side of the Atlantic; whereas, your argument is, that because it is bad here, it should be rendered worse there; and because its image is somewhat impaired in Great Britain, that there should not be a shadow of it left in America.

Again: You tell the Americans that they are no great losers by not having a vote for their British Representatives; for that those who have votes seldom know or have seen the person whom they choose. This is the fault of the individuals, however, and the faults of British individuals are scarcely to be punished in the persons of Americans by a deprivation of their privileges. Neither does this happen, except where the Constitution has deviated from its original, and when therefore it ought rather to be restored to its purity than its errour propagated; I mean in the declining or decayed Boroughs. But if it is an absurd state of things that the Representative should not be known by his constituents, is it not absurd that America should be represented in Great Britain?

The principle of the Constitution in this point was so strong, that by the Common Law no man could be either an Elector or a Representative for any place, without residing on the spot; and upon the soundest reason, men, at that unrefined period, resided on then property. There was therefore not only more personal knowledge and intercourse, but a greater community of the most solid interests, and of property, above all, between men residing in the same County or Town, than between persons (though of the same Kingdom) who resided at a considerable distance from each other. Both representatives and electors were, like jurors, from the vicinage. This was the great and sound principle of our forefathers. They knew that Government was an art, practical, not theoretick. It was not an abstract subtlety that contented them, but a solid and binding principle of social connection. What that was precisely with respect to what is commonly called representation, may deserve perhaps to be a little explained.

Words that are long in common use acquire so many senses that they lose exactness. This, perhaps, is the case of the word representation. A Representative, however, we understand to be a Delegate; a person not self-authorized, but constituted by something else. I will call him Member, as less equivocal. Now what is it which constitutes the Member? I say the property of the County or Borough, not the persons; hence many persons in a County or Borough have not votes; which ought not to be, if the persons in the County or Borough were to constitute the Member. But it is the property of the County or Borough that is to do so; and, therefore, property, legally notified, never fails to have a vote—that is, to make an elector; for electors are the medium through which property is to operate. This will be still more illustrated hereafter. Freehold property constitutes County Representatives. Personal property constitutes all others. To explain this: personal property was considered by the old law as fugitive and unreal, compared with freehold property; and the quantum of it possessed by any man is difficult to ascertain. Hence the law has not fixed the quantum, nor does it require the same precise proof of its existence as it does in freehold, but has contented itself with selecting certain marks, and which are such presumptions of personal property to a degree in the possessor, that the law allows them for a proof of it. Thus, for instance, burgage tenure, birth, service, residence, paying certain rates, boiling a pot, &c.; all these prove or presume some degree of personal property, and of connection with the soil where they are found, and are admitted as proofs of it. This species of property, thus notified, constitutes Members for Boroughs, Towns, and Cities. Thus property is the universal constituent of the House of Commons. Honourary freemen, &c., I have not mentioned, being a modern device, unconnected with the Constitution.

To pursue this idea. In ancient time the Commons had not very large properties; the large properties were in the Barons, that is, in truth, the large properties made them Barons. A man became a Baron the moment he obtained a Barony. Barons were not created by the Crown at that time. It was an operation of property merely, not an act of the Executive. Thus property constituted the Baronage, and every man knows that the Baronage is only another name for the Peerage of England. A man who had a certain proportion of poperty of his own, was of course a Peer. A number of small properties, belonging to other men, combined and centred in one man, by virtue of election, made him a Commoner. One sat in right of his own property—the other sat in right of the property of others; but both sat equally by property. This accounts for some things that seem at first view irregular. For instance, the Barons, in old time, sitting by their property, taxed themselves; that is, taxed their own property. But now, sitting by the act of the Crown merely, without reference to property, the Commons, who continue to sit by property, have claimed the whole of taxation, and the Lords have ceded it to them. This shows to demonstration, that the body which is constituted by the property of any country, is the only body constitutionally qualified to tax that country; and, consequently, that the Provincial Legislatures are the only Assemblies constitutionally qualified to tax the Provinces, and not the British House of Commons, which American property has no share in constituting. This shews, that by the fundamentals of the British Government, property was the vital principle. It was that which constituted both Houses of Parliament, and for wise reasons: that the interest of the Members might as much as possible coincide with their duty; that the former might act as a centinel upon the latter, and that the very thing which gave men a vote in the Legislature, should superintend and sway the exercise of that vote. And surely, in so ordaining, they shewed a more intimate knowledge of human nature, and move salutary views, than those men who now argue that Members will do their duty as well who have no such motives of interest to prompt them to it, whatever they may have to the contrary; and that that assembly is, in all points, even to taxation itself, the fittest Legislature for America, which has not an inch of American property in the whole structure and formation of it.

Having thus cleared to demonstration, I think, the fundamental principle of our Government as to this subject, let me advert a little to the practice of the Constitution, as it would have been on your principle, and as it actually has been.

Had the Norman conqueror returned to Normandy, and make that the seat of empire, the Norman states would have been the imperial Legislature. Would he have been entitled, I ask, to tax his English subjects in his states of Normandy? You will not affirm it. Yet might he not say, "My Norman states made laws for all my subjects, when I had no subjects beyond Normandy; and why may they not continue to do so still, though my condition is altered in that respect? My Norman law has made no distinction concerning my subjects beyond Sea, (for the Prince might forget that till he had subjects beyond Sea, no mention of them could be expected.) I am too moderate to make these subjects beyond sea dependent on myself; they shall be dependent on my Norman states; and there will be this comfort in it besides, that I can do what I please with my Norman states, whereas the popular assemblies beyond Sea might be less manageable." This speech, no doubt, would be highly relished; the Norman states would be flattered; a great majority would vote for the doctrine; the minority would be called an English faction and decried; and all would be harmony and satisfaction, in Normandy. But how would it have gone in England? I will answer this question for you: He must have conquered it again, and again, and again. If he were once worsted, he would have been undone, and every pause of bloodshed would have been a renewal of war.

England, however, as I hope it always will, continued to be the seat of empire to him and to his descendants. Did any of them attempt to tax their Dominions beyond Sea in the Legislature of England? Never. The Scotch have asserted that they conquered England; the English have asserted that they conquered Scotland. Did either Nation, though contiguous, ever think of taxing the other in its domestick Legislature? No such thing was ever thought of. Henry the Fifth conquered France. Did he or his son ever attempt to tax France in the English Parliament? Or, if they had resided in France, would the states of France have been the constitutional Legislature for taxing the English subject? You will not say it. Was Wales, though conquered and contiguous, ever taxed by the English Parliament till it sent Representatives thither?