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The English constitution, says Baron Montesquieu, has Liberty for
its direct object: And the constitution of this province, as our
own historian,1 informs us, is an epitome of the British
constitution; and it undoubtedly has the same end for its object:
Whatever laws therefore are made for our government, either in a
manner, or for purposes subversive of Liberty, must be subversive
of the end of the constitution, and consequently of the
constitution itself. - No free people, as the Pennsylvania Farmer
has observed, ever existed, or ever can exist without, to use a
common but strong expression, keeping the purse-strings in their
hands: But the parliament's laying taxes on the Colonies for the
express purpose of raising a revenue, takes the purse strings out
of their hands, and consequently it is "repugnant to, and
subversive of (the end of) our constitution "-Liberty. Mr. Locke
says, that the security of property is the end for which men enter
into society; and I believe Chronus will not deny it: Whatever
laws therefore are made in any society, tending to render property
insecure, must be subversive of the end for which men prefer
society to the state of nature; and consequently must be
subversive of society itself:
But the parliament in which the Colonies have no voice, taking as
much of their money as it pleases, and appropriating it to such
purposes as it pleases, even against their consent, and as they
think repugnant to their safety, renders all their property
precarious, and therefore it is subversive of the end for which
men enter into society and repugnant to every free constitution.
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