of his actions when legislating for a nation which he is in the daily
habit of weighing in his private affairs. The art or science of
government are phrases in common use; but they would be void of meaning
if all that is requisite be to ascertain the strict right or power, and
then unswervingly to act upon it in all its rigor. And, therefore, while
it must be admitted that the character of the power vested in King,
Lords, and Commons assembled in Parliament is unlimited and illimitable,
and that the legal competency to enact a statute depends in no degree
whatever on the wisdom or folly, the justice or wickedness, of the
statute, the advice given to a constitutional sovereign by his advisers
must be guided by other considerations. To quote by anticipation the
language addressed to the Commons on this subject by Burke eight years
afterward, the proper policy was "to leave the Americans as they
anciently stood ... To be content to bind America by laws of trade.
Parliament had always done it. And this should be the reason for binding
their trade. Not to burden them by taxes; Parliament was not used to do
so from the beginning; and this should be the reason for not taxing.
These are the arguments of states and kingdoms."[39]

The ministry were strong enough to carry their resolutions through both
Houses. Their measure was divided into two acts, one known as the
Declaratory Act, asserting the absolute and universal authority of
Parliament; the other repealing the Stamp Act of the preceding year. And
both were passed without alteration, though the Lords divided against
them on both the second and third readings of the bill for repeal
founded on them,[40] some of them entering long protests in the journals
of the House. The right to tax was asserted, but the tax itself was
repealed. And Franklin's estimate of the feelings on the subject
entertained by his countrymen was fully verified by the reception which
the intelligence met with in the Colonies. To quote the description of