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and distinct, is, that the powers and duties properly belonging to any one branch or department shall not be interfered with or administered by either of the others; that neither shall possess a controlling influence over the others in the performance of their respective duties.

§ 7. In order that there may be official independence, it is necessary "that the legislative, executive, and judiciary powers shall be kept as separate from, and independent of, each other, as the nature of a free government will admit, or as is consistent with that chain of connection that binds the whole fabric of the Constitution in one indissoluble bond of unity and amity."

§ 8. The Constitution of the United States aims to separate the three departments as widely as possible, and to render them as independent, the one of the others, as the complicated nature of the subject will permit. The government of the United States is a representative government; and there is far less danger to liberty arising from the partial mixture of these powers in this country, than in a government of less direct responsibility to the people.

I.

THE following is the Declaration of Rights made by the first Continental Congress Oct. 14, 1774, — nearly two years before the Declaration of Independence. But it was not difficult to foresee that separation from the mother country was imminent, unless Great Britain or the Colonies should take an immediate backward step. Indeed, this Declaration of Rights foreshadowed the Declaration of Independence.

DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.

WHEREAS, since the close of the last war, the British Parliament, claiming a power of right to bind the people of America by statutes in all cases whatsoever, hath, in some acts, expressly imposed taxes on them, and in others, under various pretenses, but in fact for the purpose of raising a revenue, hath imposed rates and duties paya

ble in these Colonies, established a board of commissioners with unconstitutional powers, and extended the jurisdiction of admiralty, not only for collecting the said duties, but for the trial of causes merely arising within the body of a county;

And whereas, in consequence of other statutes, judges, who before held only estates at will in their offices, have been made dependent on the Crown alone for their salaries, and standing armies kept in time of peace; and whereas, it has lately been resolved in Parliament, that, by force of a statute made in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, colonists may be transported to England, and tried there upon accusations for treasons, and misprisions or concealments of treasons, committed in the Colonies, and by a late statute such trials have been directed in cases therein mentioned;

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And whereas, in the last session of Parliament, three statutes were made, one entitled an Act to discontinue, in such manner and for such time as are therein mentioned, the Landing and Discharging, Lading or Shipping, of Goods, Wares, and Merchandise at the Town and within the Harbor of Boston, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England; and another statute was then made, "for Making more Effectual Provisions for the Government of the Province of Quebec," &c., all which statutes are impolitic, unjust, and cruel, as well as unconstitutional, and most dangerous and destructive of American rights;

And whereas, assemblies have been frequently dissolved, contrary to the rights of the people, when they attempted to deliberate on grievances; and their dutiful, humble, loyal, and reasonable petitions to the Crown for redress have been repeatedly treated with contempt by his majesty's ministers of State;

The good people of the several Colonies of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Castle, Kent and Sussex on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, justly alarmed at these arbitrary proceedings of Parliament and Administration, have severally elected, constituted, and appointed deputies to meet and sit in General Congress, in the city of Phila

delphia, in order to obtain such establishment as that their religion, laws, and liberties may not be subverted. Whereupon the deputies so appointed, being now assembled in a full and free representation of these Colonies, taking into their most serious consideration the best means of attaining the ends aforesaid, do in the first place, as Englishmen, their ancestors, in like cases have usually done, for affecting and vindicating their rights and liberties, DECLARE,

That the inhabitants of the English Colonies in North America, by the immutable laws of nature, the principles of the English Consti tution, and the several charters or compacts, have the following RIGHTS:

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Resolved, N. C. D.,' 1. That they are entitled to life, liberty, and property; and they have never ceded to any sovereign power whatever a right to dispose of either without their consent.

Resolved, N. C. D., 2. That our ancestors, who first settled these Colonies, were, at the time of their emigration from the mother country, entitled to all the rights, liberties, and immunities of free and natural born subjects within the realm of England.

Resolved, N. C. D., 3. That, by such emigration, they by no means forfeited, surrendered, or lost any of those rights; but that they were, and their descendants now are, entitled to the exercise and enjoyment of all such of them as their local and other circumstances enable them to exercise and enjoy.

