of Grotius, and with the same reason he might have added an hundred others. “The learned researches into the laws of nature and nations are often nothing more than the history of ancient abuses, so that it is a ridiculous infatuation to be too fond of studying them”. “This was exactly the case with Grotius”. The sentiments on this subject have therefore been chiefly drawn from the purer fountains of one or two of our English writers, particularly from Mr. Locke, to whom might be added a few of other nations; for I have seen but a few of any country, and of all have seen, there are not ten worth reading. Grotius B. 3 C. 1. sec. 21. discoursing of confederates on unequal terms according to his manner says, “to the inequality in question may be referred some of those rights which are now called right of protection, right of patronage, and a right termed mundiburgium; as also that which mother cities had over their colonies among the Grecians. For as Thucydides says, those colonies enjoyed the same rights of liberty with the other cities; but they owed a reverence to the city whence they derived their origin, and were obliged to render her respect and certain expressions of honor, so long as the colony was well treated.”
Grotius de jure belli, &c. B. 1. C. 3. 21.
“Hitherto also (says he) may be referred that separation which is made when people by one consent, go to form colonies. For this is the original of a new and independent state. They are not content to be slaves, but to enjoy equal privileges and freedom says Thucydides. And King Tullius in Dion. Hali. says, we look upon it to be neither truth nor justice, that mother cities ought of necessity and by the law of nature to rule over their colonies.”
B. 2. C. 9. sec. 10.
“Colonies, says Pufendorf, are settled in different methods. For either the colony continues a part of the common-wealth it was sent out from, or else is obliged to pay a dutiful respect to the mother common-wealth, and to be in readiness to defend and vindicate its honor, and so is united to it by a sort of unequal confederacy, or lastly is erected into a separate commonwealth, and assumes the same rights with the state it is descended from.”
Pufend. B. 8 C. 11. 6.
“Different common wealths may be formed out of one by common consent, by sending out colonies in the manner usual in old Greece. For the Romans afterwards when they sent a colony abroad, continued it under the jurisdiction of the mother commonwealth, or greater country. But the colonies planted by the Greeks, and after their method, constituted particular commonwealths, which were obliged only to pay a kind of deference and dutiful submission to the mother commonwealth.”
Pufend. B. 8 C. 12. sec. 5.
From which passages tis manifest that these two great men only state facts, and the opinions of others, without giving their own upon the subject: And all that can be collected from those facts or opinions is, that Greece was more generous, and a better mother to her colonies than Rome. The conduct of Rome towards her colonies and the corruptions and oppressions tolerated in her provincial officers of all denominations, was one great cause of the downfall of that proud republic.
Dr. Strahan says, “there is a great affinity between the British colonies and those of the Spaniards and other nations, who have made settlements among the Indians in those parts: For the grants mad
e by our Kings, of tracts of lands in that country, for the planting of colonies, and making settlements therein, appear to have been made in imitation of grants made by the Kings of Spain to the proprietors of lands in the Spanish colonies, upon the very same conditions, and in consideration of the same services to be performed by the grantees. So that the government of the Spanish colonies and the rights of the proprietors of lands therein, depending chiefly on the rules of civil and feudal law, as may be seen by the learned treatise of Solorzanus, de indiarum jure, the knowledge of the said laws must be of service likewise for determining any controversy that may arise touching the duties of forfeitures of the proprietors of lands in our English colonies.
Pref. to translat. of Domat.
With submission to so great an authority as Dr. Strahan, tis humbly hoped that the British colonists do not hold their lands as well as liberties by so slippery a tenure as do the Spaniards and French. The will of the Prince is the only tenure by which they hold; and the government of the Spanish and French settlements is in every respect despotic. ‘Tis well known that the first American grants were by the Bulls of the Popes. The Roman Pontiffs had for ages usurped the most abominable power over princes: They granted away the kingdoms of the earth with as little ceremony as a man would lease a sheep-cot. Now according to Dr. Strahan’s logic, it may be inferred, that the canon law, and the Pope’s Bulls, must be of service likewise, for determining any controversy that may arise, touching the duties or forfeitures of the proprietors of lands in the British colonies. And indeed it must be owned, if we were to judge of some late proceedings by this rule, we must allow that they savor more of modern Rome and the Inquisition than of the common law of England and the constitution of Great Britain.
