AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR TESTING AND MATERIALS et al v. PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC.

Filing 204

LARGE ADDITIONAL ATTACHMENT(S) to Public Resource's Second Motion for Summary Judgment by PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC. 202 MOTION for Summary Judgment filed by PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC., 203 SEALED MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE DOCUMENT UNDER SEAL filed by PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC. (This document is SEALED and only available to authorized persons.) filed by PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC.. (Attachments: # 1 Public Resources Statement of Disputed Facts, # 2 Public Resources Evidentiary Objections, # 3 Public Resources Request for Judicial Notice, # 4 Declaration Carl Malamud, # 5 Declaration Matthew Becker, # 6 Consolidated Index of Exhibits, # 7 Exhibit 1, # 8 Exhibit 2, # 9 Exhibit 3, # 10 Exhibit 4, # 11 Exhibit 5, # 12 Exhibit 6, # 13 Exhibit 7, # 14 Exhibit 8, # 15 Exhibit 9, # 16 Exhibit 10, # 17 Exhibit 11, # 18 Exhibit 12, # 19 Exhibit 13, # 20 Exhibit 14, # 21 Exhibit 15, # 22 Exhibit 16, # 23 Exhibit 17, # 24 Exhibit 18, # 25 Exhibit 19, # 26 Exhibit 20, # 27 Exhibit 21, # 28 Exhibit 22, # 29 Exhibit 23, # 30 Exhibit 24, # 31 Exhibit 25, # 32 Exhibit 26, # 33 Exhibit 27, # 34 Exhibit 28, # 35 Exhibit 29, # 36 Exhibit 30, # 37 Exhibit 31, # 38 Exhibit 32, # 39 Exhibit 33, # 40 Exhibit 34, # 41 Exhibit 35, # 42 Exhibit 36, # 43 Exhibit 37, # 44 Exhibit 38, # 45 Exhibit 39, # 46 Exhibit 40, # 47 Exhibit 41, # 48 Exhibit 42, # 49 Exhibit 43, # 50 Exhibit 44, # 51 Exhibit 45, # 52 Exhibit 46, # 53 Exhibit 47, # 54 Exhibit 48, # 55 Exhibit 49, # 56 Exhibit 50, # 57 Exhibit 51, # 58 Exhibit 52, # 59 Exhibit 53, # 60 Exhibit 54, # 61 Exhibit 55, # 62 Exhibit 56, # 63 Exhibit 57, # 64 Exhibit 58, # 65 Exhibit 59, # 66 Exhibit 60, # 67 Exhibit 61, # 68 Exhibit 62, # 69 Exhibit 63, # 70 Exhibit 64, # 71 Exhibit 65, # 72 Exhibit 66, # 73 Exhibit 67, # 74 Exhibit 68, # 75 Exhibit 69, # 76 Exhibit 70, # 77 Exhibit 71, # 78 Exhibit 72, # 79 Exhibit 73, # 80 Exhibit 74, # 81 Exhibit 75, # 82 Exhibit 76, # 83 Exhibit 77, # 84 Exhibit 78, # 85 Exhibit 79, # 86 Exhibit 80, # 87 Exhibit 81, # 88 Exhibit 82, # 89 Exhibit 83, # 90 Exhibit 84, # 91 Exhibit 85, # 92 Exhibit 86, # 93 Exhibit 87, # 94 Exhibit 88, # 95 Exhibit 89, # 96 Exhibit 90, # 97 Exhibit 91, # 98 Exhibit 92, # 99 Exhibit 93, # 100 Exhibit 94, # 101 Exhibit 95, # 102 Exhibit 96, # 103 Exhibit 97, # 104 Certificate of Service)(Bridges, Andrew)

