Jefferson says yes, Hutchison says no.
Hutchson's replies are in italics.
- Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.
- A Loyalist’s Rebuttal to the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
- I remember no laws which any Colony has been restrained from passing, so as to cause any complaint of grievance, except those for issuing a fraudulent paper currency, and making it a legal tender;4 but this is a restraint which for many years past has been laid on Assemblies by an act of Parliament, since which such laws cannot have been offered to the King for his allowance [approval]. I therefore believe this to be a general charge [grievance], without any particulars to support it; fit enough to be placed at the head of a list of imaginary grievances
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
- Some laws may have their full effect before the King’s pleasure can be known. Some may injuriously affect the property of the subject; and some may be prejudicial to the prerogative of the Crown, and to the trade, manufactures and shipping of the kingdom. Governors have been instructed, long before the present or the last reign, not to consent to such laws unless with a clause suspending their operations until the pleasure [decision] of the King shall be known. I am sure your Lordship will think that nothing is more reasonable. . . . I dare say, my Lord, that if there has ever been an instance of any laws lying longer than necessary before the King’s pleasure has been signified, it has been owing to the inattention in some of the servants of the Crown, and that upon proper application any grievance would have been immediately redressed.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.
- We shall find, my Lord, that Massachusetts Bay is more concerned in this Declaration than any other Colony. This article respects [deals with] that Colony alone. . . No Governor ever refused to consent to a law for making a new town . . . if provision was made that the inhabitants of the new town should continue to join with the old, or with any other town contiguous or near to it, in the choice of Representatives; so that there never was the least intention to deprive a single inhabitant of the right of being represented . . . This is a willful misrepresentation made for the sake of the brutal insult at the close of the article.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
- To the same Colony this article also has respect. Your Lordship must remember the riotous, violent opposition to Government in the Town of Boston, which alarmed the whole Kingdom in the year 1768.5 Four Regiments of the King’s forces were ordered to that Town to be aiding to the Civil Magistrate in restoring and preserving peace and order. The House of Representatives, which was then sitting in the Town, remonstrated to [petitioned] the Governor against posting Troops there as being an invasion of their rights. He thought proper to adjourn them to Cambridge, where the House had frequently sat at their own desire when they had been alarmed with fear of smallpox in Boston; the place therefore was not unusual. The public rooms of the College [Harvard] were convenient for the Assembly to sit in, and the private houses of the Inhabitants for the Members to lodge in; it therefore was not uncomfortable. It was within four miles of the Town of Boston, and less distant than any other Town fit for the purpose. . . . . . . The [Massachusetts] House of Representatives raised the most frivolous objections against the authority of the Governor to remove the Assembly from Boston, but proceeded nevertheless to the business of the Session as they used to do. In the next Session, without any new cause, the Assembly refused to do any business unless removed [moved back] to Boston. . . . They fatigued the Governor by adjourning from day to day, and refusing to do business one Session after another, while he gave his constant attendance to no purpose; and this they make the King’s fatiguing them to compel them to comply with his measures. A brief narrative of this unimportant dispute between an American Governor and his Assembly needs an apology [explanation] to your Lordship. How ridiculous then do those men make themselves, who offer it to the world as a ground to justify rebellion?
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.
- Contention between Governors and their Assemblies have caused dissolutions of such Assemblies, I suppose, in all the Colonies, in former as well as later times. I recollect but one instance of the dissolution of an Assembly by special order from the King, and that was in Massachusetts Bay. In 1768, the House of Representatives passed a vote or resolve in prosecution of the plan of Independence, incompatible with the subordination of the Colonies to the supreme authority of the Empire, and directed their Speaker to send a copy of it in circular letters to the Assemblies of the other Colonies,6 inviting them to avow the principles of the resolve and to join in supporting them. No Government can long subsist which admits of combinations of the subordinate powers against the supreme. This proceeding was therefore, justly deemed highly unwarrantable, and indeed it was the beginning of that unlawful confederacy which has gone on until it has caused at least temporary Revolt of all the Colonies which joined in it. . . .
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without and convulsions within.
- This . . . must relate to the same Colony only; for no other ever presumed, until the year 1774, when the general dissolution of the established government in all the Colonies was taking place, to convene an Assembly without the Governor, by the mere act of the People. . . . The town [Boston], without delay, chose their former members . . . and they sent circular letters to all the other towns in the Province [colony] inviting them to choose Committees also; and all these Committees met in what they called a Convention, and chose the Speaker of the last house their Chairman. Here was a House of Representatives in everything but name . . . This vacation of three months was the long time the people waited before they exercised their unalienable powers; the Invasions from without were the arrival or expectation of three or four regiments sent by the King to aid the Civil Magistrate in preserving the peace; and the Convulsions within were the tumults, riots and acts of violence which this Convention was called, not to suppress but to encourage.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
- I cannot conceive that the subjects in the Colonies would have had any cause of complaint if there never had been any encouragement given to foreigners to settle among them; and it was an act of mere favor to the Colonies which admitted foreigners to a claim of naturalization after a residence of seven years. How has the King obstructed the operation of this act? In no other way than by refusing his assent to colony acts for further encouragement. Nothing can be more regular and constitutional. Shall any other than the supreme authority of the Empire judge upon what terms foreigners may be admitted to the privilege of natural born subjects? Parliament alone may pass acts for this purpose. . . .
