The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol 2, page 369 by Samuel Adams
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cts, which, they judged, would operate to the injury even of individuals.
Your Excellency has not thought proper, to attempt to confute the reasoning of a learned writer on the laws of nature and nations, quoted by us, on this occasion, to shew that the authority of the Legislature does not extend so far as the fundamentals of the constitution. We are unhappy in not having your remarks upon the reasoning of that great man; and, until it is confuted, we shall remain of the opinion, that the fundamentals of the constitution being excepted from the commission of the Legislators, none of the acts or doings of the General Assembly, however deliberate and solemn, could avail to change them, if the people have not, in very express terms, given them the power to do it; and, that much less ought their acts and doings, however numerous, which barely refer to acts of Parliament made expressly to relate to us, to be taken as an acknowledgment, that we are subject to the supreme authority of Parliament.
We shall sum up our own sentiments in the words of that learned writer, Mr. Hooker, in his Ecclesiastical Policy, as quoted by Mr. Locke. "The lawful power of making laws to command whole political societies of men, belonging so properly to the same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate of what kind soever, to exercise the same of himself, and not from express commission, immediately and personally received from God, is no better than mere tyranny. Laws, therefore, they are not, which public approbation hath not made so; for human laws, of what kind soever, are available by consent." "Since men, naturally, have no full and perfect power to command whole politic multitudes of men, therefore, utterly without our consent, we could in such sort, be at no man's commandment living. And to be commanded, we do not consent, when that society. whereof we be a party, hath at any time before consented." We think your Excellency has not proved, either that the colony is a part of the politic society of England, o