EXHIBIT 35

A Dissertation on the
Canon and Feudal Law

By John Adams
The Federalist Papers Project
www.thefederalistpapers.org

A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law by John Adams

A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law
"Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind." This is an
observation of Dr. Tillotson, with relation to the interest of his fellow men in a future and
immortal state. But it is of equal truth and importance if applied to the happiness of men in
society, on this side the grave. In the earliest ages of the world, absolute monarchy seems to have
been the universal form of government. Kings, and a few of their great counselors and captains,
exercised a cruel tyranny over the people, who held a rank in the scale of intelligence, in those
days, but little higher than the camels and elephants that carried them and their engines to war.
By what causes it was brought to pass, that the people in the middle ages became more
intelligent in general, would not, perhaps, be possible in these days to discover. But the fact is
certain; and wherever a general knowledge and sensibility have prevailed among the people,
arbitrary government and every kind of oppression have lessened and disappeared in proportion.
Man has certainly an exalted soul; and the same principle in human nature, -- that aspiring, noble
principle founded in benevolence, and cherished by knowledge; I mean the love of power, which
has been so often the cause of slavery, -- has, whenever freedom has existed, been the cause of
freedom. If it is this principle that has always prompted the princes and nobles of the earth, by
every species of fraud and violence to shake off all the limitations of their power, it is the same
that has always stimulated the common people to aspire at independency, and to endeavor at
confining the power of the great within the limits of equity and reason.
The poor people, it is true, have been much less successful than the great. They have seldom
found either leisure or opportunity to form a union and exert their strength; ignorant as they were
of arts and letters, they have seldom been able to frame and support a regular opposition. This,
however, has been known by the great to be the temper of mankind; and they have accordingly
labored, in all ages, to wrest from the populace, as they are contemptuously called, the
knowledge of their rights and wrongs, and the power to assert the former or redress the latter. I
say RIGHTS, for such they have, undoubtedly, antecedent to all earthly government, -- Rights,
that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws -- Rights, derived from the great Legislator
of the universe.
Since the promulgation of Christianity, the two greatest systems of tyranny that have sprung
from this original, are the canon and the feudal law. The desire of dominion, that great principle
by which we have attempted to account for so much good and so much evil, is, when properly
restrained, a very useful and noble movement in the human mind. But when such restraints are
taken off, it becomes an encroaching, grasping, restless, and ungovernable power. Numberless
have been the systems of iniquity contrived by the great for the gratification of this passion in
themselves; but in none of them were they ever more successful than in the invention and
establishment of the canon and the feudal law.
By the former of these, the most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of
policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the

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aggrandizement of their own order. All the epithets I have here given to the Romish policy are
just, and will be allowed to be so when it is considered, that they even persuaded mankind to
believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of
heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure; with a power of dispensation over all
the rules and obligations of morality; with authority to license all sorts of sins and crimes; with a
power of deposing princes and absolving subjects from allegiance; with a power of procuring or
withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes,
pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out
of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to
spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and
staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was
human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude to him, and his
subordinate tyrants, who, it was foretold, would exalt himself above all that was called God, and
that was worshipped.
In the latter we find another system, similar in many respects to the former;1 which, although it
was originally formed, perhaps, for the necessary defense of a barbarous people against the
inroads and invasions of her neighboring nations, yet for the same purposes of tyranny, cruelty,
and lust, which had dictated the canon law, it was soon adopted by almost all the princes of
Europe, and wrought into the constitutions of their government. It was originally a code of laws
for a vast army in a perpetual encampment. The general was invested with the sovereign
propriety of all the lands within the territory. Of him, as his servants and vassals, the first rank of
his great officers held the lands; and in the same manner the other subordinate officers held of
them; and all ranks and degrees held their lands by a variety of duties and services, all tending to
bind the chains the faster on every order of mankind. In this manner the common people were
held together in herds and clans in a state of servile dependence on their lords, bound, even by
the tenure of their lands, to follow them, whenever they commanded, to their wars, and in a state
of total ignorance of every thing divine and human, excepting the use of arms and the culture of
their lands.
But another event still more calamitous to human liberty, was a wicked confederacy between the
two systems of tyranny above described. It seems to have been even stipulated between them,
that the temporal grandees should contribute every thing in their power to maintain the
ascendancy of the priesthood, and that the spiritual grandees in their turn, should employ their
ascendancy over the consciences of the people, in impressing on their minds a blind, implicit
obedience to civil magistracy.
Thus, as long as this confederacy lasted, and the people were held in ignorance, liberty, and with
her, knowledge and virtue too, seem to have deserted the earth, and one age of darkness
succeeded another, till God in his benign providence raised up the champions who began and
conducted the Reformation. From the time of the Reformation to the first settlement of America,
knowledge gradually spread in Europe, but especially in England; and in proportion as that
increased and spread among the people, ecclesiastical and civil tyranny, which I use as