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
- I was, My Lord, somewhat at a loss, upon first reading this article, to what transaction or to what Colony it could refer. I soon found, that the Colony must be North Carolina, and that the transaction referred to is a reproach upon the Colony which the [Continental] Congress have most wickedly perverted to cast reproach upon the King. . . . In North Carolina, the law for [debtor] attachments8 was tacked to, or was part of, the same law which established their Courts of Justice. The Governor, as he ought to have done if he had received no instruction, refused a bill for reviving the law, because the provision for attachments was part of it. The Assembly refused to pass the bill without the provision, and in this way determined they would have no Courts of Justice, . . .
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
- . . . The Judges in America, except the Charter Colonies, have always been dependent on the Crown for their continuance in office; and in some Colonies, the salaries of the Chief Justice and sometimes the other Judges have been paid by the Crown, and the Colonies have considered it as an act of favor shown them. There has been a change in the constitution of England in respect of the tenure of the office of the Judges. How does this give a claim to America? It will be said the reason in both cases is the same. This will not be allowed, and until the King shall judge it so, there can be no room for exception to his retaining his prerogative. . . .
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
- I know of no new offices erected in America in the present reign, except those of the Commissioners of the Customs and their dependents.9 Five Commissioners were appointed, and four Surveyors General dismissed; perhaps fifteen to twenty clerks and under officers were necessary for this board more than the Surveyors had occasion for before . . . Thirty or forty additional officers in the whole Continent, are the Swarms which eat out the substance of the boasted number of three millions of people. . . [N]one but illicit traders ever had any reason to complain of grievances; and they of no other than of being better watched than they had ever been before. At this time the authority of Parliament to pass Acts for regulating commerce was acknowledged, but every measure for carrying such Acts into execution was pronounced an injury, and usurpation, and all the effects prevented.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.
- This is too nugatory [trivial/insubstantial] to deserve any remark. He has kept no armies among them without the consent of the Supreme Legislature [Parliament]. It is begging the question to suppose that this authority was not sufficient without the aid of their own Legislatures.
He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.
- When the Subordinate Civil Powers of the Empire became Aiders of the people in acts of Rebellion, the King, as well he might, has employed the Military Power to reduce those rebellious Civil Powers to their constitutional subjection to the Supreme Civil Power. In no other sense has he ever affected to render the Military independent of, and superior to, the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
- This is a strange way of defining the part which the Kings of England take in conjunction with the Lords and Commons in passing Acts of Parliament. . . And is it not the grossest prevarication to say this jurisdiction is unacknowledged by their laws, when all Acts of Parliament which respect [deal with] them have at all times been their rule of law in all their judicial proceedings? . . .
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;
- When troops were employed in America in the last reign to protect the Colonies against the French invasion [French and Indian War], it was necessary to provide against mutiny and desertion and to secure proper quarters [housing]. Temporary Acts of Parliament were passed for that purpose and submitted to in the Colonies. Upon the peace, raised ideas took place in the Colonies of their own importance and caused a reluctance against Parliamentary authority and an opposition to the Acts for quartering troops, not because the provision made was in itself unjust or unequal, but because they were Acts of a Parliament whose authority was denied. The provision was as similar to that in England as the state of the Colonies would admit.
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;
- . . . To try men before a biased and predetermined Jury would be a mock trial. To prevent this, the Act of Parliament [that the colonies] complained of was passed.11 Surely, if in any case Parliament may interpose and alter the general rule of law, it may in this. America has not been distinguished from other parts of the Empire. Indeed, the removal of trials for the sake of unprejudiced disinterested Juries is altogether consistent with the spirit of our laws, and the practice of courts in changing the venue from one county to another.
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;
- Certainly, my Lord, this could not be a cause of Revolt. The Colonies had revolted from the Supreme Authority to which by their constitutions they were subject before the Act passed. A Congress had assumed an authority over the whole, and had rebelliously prohibited all commerce with the rest of the Empire. This act, therefore, will be considered by the candid world as a proof of the reluctance in government against what is dernier [last] resort in every state, and as a milder measure to bring the Colonies to a re-union with the rest of the Empire.
For imposing taxes on us without our consent;
- How often has your Lordship heard it said that the Americans are willing to submit to the authority of Parliament in all cases except that of taxes? Here we have a declaration made to the world of the causes which have impelled separation. . . That of taxes seems to have been in danger of being forgot. It comes in late [in the Declaration] and in as slight a manner as is possible. And I know, my Lord, that these men, in the early days of their opposition to Parliament, have acknowledged that they pitched upon this subject of taxes because it was most alarming to the people, every man perceiving immediately that he is personally affected by it . . .
