The Rights of the Colonists
November 20, 1772
Adopted by the Town of Boston as a statement of the rights of the colonists and the infringements upon those rights.
I. Natural Rights of the Colonists as Men
"Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property"
Together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature.
All men have a right to remain in a state of nature as long as they please; and in case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and enter into another.
"When men enter into society, it is by voluntary consent"
And they have a right to demand and insist upon the performance of such conditions and previous limitations as form an equitable original compact.
Every natural right not expressly given up, or, from the nature of a social compact, necessarily ceded, remains.
The Right of Revolution
All positive and civil laws should conform, as far as possible, to the law of natural reason and equity.
"The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man"
But only to have the law of nature for his rule.
In the state of nature men may, as the patriarchs did, employ hired servants for the defence of their lives, liberty, and property; and they should pay them reasonable wages.
Government was instituted for the purposes of common defence; and those who hold the reins of government have an equitable natural right to an honorable support from the same principle "that the laborer is worthy of his hire."
II. Rights of the Colonists as Christians
These may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutes of the great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.
"In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced"
And it is now generally agreed among Christians that this spirit of toleration, in the fullest extent consistent with the being of civil society, is the chief characteristical mark of the Church.
III. Rights of the Colonists as Subjects
A commonwealth or state is a body politic, or civil society of men, united together to promote their mutual safety and prosperity by means of their union.
"The absolute rights of Englishmen and all freemen... are the right of personal security, personal liberty, and private property"
All persons born in the British American Colonies are, by the laws of God and nature and by the common law of England, exclusive of all charters from the Crown, well entitled, and by acts of the British Parliament are declared to be entitled, to all the natural, essential, inherent, and inseparable rights, liberties, and privileges of subjects born in Great Britain or within the realm.
Among those rights are the following: First, the right to be governed by stated laws. Secondly, the right to pay no taxes but what they consent to. Thirdly, the right to a fair trial by jury.
Representation
"It is an essential, unalterable right in nature... that what a man has honestly acquired is absolutely his own"
Which he may freely give, but cannot be taken from him without his consent.
Now what liberty can there be where property is taken away without consent? Can it be said with any color of truth and justice, that this continent of three thousand miles in length, and of a breadth as yet unexplored, in which, however, it is supposed there are five millions of people, has the least voice, vote, or influence in the British Parliament?
Have they all together any more weight or power to return a single member to that House of Commons who have not inadvertently, but deliberately, assumed a power to dispose of their lives, liberties, and properties, than to choose an Emperor of China?
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