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synonymous expressions for the canon and feudal laws, seem to have lost their strength and
weight. The people grew more and more sensible of the wrong that was done them by these
systems, more and more impatient under it, and determined at all hazards to rid themselves of it;
till at last, under the execrable race of the Stuarts, the struggle between the people and the
confederacy aforesaid of temporal and spiritual tyranny, became formidable, violent, and bloody.
It was this great struggle that peopled America. It was not religion alone, as is commonly
supposed; but it was a love of universal liberty, and a hatred, a dread, a horror, of the infernal
confederacy before described, that projected, conducted, and accomplished the settlement of
America.
It was a resolution formed by a sensible people, -- I mean the Puritans, -- almost in despair. They
had become intelligent in general, and many of them learned. For this fact, I have the testimony
of Archbishop King himself, who observed of that people, that they were more intelligent and
better read than even the members of the church, whom he censures warmly for that reason. This
people had been so vexed and tortured by the powers of those days, for no other crime than their
knowledge and their freedom of inquiry and examination, and they had so much reason to
despair of deliverance from those miseries on that side the ocean, that they at last resolved to fly
to the wilderness for refuge from the temporal and spiritual principalities and powers, and
plagues and scourges of their native country.
After their arrival here, they began their settlement, and formed their plan, both of ecclesiastical
and civil government, in direct opposition to the canon and the feudal systems. The leading men
among them, both of the clergy and the laity, were men of sense and learning. To many of them
the historians, orators, poets, and philosophers of Greece and Rome were quite familiar; and
some of them have left libraries that are still in being, consisting chiefly of volumes in which the
wisdom of the most enlightened ages and nations is deposited, -- written, however, in languages
which their great-grandsons, though educated in European universities, can scarcely read. 2
Thus accomplished were many of the first planters in these colonies. It may be thought polite and
fashionable by many modern fine gentlemen, perhaps, to deride the characters of these persons,
as enthusiastical, superstitious, and republican. But such ridicule is founded in nothing but
foppery and affectation, and is grossly injurious and false. Religious to some degree of
enthusiasm it may be admitted they were; but this can be no peculiar derogation from their
character; because it was at that time almost the universal character not only of England, but of
Christendom. Had this, however, been otherwise, their enthusiasm, considering the principles on
which it was founded and the ends to which it was directed, far from being a reproach to them,
was greatly to their honor; for I believe it will be found universally true, that no great enterprise
for the honor or happiness of mankind was ever achieved without a large mixture of that noble
infirmity. Whatever imperfections may be justly ascribed to them, which, however, are as few as
any mortals have discovered, their judgment in framing their policy was founded in wise,
humane, and benevolent principles. It was founded in revelation and in reason too. It was
consistent with the principles of the best and greatest and wisest legislators of antiquity. Tyranny

