The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol 2, page 359 by Samuel Adams
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h submission, your Excellency is mistaken in supposing that our allegiance is due to the Crown of England. Every man swears allegiance for himself, to his own King, in his natural person. Every subject is presumed by law to be sworn to the King, which is to his natural person," says Lord Coke. Rep. on Calvin's case.5 "The allegiance is due to his natural body;" and, he says, "in the reign of Edward II. the Spencers, the father and the son, to cover the treason hatched in their hearts, invented this damnable and damned opinion, that homage and oath of allegiance was more by reason of the King's Crown, that is, of his politic capacity, than by reason of the person of the King; upon which opinion, they inferred execrable and detestable consequents." The Judges of England, all but one, in the case of the union between Scotland and England, declared, that "allegiance followeth the natural person, not the politic;" and, "to prove the allegiance to be tied to the body natural of the King, and not to the body politic, the Lord Coke cited the phrases of divers statutes, mentioning our natural liege Sovereign." If, then, the homage and allegiance is not to the body politic of the King, then it is not to him as the head, or any part of that Legislative authority, which your Excellency says, "is equally extensive with the authority of the Crown throughout every part of the dominion;" and your Excellency's observations thereupon, must fail. The same Judges mention the allegiance of a subject to the Kings of England, who is out of the reach and extent of the laws of England, which is perfectly reconcileable with the principles of our ancestors, quoted before from your Excellency's history, but, upon your Excellency's principles, appears to us to be an absurdity. The Judges, speaking of a subject, say, "although his birth was out of the bounds of the kingdom of England, and out of the reach and extent of the laws of England, yet, if it were within the allegiance of the King of England, &c. Normandy, Aquitain, Gascoign, and