176 Legal right. Theory of equality. [i76i declared that colonies had no "rights" against the parent-State, probably held that language, where it was not mere declamation or violence, upon the very footing that rights, in the English legal sense, imported equality ; and the equality of the colonies with England was of the very substance of what they denied. And as for that, if rights in the sense of equality meant the equality just named, most Englishmen and many Americans, perhaps a majority of Americans, even at the time of the Declaration of Independence, held the same view. It was never contended in America that the colonies had equal rights, in the largest sense, with England. Such a contention would have been false and silly. It was legal right, as they understood the term, rather than equal rights with England, that they were contending for. There was however a plain sense in which the Whigs (if not the loyalists) of the colonies contended for equality with the mother-State, even in matters in which they admitted their subordination. Legal right, in the sense of equality, was consistent, they said, with a certain degree of subordination. Nothing was more familiar to lawyers and jurists, not to speak of philosophers, than the idea of subordination in equality, nay, of subordination as necessary to equality in the social organism of the State. Evil besets mankind; rights are constantly being invaded ; and the breach must be made good, if equality is to be kept up. But the redress of broken rights may bring hardship upon innocent men ; and so may the ordinary exercise of legal rights, as distinguished from the redress of broken rights; still innocent men must yield, they must suffer, just so much as in reason is necessary for redress of the wrong; otherwise there could be no equality, and legal right would be only a name. All this was familiar enough ; and it was virtually applied by most of the Whigs to the relation of the colonies to Great Britain. The colonies, consistently with having legal rights against Great Britain, must yield to demands for redress of one colony for instance, against another ; they must yield to Great Britain, where it was reasonably necessary to do so to enable Great Britain to maintain her rights. All this was considered sound theory; but most Ameri- cans, who opposed the English Ministry, took their stand there. Further they would not go ; there legal right on the one side met legal right on the other ; there, at the line of meeting, the colonies stood upon equality with the mother-State. " The theory is just, and time will establish it," said the Maryland jurist Dulany, a man of ability and moderation. The real question therefore was whether the English and American doctrine of legal right, in the sense of equality in subordination, should be applied to the relation of England to the colonies. America held that it should ; England denied and refused, and separation followed. Three classes of complaint were made against Great Britain by the colonies, namely : 1. Abuse of authority ; the authority of government admitted, that
