An Oration Delivered Before the Governor and Council In Boston,
December 20, 1765.
It is with great grief that I appear before your Excellency
(Governor Hutchinson) and Honours (of the City Council) on this
occasion. A wicked and unfeeling minister (Earl Grenville) has
caused a people, the most loyal and affectionate that ever king was
blest with, to groan under the most insupportable oppression.
But I think, Sir, that he now stands upon the brink of inevitable
destruction; and trust that soon, very soon, he will feel the full
weight of his injured sovereign's righteous indignation. I have no
doubt, Sir, but that the loyal and dutiful representations of nine
provinces, the cries and supplications of a distressed people, the
united voice of all his Majesty's most loyal and affectionate
British-American subjects, will obtain all that ample redress which
they have a right to expect; and that erelong they will see their
cruel and insidious enemies, both at home and abroad, put to shame
and confusion.
My brother Adams has entered so largely into the validity of the
act, that I shall not enlarge on that head. Indeed, what has been
observed is sufficient to convince the most illiterate savage that
the Parliament of England had no regard to the very first principles
of their own liberties.
Only the preamble of that oppressive act is enough to rouse the
blood of every generous Briton.--"We your Majesty's subjects, the
commons of Great Britain, etc., do give and grant"--What? Their own
property? No! The treasure, the heart's blood of all your Majesty's
dutiful and affectionate British-American subjects.
But the time is far spent. I will not tire your patience. It was
once a fundamental maxim that every subject had the same right to
his life, liberty, property, and the law that the King had to his
crown; and 'tis yet, I venture to say, as much as a crown is worth,
to deny the subject his law, which is his birthright. 'Tis a first
principle "that Majesty should not only shine in arms, but be armed
with the laws." The administration of justice is necessary to the
very existence of governments. Nothing can warrant the stopping the
course of justice but the impossibility of holding courts, by reason
of war, invasion, rebellion, or insurrection. This was law at a time
when the whole island of Great Britain was divided into an infinite
number of petty baronies and principalities; as Germany is, at this
day.
Insurrections then, and even invasions, put the whole nation into
such confusion that justice could not have her equal course;
especially as the kings in ancient times frequently sat as judges.
But war has now become so much of a science, and gives so little
disturbance to a nation engaged, that no war, foreign or domestic,
is a sufficient reason for shutting up the courts. But if it were,
we are not in such a state, but far otherwise, the whole people
being willing and demanding the full administration of justice. The
shutting up of the courts is an abdication, a total dissolution of
government. Whoever takes from the king his executive power, takes
from the king his kingship. "The laws which forbid a man to pursue
his right one way, ought to be understood with this equitable
restriction, that one finds judges to whom he may apply."
I can't but observe that cruel and unheard-of neglect of that enemy
to his king and country, the author of this Act, that, when all
business, the very life and being of a commercial state, was to be
carried on by the use of stamps, that wicked and execrable minister
never paid the least regard to the miseries of this extensive
continent, but suffered the time for the taking place of the Act to
elapse months before a single stamp was received. Though this was a
high piece of infidelity to the interest of his royal master, yet it
makes it evident that it could never be intended, that if stamps
were not to be had, it should put a stop to all justice, which is,
ipse facto, a dissolution of society.
It is a strange kind of law which we hear advanced nowadays, that
because one unpopular Act can't be carried into execution, that
therefore there shall be an end of all law. We are not the first
people who have risen to prevent the execution of a law; the very
people of England themselves rose in opposition to the famous
Jew-bill, and got that immediately repealed. And lawyers know that
there are limits, beyond which, if parliaments go, their acts bind
not.
The king is always presumed to be present in his courts, holding out
the law to his subjects; and when he shuts his courts, he unkings
himself in the most essential point. Magna Charter and the other
statutes are full, "that they will not defer, delay, nor deny any
man justice"; "that it shall not be commanded by the Great Seal, or
in any other way, to disturb or delay common right." The judges of
England are "not to counsel, or assent to anything which may turn to
the damage or disherison of the crown." They are sworn not to deny
to any man common right, by the king's letters, nor none other
man's, nor for none other cause. Is not the dissolution of society a
disherison of the crown? The "justices are commanded that they shall
do even law and execution of right to all our subjects, rich and
poor, without having regard to any person, without letting to do
right for any letters or commandment which may come to them, or by
any other cause."