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;
- . . . I recollect no cases in which trials by Juries are taken away in America by Acts of Parliament, except such as are tried by the Courts of Admiralty,12 and these are either for breaches of the Acts of trade or trespasses upon the King’s woods. I take no notice of the Stamp Act, because it was repealed soon after it was designed to take place. I am sorry, my Lord, that I am obliged to say there could not be impartial trials by Juries in either of these cases. . . .
For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses;
- I know of no Act, but that of the 12th of the present reign, to prevent the setting fire to his Majesty’s Ships, Docks, Arsenals, &c. to which this article can refer — But are these pretended [real] offenses? By an Act of Parliament made in the 35th year of King Henry the Eighth, all treasons committed in any parts [throughout] the realm may be tried in any county of England. . . An opinion prevailed in America that this Act was occasioned by the burning of the King’s Schooner Gaspee by people in the Colony of Rhode Island;13 but the Act had passed before that fact was committed, though it was not generally known in America until some months after. . . .
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;
- It would be impertinent to make any remarks upon the general fitness of the Quebec Act15 for the purposes for which it passed, seeing your Lordship has so lately fully considered and given your voice to it. But what, my Lord, have the American Colonies to do with it? . . . . . . What claim could any of the Colonies have to a territory beyond their own limits? No other security against an improper settlement of this country could have been made equally judicious and unexceptionable. This exception is therefore utterly impertinent . . .
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
- These two articles are so much of the same nature that I consider them together. There has been no Colony Charter altered except that of Massachusetts Bay, and that in no respect that I recollect except that the appointment and power of the Council are made to conform to that of the Council of the other Royal Governments, and the laws which relate to grand and petit juries are made to conform to the general laws of the Realm. The only instance of the suspension of any legislative power is that of the Province of New York for refusing to comply with an Act of Parliament for quartering the King’s troops posted there for its protection and defense against the French and Indian enemies. . . . The common people who, relying upon the authority of others, confound cases together which are so essentially different, may be excused; but what excuse, my Lord, can be made for those men, in England as well as in America, who, by such fallacies, have misguided the people and provoked them to rebellion?
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.
- These, my Lord, would be weighty charges from a loyal and dutiful people against an unprovoked Sovereign. They are more than the people of England pretended to bring against King James the Second in order to justify the Revolution.16 Never was there an instance of more consummate effrontery. The Acts of a justly incensed Sovereign for suppressing a most unnatural, unprovoked Rebellion are here assigned as the causes of this Rebellion. It is immaterial whether they are true or false. They are all short of the penalty of the laws which had been violated. Before the date of any one of them, the Colonists had as effectually renounced their allegiance by their deeds as they have since done by their words. They had displaced the civil and military officers appointed by the King’s authority and set up others in their stead. They had new modeled their civil governments and appointed a general government, independent of the King, over the whole. They had taken up arms, and made a public declaration of their resolution to defend themselves against the forces employed to support his legal authority over them. . . .
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
What these oppressions were your Lordship has seen, for we may fairly conclude that everything appears in this Declaration which can give color to this horrid Rebellion, so that these men can never complain of being condemned without a full hearing. But does your Lordship recollect any petitions in the several stages of these pretended oppressions?
Has there ever been a petition to the King
——To give his Assent to these wholesome and necessary Laws to which he had refused it?
——To allow his Governors to pass laws without a suspending clause, or without the people’s relinquishing the right of Representation?
——To withdraw his instructions for calling legislative bodies at unusual, uncomfortable and distant places?
——To allow Assemblies, which had been dissolved by his order, to meet again?
——To pass laws to encourage the migration of foreigners?
——To consent to the establishment of judiciary Powers?
——To suffer [permit] Judges to be independent for the continuance of their offices and salaries?
——To vacate or disannul new erected offices?
——To withdraw his troops in times of peace, until it appeared that the reason for it was to give a free course to Rebellion?
And yet these, my Lord, are all the oppressions pretended to have been received from the King, except those in combination with the two Houses of Parliament; and they are all either grossly misrepresented or so trivial and insignificant as to have been of no general notoriety in the time of them, or mere contests between Governors and Assemblies so light and transient as to have been presently forgot. All the petitions we have heard of have been against Acts of the Supreme Legislature; and in all of them something has been inserted or something has been done previous to them with design to prevent their being received. . . .
A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Indignant resentment must seize the breast of every loyal subject. A tyrant, in modern language, means not merely an absolute and arbitrary but a cruel, merciless Sovereign. Have these men given an instance of any one Act in which the King has exceeded the just Powers of the Crown as limited by the English Constitution? Has he ever departed from known established laws and substituted his own will as the rule of his actions? Has there ever been a Prince by whom subjects in rebellion have been treated with less severity or with longer forbearance?