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in every form, shape, and appearance was their disdain and abhorrence; no fear of punishment,
nor even of death itself in exquisite tortures, had been sufficient to conquer that steady, manly,
pertinacious spirit with which they had opposed the tyrants of those days in church and state.
They were very far from being enemies to monarchy; and they knew as well as any men, the just
regard and honor that is due to the character of a dispenser of the mysteries of the gospel of
grace. But they saw clearly, that popular powers must be placed as a guard, a control, a balance,
to the powers of the monarch and the priest, in every government, or else it would soon become
the man of sin, the whore of Babylon, the mystery of iniquity, a great and detestable system of
fraud, violence, and usurpation. Their greatest concern seems to have been to establish a
government of the church more consistent with the Scriptures, and a government of the state
more agreeable to the dignity of human nature, than any they had seen in Europe, and to transmit
such a government down to their posterity, with the means of securing and preserving it forever.
To render the popular power in their new government as great and wise as their principles of
theory, that is, as human nature and the Christian religion require it should be, they endeavored
to remove from it as many of the feudal inequalities and dependencies as could be spared,
consistently with the preservation of a mild limited monarchy. And in this they discovered the
depth of their wisdom and the warmth of their friendship to human nature. But the first place is
due to religion. They saw clearly, that of all the nonsense and delusion which had ever passed
through the mind of man, none had ever been more extravagant than the notions of absolutions,
indelible characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those fantastical ideas, derived
from the canon law, which had thrown such a glare of mystery, sanctity, reverence, and right
reverend eminence and holiness, around the idea of a priest, as no mortal could deserve, and as
always must, from the constitution of human nature, be dangerous in society. For this reason,
they demolished the whole system of diocesan episcopacy; and, deriding, as all reasonable and
impartial men must do, the ridiculous fancies of sanctified effluvia from Episcopal fingers, they
established sacerdotal ordination on the foundation of the Bible and common sense. This conduct
at once imposed an obligation on the whole body of the clergy to industry, virtue, piety, and
learning, and rendered that whole body infinitely more independent on the civil powers, in all
respects, than they could be where they were formed into a scale of subordination, from a pope
down to priests and friars and confessors, -- necessarily and essentially a sordid, stupid, and
wretched herd, -- or than they could be in any other country, where an archbishop held the place
of a universal bishop, and the vicars and curates that of the ignorant, dependent, miserable rabble
aforesaid, -- and infinitely more sensible and learned than they could be in either. This subject
has been seen in the same light by many illustrious patriots, who have lived in America since the
days of our forefathers, and who have adored their memory for the same reason. And methinks
there has not appeared in New England a stronger veneration for their memory, a more
penetrating insight into the grounds and principles and spirit of their policy, nor a more earnest
desire of perpetuating the blessings of it to posterity, than that fine institution of the late Chief
Justice Dudley, of a lecture against popery, and on the validity of Presbyterian ordination. This
was certainly intended by that wise and excellent man, as an eternal memento of the wisdom and
goodness of the very principles that settled America. But I must again return to the feudal law.
The adventurers so often mentioned, had an utter contempt of all that dark ribaldry of hereditary,
indefeasible right, -- the Lord’s anointed, -- and the divine, miraculous original of government,

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with which the priesthood had enveloped the feudal monarch in clouds and mysteries, and from
whence they had deduced the most mischievous of all doctrines, that of passive obedience and
non-resistance. They knew that government was a plain, simple, intelligible thing, founded in
nature and reason, and quite comprehensible by common sense. They detested all the base
services and servile dependencies of the feudal system. They knew that no such unworthy
dependencies took place in the ancient seats of liberty, the republics of Greece and Rome; and
they thought all such slavish subordinations were equally inconsistent with the constitution of
human nature and that religious liberty with which Jesus had made them free. This was certainly
the opinion they had formed; and they were far from being singular or extravagant in thinking so.
Many celebrated modern writers in Europe have espoused the same sentiments. Lord Kames, a
Scottish writer of great reputation, whose authority in this case ought to have the more weight as
his countrymen have not the most worthy ideas of liberty, speaking of the feudal law, says, --"A
constitution so contradictory to all the principles which govern mankind can never be brought
about, one should imagine, but by foreign conquest or native usurpations." Rousseau, speaking
of the same system, calls it, -- "That most iniquitous and absurd form of government by which
human nature was so shamefully degraded." It would be easy to multiply authorities, but it must
be needless; because, as the original of this form of government was among savages, as the
spirit, of it is military and despotic, every writer who would allow the people to have any right to
life or property or freedom more than the beasts of the field, and who was not hired or enlisted
under arbitrary, lawless power, has been always willing to admit the feudal system to be
inconsistent with liberty and the rights of mankind.
To have holden their lands allodially, or for every man to have been the sovereign lord and
proprietor of the ground he occupied, would have constituted a government too nearly like a
commonwealth. They were contented, therefore, to hold their lands of their king, as their
sovereign lord; and to him they were willing to render homage, but to no mesne or subordinate
lords; nor were they willing to submit to any of the baser services. In all this they were so
strenuous, that they have even transmitted to their posterity a very general contempt and
detestation of holdings by quitrents, as they have also a hereditary ardor for liberty and thirst for
knowledge.
They were convinced, by their knowledge of human nature, derived from history and their own
experience, that nothing could preserve their posterity from the encroachments of the two
systems of tyranny, in opposition to which, as has been observed already, they erected their
government in church and state, but knowledge diffused generally through the whole body of the
people. Their civil and religious principles, therefore, conspired to prompt them to use every
measure and take every precaution in their power to propagate and perpetuate knowledge. For
this purpose they laid very early the foundations of colleges, and invested them with ample
privileges and emoluments; and it is remarkable that they have left among their posterity so
universal an affection and veneration for those seminaries, and for liberal education, that the
meanest of the people contribute cheerfully to the support and maintenance of them every year,
and that nothing is more generally popular than projections for the honor, reputation, and
advantage of those seats of learning. But the wisdom and benevolence of our fathers rested not

