their _Magna Charta, Bill of Rights, trial by Juries_, &c. as it went
to the charters and forms of government in America.

I am persuaded, that the Gentleman to whom I address these remarks
will not, after the passing of this act, say, "That the _principles_
of administration had not been _changed_ in America, and that the
maxims of government had there been _always the same_." For here is,
in principle, a total overthrow of the whole; and not a subversion
only, but an annihilation of the foundation of liberty and absolute
dominion established in its stead.

The Abbe likewise states the case exceedingly wrong and injuriously,
when he says, "that that _the whole_ question was reduced to the
knowing whether the mother country had, or had not, a right to lay,
directly or indirectly, a _slight_ tax upon the colonies." This was
_not the whole_ of the question; neither was the _quantity_ of the tax
the object, either to the Ministry, or to the Americans. It was the
principle, of which the tax made but a part, and the quantity still
less, that formed the ground on which America opposed.

The tax on tea, which is the tax here alluded to, was neither more or
less than an experiment to establish the practice of a declaratory law
upon; modelled into the more fashionable phrase _of the universal
supremacy of Parliament_. For until this time the declaratory law had
lain dormant, and the framers of it had contented themselves with
barely declaring an opinion.

Therefore the _whole_ question with America, in the opening of the
dispute, was, Shall we be bound in all cases whatsoever by the British
Parliament, or shall we not? For submission to the tea or tax act,