In order to form an idea of the natural rights of the Colonists, I presume it will be granted that they are men, the common children of the same Creator with their brethren of Great-Britain. Nature has placed all such in a state of equality and perfect freedom, to act within the bounds of the laws of nature and reason, without consulting the will or regarding the humor, the passions or whims of any other man, unless they are formed into a society or body politic. This it must be confessed is rather an abstract way of considering men than agreeable to the real and general course of nature. The truth is, as has been shown, men come into the world and into society at the same instant. But this hinders not but that the natural and original rights of each individual may be illustrated and explained in this way better than in any other. We see here by the way a probability, that this abstract consideration of men, which has its use in reasoning on the principles of government, has insensibly led some of the greatest men to imagine, some real general state of nature, agreeable to this abstract conception, antecedent to and independent of society. This is certainly not the case in general, for most men become member of society from their birth, tho’ seperate independent states are really in the condition of perfect freedom and equality with regard to each other; and so are any number of individuals who separate themselves from a society of which they have formerly been members, for ill treatment, or other good cause, with express design to found another. If in such case, there is a real interval, between the separation and the new conjunction, during such interval, the individuals are as much detached, and under the law of nature only, as would be two men who should chance to meet on a desolate island.
The Colonists are by the law of nature free born, as indeed all men are, white or black. No better reasons can be given, for enslaving those of any color than such as baron Montesquieu has humorously given, as the foundation of that cruel slavery exercised over the poor Ethiopians; which threatens one day to reduce both Europe and America to the ignorance and barbarity of the darkest ages. Does it follow that tis right to enslave a man because he is black? Will short curl’d hair like wool, instead of christian hair, as tis called by those, whose hearts are as hard as the nether millstone, help the argument? Can any logical inference in favour of slavery, be drawn from a flat nose, a long or a short face. Nothing better can be said in favor of a trade, that is the most shocking violation of the law of nature, has a direct tendency to diminish the idea of the inestimable value of liberty, and makes every dealer in it a tyrant from the director of an African company to the petty chapman in needles and pins on the unhappy coast. It is a clear truth, that those who every day barter away other mens liberty will soon care little for their own. To this cause must be imputed that ferocity, cruelty and brutal barbarity that has long marked, the general character of the sugar-islanders. They can in general form no idea of government but that which in person, or by an overseer, the joint and several proper representative of a Creole, and of the D—l, is exercised over ten thousands of their fellow men, born with the same right to freedom, and the sweet enjoyments of liberty and life, as their unrelenting task masters, the overseers and planters.
Is it to be wondered at, if, when people of the stamp of a Creolian planter get into power, they will not stick for a little present gain, at making their own posterity, white as well as black, worse slaves if possible than those already mentioned.
There is nothing more evident, says Mr. Locke, than “that creatures of the same species and rank
promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one among another, without subordination and subjection, unless the master of them all should by any manifest declaration of his will set one above another, and confer on him by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty.” “The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.” This is the liberty of independent states; this is the liberty of every man out of society, and who has a mind to live so; which liberty is only abridged in certain instances, not lost to those who are born in or voluntarily enter into society; this gift of God cannot be annihilated.
The Colonists being men, have a right to be considered as equally entitled to all the rights of nature with the Europeans, and they are not to be restrained, in the exercise of any of these rights, but for the evident good of the whole community.
By being or becoming members of society, they have not renounced their natural liberty in any greater degree than other good citizens, and if tis taken from them without their consent, they are so far enslaved.
They have an undoubted right to expect, that their best good will ever be consulted by their rulers, supreme and subordinate, without any partial views confined to the particular interest of one island or another. Neither the riches of Jamaica, nor the luxury of a metropolis, should ever have weight enough to break the balance of truth and justice. Truth and faith belong to men as men, from men, and if they are disappointed in their just expectations of them in one society, they will at least wish for them in another. If the love of truth and justice, the only spring of sound policy in any state, is not strong enough to prevent certain causes from taking place, the arts of fraud and force will not prevent the most fatal effects.
In the long run, those who fall on arbitrary measures, will meet with their deserved fate. The law of nature, was not of man’s making, nor is it in his power to mend it, or alter its course. He can only perform and keep, or disobey and break it. The last is never done with impunity, even in this life, if it is any punishment for a man to feel himself depraved; to find himself degraded by his own folly and wickedness from the rank of a virtuous and good man, to that of a brute; or to be transformed from the friend, perhaps father of his country, to a devouring Lion or Tyger.
The unhappy revolutions which for ages have distressed the human race, have been all owing to the want of a little wisdom common sense and integrity in the administration of those, whom by their stations, God had in kindness to the world, rendered able to do a great deal, for the benefit of mankind with the exertion of a small portion of private and public vertue.
Of the Political and Civil Rights of the British Colonists
Here indeed opens to view a large field; but I must study brevity—Few people have extended their enquiries after the foundation of any of their rights, beyond a charter from the crown. There are others who think when they have got back to old Magna Charta, that they are at the beginning of all things. They imagine themselves on the borders of Chaos (and so indeed in some respects they are) and see creation rising out of the unformed mass, or from nothing. Hence, say they, spring all the rights of men and of citizens. . . . But liberty was better understood, and more fully enjoyed by our ancestors, before the coming in of the first Norman Tyrants than ever after, ‘till it was found necessary, for the salvation of the kingdom, to combat the arbitrary and wicked proceedings of the Stuarts.