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here. They made an early provision by law, that every town consisting of so many families,
should be always furnished with a grammar school. They made it a crime for such a town to be
destitute of a grammar schoolmaster for a few months, and subjected it to a heavy penalty. So
that the education of all ranks of people was made the care and expense of the public, in a
manner that I believe has been unknown to any other people ancient or modern.
The consequences of these establishments we see and feel every day. A native of America who
cannot read and write is as rare an appearance as a Jacobite or a Roman Catholic, that is, as rare
as a comet or an earthquake. It has been observed, that we are all of us lawyers, divines,
politicians, and philosophers. And I have good authorities to say, that all candid foreigners who
have passed through this country, and conversed freely with all sorts of people here, will allow,
that they have never seen so much knowledge and civility among the common people in any part
of the world. It is true, there has been among us a party for some years, consisting chiefly not of
the descendants of the first settlers of this country, but of high churchmen and high statesmen
imported since, who affect to censure this provision for the education of our youth as a needless
expense, and an imposition upon the rich in favor of the poor, and as an institution productive of
idleness and vain speculation among the people, whose time and attention, it is said, ought to be
devoted to labor, and not to public affairs, or to examination into the conduct of their superiors.
And certain officers of the crown, and certain other missionaries of ignorance, foppery, servility,
and slavery, have been most inclined to countenance and increase the same party. Be it
remembered, however, that liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it,
derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the
expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood. And liberty cannot be
preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of
their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them
understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable,
unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I
mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents,
and trustees for the people; and if the cause, the interest and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or
wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that they themselves have
deputed, and to constitute abler and better agents, attorneys, and trustees. And the preservation of
the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks, is of more importance to the public than all the
property of all the rich men in the country. It is even of more consequence to the rich themselves,
and to their posterity. The only question is, whether it is a public emolument; and if it is, the rich
ought undoubtedly to contribute, in the same proportion as to all other public burdens, -- that is,
in proportion to their wealth, which is secured by public expenses. But none of the means of
information are more sacred, or have been cherished with more tenderness and care by the
settlers of America, than the press. Care has been taken that the art of printing should be
encouraged, and that it should be easy and cheap and safe for any person to communicate his
thoughts to the public. And you, Messieurs printers, 3 whatever the tyrants of the earth may say
of your paper, have done important service to your country by your readiness and freedom in
publishing the speculations of the curious. The stale, impudent insinuations of slander and
sedition, with which the gormandizers of power have endeavored to discredit your paper, are so

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much the more to your honor; for the jaws of power are always opened to devour, and her arm is
always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. And
if the public interest, liberty, and happiness have been in danger from the ambition or avarice of
any great man, whatever may be his politeness, address, learning, ingenuity, and, in other
respects, integrity and humanity, you have done yourselves honor and your country service by
publishing and pointing out that avarice and ambition. These vices are so much the more
dangerous and pernicious for the virtues with which they may be accompanied in the same
character, and with so much the more watchful jealousy to be guarded against.
"Curse on such virtues, they’ve undone their country."
Be not intimidated, therefore, by any terrors, from publishing with the utmost freedom, whatever
can be warranted by the laws of your country; nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your
liberty by any pretences of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but
three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice. Much less, I presume, will you be
discouraged by any pretences that malignants on this side the water will represent your paper as
factious and seditious, or that the great on the other side the water will take offence at them. This
dread of representation has had for a long time, in this province, effects very similar to what the
physicians call a hydrophobia, or dread of water. It has made us delirious; and we have rushed
headlong into the water, till we are almost drowned, out of simple or phrensical fear of it.
Believe me, the character of this country has suffered more in Britain by the pusillanimity with
which we have borne many insults and indignities from the creatures of power at home and the
creatures of those creatures here, than it ever did or ever will by the freedom and spirit that has
been or will be discovered in writing or action. Believe me, my countrymen, they have imbibed
an opinion on the other side the water, that we are an ignorant, a timid, and a stupid people; nay,
their tools on this side have often the impudence to dispute your bravery. But I hope in God the
time is near at hand when they will be fully convinced of your understanding, integrity and
courage. But can any thing be more ridiculous, were it not too provoking to be laughed at, than
to pretend that offence should be taken at home for writings here? Pray, let them look at home. Is
not the human understanding exhausted there? Are not reason, imagination, wit, passion, senses,
and all, tortured to find out satire and invective against the characters of the vile and futile
fellows who sometimes get into place and power? The most exceptionable paper that ever I saw
here is perfect prudence and modesty in comparison of multitudes of their applauded writings.
Yet the high regard they have for the freedom of the press, indulges all. I must and will repeat it,
your paper deserves the patronage of every friend to his country. And whether the defamers of it
are arrayed in robes of scarlet or sable, whether they lurk and skulk in an insurance office,
whether they assume the venerable character of a priest, the sly one of a scrivener, or the dirty,
infamous, abandoned one of an informer, they are all the creatures and tools of the lust of
domination.
The true source of our sufferings has been our timidity.