Resolved, 4. That the foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council; and as the English colonists are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances can not properly be represented, in the British Parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several Provincial legislatures, where their right of representation can alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of their sovereign, in such manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed. But from the necessity of the case, and a regard to the natural interests of both countries, we cheerfully consent to the

1 Abbreviations for nemine contradicente; signifying, no one opposing

operation of such acts of the British Parliament as are bonâ fide restrained to the regulation of our external commerce, for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the whole empire to the mother country, and the commercial benefits of its respective members; excluding every idea of taxation, internal or external, for raising a revenue on the subjects in America without their con

sent.

Resolved, N. C. D., 5. That the respective Colonies are entitled to the common law of England, and more especially to the great and inestimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage according to the course of that law.

Resolved, 6. That they are entitled to the benefit of such of the English statutes as existed at the time of their colonization, and which they have, by experience, respectively found to be applicable to their several local and other circumstances.

Resolved, N. C. D., 7. That these, his Majesty's Colonies, are likewise entitled to all the immunities and privileges granted and confirmed to them by royal charters, or secured by their several codes of Provincial laws.

Resolved, N. C. D., 8. That they have a right peaceably to assemble, consider of their grievances, and petition the king; and that all prosecutions, prohibitory proclamations, and commitments for the same, are illegal.

Resolved, N. C. D., 9. That the keeping a standing army in these Colonies in times of peace, without the consent of the legislature of that Colony in which such army is kept, is against law.

Resolved, N. C. D., 10. It is indispensably necessary to good government, and rendered essential by the English Constitution, that the constituent branches of the legislature be independent of each other; that, therefore, the exercise of legislative power in several Colonies by a council, appointed during pleasure by the Crown, is unconstitutional, dangerous, and destructive to the freedom of American legislation.

All and each of which the aforesaid deputies, in behalf of themselves and their constituents, do claim, demand, and insist on, as their indubitable rights and liberties, which can not be legally taken

from them, altered, or abridged, by any power whatever, without their own consent, by their representatives in their several Provincial legislatures.

In the course of our inquiry, we find many infringements and violations of the foregoing rights; which, from an ardent desire that harmony and mutual intercourse of affection and interest may be restored, we pass over for the present, and proceed to state such acts and measures as have been adopted since the last war, which demonstrate a system formed to enslave America.

Resolved, N. C. D., That the following acts of Parliament are infringements and violations of the rights of the colonists; and that the repeal of them is essentially necessary, in order to restore harmony between Great Britain and the American Colonies; viz. :

The several acts of 4 Geo. III. ch. 15 and ch. 34, 5 Geo. III. ch. 25, 6 Geo. III. ch. 52, 7 Geo. III. ch. 41 and ch. 46, 8 Geo. III. ch. 22, which impose duties for the purpose of raising a revenue in America, extend the power of the admiralty courts beyond their ancient limits, deprive the American subject of trial by jury, authorize the judges' certificate to indemnify the prosecutor from damages that he might otherwise be liable to, requiring oppressive security from a claimant of ships and goods seized before he shall be allowed to defend his property, and are subversive of American rights.

Also 12 Geo. III, ch. 24, entitled "An Act for the Better Securing his Majesty's Dock-Yards, Magazines, Ships, Ammunition, and Stores," which declares a new offense in America, and deprives the American subject of a constitutional trial by jury of the vicinage, by authorizing the trial of any person charged with the committing any offense described in the said act, out of the realm, to be indicted and tried for the same in any shire or county within the realm.

Also the three acts passed in the last session of Parliament, for stopping the port and blocking up the harbor of Boston, for altering the charter and government of Massachusetts Bay, and that which is entitled "An Act for the Better Administration of Justice," &c. Also the act passed in the same session for establishing the RomanCatholic religion in the Province of Quebec ; abolishing the equitable system of English laws, and erecting a tyranny there, to the great

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