1775-so] New England charters. Pennsylvania charter. 199 the result was a declaration, under the King's privy seal, that "taxes ought not to be levied upon ... a colony but by the consent of the General Assembly." And this declaration had been directly acted upon under Governor Culpeper in Virginia, measures intended to raise revenue for protecting the colony being "passed into law by the King's most excellent Majesty by and with the consent of the General Assembly" of the colony. "If the Virginians had been subjects of the realm, this could not have been done without a direct violation of Magna Carta, which provides that no English subject shall be taxed without the consent of Parliament." As for the admitted jurisdiction of Parliament over the regulation of commerce, which Hamilton's reasoning seemed to cover, the answer was, "It is enough, we have consented to it." By the year 1780 Galloway, who had cut loose all connexion with America and gone to England, agreed in effect with Hamilton. In 1775, while there was still hope for his famous Plan of Union, he could " discover no exemption or discharge from the authority of Parliament in any of " the charters, save that of Pennsylvania ; and there it was only partial, while other parts of the same charter were to the contrary. But disappointed hopes and five years of revolution had their effect; he could now condemn the New England charters as inculcating independence, so far as Parliament was concerned. By the Plymouth charter of 1628 " every prerogative of the Crown, and all the rights of the aristocratic part of the British Constitution, were sacrificed to the republican views of the grantees." There was no control over " this complete legislative authority," except that nothing contrary to the laws of the realm should be done. The people of Massachusetts had been " educated under the unlimited and [therefore] unconstitutional powers of their former and present charters." So of the other charters ; they contained "the same unlimited and unconstitutional powers." All supervision over their legislative, executive, and federative powers had been given up; the colonies made what laws they pleased, and executed them as they pleased ; they made peace and war with whom they pleased. By their several charters they were constituted " so many complete, independent societies " within the State. The exceptional clause in the charter of Pennsylvania was to the effect that the King grants that he will levy no taxes on the inhabitants of the province unless with the consent of the General Assembly or by Act of Parliament. Franklin, asked on examination by the House of Commons how the assertion could be made that laying taxes on his people by the Stamp Act infringed their rights, in the face of that clause, explained the provision thus. By the same charter, and other- wise, his people were entitled to all the privileges and liberties of Englishmen ; one of those privileges was, that they were not to be taxed but by their common consent. They had therefore relied upon it that CH. VJ.
