Part 14 (1/2)
There has been an effort, lately, to show that when our fathers said, ”Taxation without representation is tyranny,” they referred not to personal liberties, but to the freedon power It is fortunate that this criticism has been es; and this has made it clear, beyond dispute, that the Revolutionary patriots carried their stateenerally supposed, and affirmed their principles for individuals, not merely for the state as a whole
In that celebrated pamphlet by Jahts of the Colonies Vindicated,” he thus clearly lays down the rights of the individual as to taxation:--
”The very act of taxing, exercised over those who are not represented, appears to hts as freemen; and, if continued, seems to be, in effect, an entire disfranchiseht is worth a rush, after a man's property is subject to be taken from him at pleasure, without his consent? If a man is not his own assessor, in person or by deputy, his liberty is gone, or he is entirely at the mercy of others” [1]
This fine statement has already done duty for liberty, in another contest; for it was quoted by Mr Sumner in his speech of March 7, 1866, with this coe could not be e represented, they are deprived of essential rights; and the continuance of this deprivation despoils the the latter depend upon the right of suffrage, which by a neologisht instead of a civil right
Then, to give point to this argu taxation, 'every man must be his own assessor, in person or by deputy,' without which his liberty is entirely at the inal thunderbolt, 'Taxation without representation is tyranny;' and the claim is made not merely for communities, but for 'every man'”
In a similar rote Benjamin Franklin, so his papers, and called ”Declaration of those Rights of the Commonalty of Great Britain, without which they cannot be free” The leading propositions were these three:--
”That everyinfants, insane persons, and criht and by the laws of God a freeman, and entitled to the free enjoy an actual share in the appointuardians of every man's life, property, and peace; for the all of one man is as dear to hiht, but islature than the rich one That they who have no voice nor vote in the electing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to those who have votes, and to their representatives; for to be enslaved is to have governors whom other men have set over us, and be subject to lawshad representatives of our own to give consent in our behalf”[2]
In quoting these words of Dr Franklin, one of his biographers feels moved to add, ”These principles, so fa and incredible novelties in 1770, abhorrent to nearly all Englishreat numbers of Areatquite to deny the theory, they limit the application by soain, James Otis is ready for them; and Charles Sumner is ready to quote Otis, as thus:--
”No such phrase as virtual representation was ever known in law or constitution It is altogether a subtlety and illusion, wholly unfounded and absurd We must not be cheated by any such phantom, or any other fiction of law or politics, or any monkish trick of deceit or blasphemy”
These are the sharp words used by the patriot Otis, speaking of those ere trying to convince American citizens that they were virtually represented in Parliament Sumner applied the same principle to the freedmen: it is now applied to women ”Taxation without representation is tyranny” ”Virtual representation is altogether a subtlety and illusion, wholly unfounded and absurd” No ingenuity, no evasion, can give any escape from these plain principles Either you must revoke the maxims of the American Revolution, or you raphy, ”The interest of woman is included in that of man exactly as s”
[Footnote 1: Otis, _Rights of the Colonies_, p 58]
[Footnote 2: Sparks's _Franklin_, ii 372]
FOUNDED ON A ROCK
If there is any one who is recognized as a fair exponent of our national principles, it is our martyr-president Abraham Lincoln; whoe,--
”New birth of our new soil, the first American”
What President Lincoln's political principle e know On his journey to Washi+ngton for his first inauguration he said, ”I have never had a feeling that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence” To find out as his view of those sentio back several years earlier, and consider that remarkable letter of his to the Boston Republicans who had invited hi Jefferson's birthday, in April, 1859 It ell called by Charles Suem in political literature;” and it see address
”The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society And yet they are denied and evaded with no s generalities' Another bluntly styles theue that they apply only to 'superior races'”
”These expressions, differing in for the principles of free governitiht a convocation of crowned heads plotting against the people
They are the vanguard, the sappers anddespotisate us”
”All honor to Jefferson'--the le for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document _an abstract truth applicable to all men and all ti days it shall be a rebuke and a stu tyranny and oppression”
The special ”abstract truth” to which President Lincoln thus attaches a value so great, and which he pronounces ”applicable to all men and all tiovernoverned, following the assertion that all men are born free and equal; that is, as some one has well interpreted it, equally men I do not see how any person but a dreath of our republic rests on these principles; which are so thoroughly ee American mind that they take in it, to solishfaically, as Senator hoar has well pointed out, without recognizing that they are as applicable to women as to ht,--indeed, upon the saht which is the foundation of all our institutions
The encouraging fact in the present condition of the whole et more votes here or there for this or that forreat ups and downs in that respect; and States that at one tie, as Maine and Kansas, now seeical ground is more and more conceded; and the point now usually made is not that the Jeffersonian overned” is substantially given by the general consent of woument has a certain plausibility may be conceded; but it is equally clear that the minority of women, those who do wish to vote, includes on the whole the natural leaders,--those who are foreood works of charity It is, therefore, pretty sure that they only predict the opinions of the rest, ill follow the it is a fair question whether the ”governed” have not the right to give their votes when they wish, even if the majority of them prefer to stay away froh only the n-born inhabitants as yet take the pains to become naturalized