With a general acknowledgment of the supremacy of the British crown,
there was, from the first, a repugnance to an entire submission to the
control of British legislation. The Colonies stood upon their charters,
which, as they contended, exempted them from the ordinary power of the
British Parliament, and authorized them to conduct their own concerns by
their own counsels. They utterly resisted the notion that they were to
be ruled by the mere authority of the government at home, and would not
endure even that their own charter governments should be established on
the other side of the Atlantic. It was not a controlling or protecting
board in England, but a government of their own, and existing
immediately within their limits, which could satisfy their wishes. It
was easy to foresee, what we know also to have happened, that the first
great cause of collision and jealousy would be, under the notion of
political economy then and still prevalent in Europe, an attempt on the
part of the mother country to monopolize the trade of the Colonies.
Whoever has looked deeply into the causes which produced our Revolution
has found, if I mistake not, the original principle far back in this
claim, on the part of England, to monopolize our trade, and a continued
effort on the part of the Colonies to resist or evade that monopoly; if,
indeed, it be not still more just and philosophical to go farther back,
and to consider it decided, that an independent government must arise
here, the moment it was ascertained that an English colony, such as
landed in this place, could sustain itself against the dangers which
surrounded it, and, with other similar establishments, overspread the
land with an English population.
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