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We have been afraid to think. We have felt a reluctance to examining into the grounds of our
privileges, and the extent in which we have an indisputable right to demand them, against all the
power and authority on earth. And many who have not scrupled to examine for themselves, have
yet for certain prudent reasons been cautious and diffident of declaring the result of their
inquiries.
The cause of this timidity is perhaps hereditary, and to be traced back in history as far as the
cruel treatment the first settlers of this country received, before their embarkation for America,
from the government at home. Everybody knows how dangerous it was to speak or write in favor
of any thing, in those days, but the triumphant system of religion and politics. And our fathers
were particularly the objects of the persecutions and proscriptions of the times. It is not unlikely,
therefore, that although they were inflexibly steady in refusing their positive assent to any thing
against their principles, they might have contracted habits of reserve, and a cautious diffidence of
asserting their opinions publicly. These habits they probably brought with them to America, and
have transmitted down to us. Or we may possibly account for this appearance by the great
affection and veneration Americans have always entertained for the country from whence they
sprang; or by the quiet temper for which they have been remarkable, no country having been less
disposed to discontent than this; or by a sense they have that it is their duty to acquiesce under
the administration of government, even when in many smaller matters grievous to them, and
until the essentials of the great compact are destroyed or invaded. These peculiar causes might
operate upon them; but without these, we all know that human nature itself, from indolence,
modesty, humanity, or fear, has always too much reluctance to a manly assertion of its rights.
Hence, perhaps, it has happened, that nine tenths of the species are groaning and gasping in
misery and servitude.
But whatever the cause has been, the fact is certain, we have been excessively cautious of giving
offence by complaining of grievances. And it is as certain, that American governors, and their
friends, and all the crown officers, have availed themselves of this disposition in the people.
They have prevailed on us to consent to many things which were grossly injurious to us, and to
surrender many others, with voluntary tameness, to which we had the clearest right. Have we not
been treated, formerly, with abominable insolence, by officers of the navy? I mean no
insinuation against any gentleman now onthis station, having heard no complaint of any one of
them to his dishonor. Have not some generals from England treated us like servants, nay, more
like slaves than like Britons? Have we not been under the most ignominious contribution, the
most abject submission, the most supercilious insults, of some custom-house officers? Have we
not been trifled with, brow-beaten, and trampled on, by former governors, in a manner which no
king of England since James the Second has dared to indulge towards his subjects? Have we not
raised up one family, in them placed an unlimited confidence, and been soothed and flattered and
intimidated by their influence, into a great part of this infamous tameness and submission?
"These are serious and alarming questions, and deserve a dispassionate consideration."
This disposition has been the great wheel and the mainspring in the American machine of court
politics. We have been told that "the word rights is an offensive expression;" "that the king, his

