Colonial Rights Quotes

I am free to confess that the exercise of that (Britain’s), authority is not perfectly constitutional in respect to the Colonies. We know that the whole landed interest of Britain is represented in that body (Parliament), while neither the land nor the people of America hold the least participation in the legislative authority of the State. Representation, or a participation in the supreme councils of the State, is the great principle upon which the freedom of the British Government is established and secured.

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, thirdly to property.

The king had a right to all uninhabited countries that should be discovered and possessed by any of his subjects and that the charters he freely granted to American companies had explicitly denied any latent claims of a British Parliament.

The American Revolution was a conservative revolution.

Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, that those United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.

They [the American colonists] are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.

The ministers and people of England might neither mean to be, nor be, the tyrants and oppressors which they were thought by the people of America, but whether they were as reasonable and prudent, or even as well justified in their measures of taxation, much less of coercion, as they supposed, is quite another question.

What began as a revolt in response to the King of Great Britain's repeated injuries against the colonies, soon became a passionate and glorious call to fight for the beginnings of a new country.

In effect we suffer as much at home as abroad; for, in order to prove that the Americans have no right to their liberties, we are every day endeavoring to subvert the maxims of our own. We never gain a paltry advantage over them in debate, without attacking some of those principles, or deriding some of those feelings, for which our ancestors have shed their blood

You Americans have wrong ideas of the nature of your constitution. The instructions given to colonial governors were the law of the land and colonial legislatures have no right to ignore them.

While most Americans know about the Boston Tea Party, few are aware of the Liberty Tree and how important it was to fanning the flames of rebellion that led to the revolution in 1775 and the Declaration of Independence.

Resolved, That is the opinion of this Committee, as the contest now between Great Britain and the Colonies respects the liberties and privileges of the latter, which the Colonies are determined to maintain that the admission of any persons, as soldiers, into the army now raising, but only such as are freemen, will be inconsistent with the principles that are to be supported, and reflect dishonor on this Colony, and that no slaves be admitted into this army upon any consideration whatever.

Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved

No Stamp Act, No Sedition Act, No Alien Bills, No Land Tax, downfall to the Tyrants of America; peace and retirement to the President; Long Live the Vice President.

The inhabitants of the English colonies in North-America … are entitled to life, liberty and property: and they have never ceded to any foreign power whatever, a right to dispose of either without their consent.

Every good Englishman, abstracted from all regard for America, must oppose … being taxed by the British Parliament. For my own part, I am convinced that no argument … can be produced in support of this right.

The quarrel between the colonies and the British government seems to become more serious every day ... It may prove the most fatal blow to the authority of the metropolis.

These colonies are, and of right ought to be, individual states.

Trial by jury is the inherent and invaluable right of every British subject in these colonies

We had carefully to avoid any infringement of the prerogative of the crown and the power of parliament—and yet in duty bound fully to assert the rights and privileges of the colonies.

There is no alternative. Either the colonies are a part of the community of Great Britain, or they are in a state of nature with respect to her, and in no case can be subject to that legislative power which represents her community, which is the British Parliament…. They [the American colonists] ought to reflect, that whatever may be their condition, they cannot apply to parliament to better it. If they reject the jurisdiction of parliament, they must not in any case sue for its interposition on their behalf.

The repeal of a few acts of parliament, would at this time have satisfied America. But confident of victory, the ministers were deaf to petitions and remonstrances

The execution of the Stamp Act will be impractical, without occasioning more mischief that it was worth by totally alienating the affections of the Americans.

The laws of England are bounded by the four seas and do not reach America.

The Stamp Act was to go into operation on the first day of November. On the previous morning, the 'New Hampshire Gazette' appeared with a deep black border and all the typographical emblems of affliction, for was not Liberty dead?