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ministry, and parliament, will not endure to hear Americans talk of their rights;" "that Britain is
the mother and we the children, that a filial duty and submission is due from us to her," and that
"we ought to doubt our own judgment, and presume that she is right, even when she seems to us
to shake the foundations of government;" that "Britain is immensely rich and great and powerful,
has fleets and armies at her command which have been the dread and terror of the universe, and
that she will force her own judgment into execution, right or wrong." But let me entreat you, sir,
to pause. Do you consider yourself as a missionary of loyalty or of rebellion? Are you not
representing your king, his ministry, and parliament, as tyrants, -- imperious, unrelenting tyrants,
-- by such reasoning as this? Is not this representing your most gracious sovereign as
endeavoring to destroy the foundations of his own throne? Are you not representing every
member of parliament as renouncing the transactions at Running Mede, (the meadow, near
Windsor, where Magna Charta was signed;) and as repealing in effect the bill of rights, when the
Lords and Commons asserted and vindicated the rights of the people and their own rights, and
insisted on the king’s assent to that assertion and vindication? Do you not represent them as
forgetting that the prince of Orange was created King William, by the people, on purpose that
their rights might be eternal and inviolable? Is there not something extremely fallacious in the
common-place images of mother country and children colonies? Are we the children of Great
Britain any more than the cities of London, Exeter, and Bath? Are we not brethren and fellow
subjects with those in Britain, only under a somewhat different method of legislation, and a
totally different method of taxation? But admitting we are children, have not children a right to
complain when their parents are attempting to break their limbs, to administer poison, or to sell
them to enemies for slaves? Let me entreat you to consider, will the mother be pleased when you
represent her as deaf to the cries of her children, -- when you compare her to the infamous
miscreant who lately stood on the gallows for starving her child, -- when you resemble her to
Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare, (I cannot think of it without horror,) who
"Had given suck, and knew How tender ’t was to love the babe that milked her,"
but yet, who could "Even while ’t was smiling in her face, Have plucked her nipple from the
boneless gums, And dashed the brains out."
Let us banish for ever from our minds, my countrymen, all such unworthy ideas of the king, his
ministry, and parliament. Let us not suppose that all are become luxurious, effeminate, and
unreasonable, on the other side the water, as many designing persons would insinuate. Let us
presume, what is in fact true, that the spirit of liberty is as ardent as ever among the body of the
nation, though a few individuals may be corrupted. Let us take it for granted, that the same great
spirit which once gave Cesar so warm a reception, which denounced hostilities against John till
Magna Charta was signed, which severed the head of Charles the First from his body, and drove
James the Second from his kingdom, the same great spirit (may heaven preserve it till the earth
shall be no more) which first seated the great grandfather of his present most gracious majesty on
the throne of Britain, -- is still alive and active and warm in England; and that the same spirit in
America, instead of provoking the inhabitants of that country, will endear us to them for ever,
and secure their good-will.

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This spirit, however, without knowledge, would be little better than a brutal rage. Let us tenderly
and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and
write. Let every order and degree among the people rouse their attention and animate their
resolution. Let them all become attentive to the grounds and principles of government,
ecclesiastical and civil. Let us study the law of nature; search into the spirit of the British
constitution; read the histories of ancient ages; contemplate the great examples of Greece and
Rome; set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who have defended for us the
inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary
kings and cruel priests, in short, against the gates of earth and hell. Let us read and recollect and
impress upon our souls the views and ends of our own more immediate forefathers, in
exchanging their native country for a dreary, inhospitable wilderness. Let us examine into the
nature of that power, and the cruelty of that oppression, which drove them from their homes.
Recollect their amazing fortitude, their bitter sufferings, -- the hunger, the nakedness, the cold,
which they patiently endured, -- the severe labors of clearing their grounds, building their
houses, raising their provisions, amidst dangers from wild beasts and savage men, before they
had time or money or materials for commerce. Recollect the civil and religious principles and
hopes and expectations which constantly supported and carried them through all hardships with
patience and resignation. Let us recollect it was liberty, the hope of liberty for themselves and us
and ours, which conquered all discouragements, dangers, and trials. In such researches as these,
let us all in our several departments cheerfully engage, -- but especially the proper patrons and
supporters of law, learning, and religion!
Let the pulpit resound with the doctrines and sentiments of religious liberty. Let us hear the
danger of thralldom to our consciences from ignorance, extreme poverty, and dependence, in
short, from civil and political slavery. Let us see delineated before us the true map of man. Let us
hear the dignity of his nature, and the noble rank he holds among the works of God, -- that
consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of God as it is
derogatory from our own honor or interest or happiness, -- and that God Almighty has
promulgated from heaven, liberty, peace, and good-will to man!
Let the bar proclaim, "the laws, the rights, the generous plan of power" delivered down from
remote antiquity, -- inform the world of the mighty struggles and numberless sacrifices made by
our ancestors in defense of freedom. Let it be known, that British liberties are not the grants of
princes or parliaments, but original rights, conditions of original contracts, coequal with
prerogative, and coeval with government; that many of our rights are inherent and essential,
agreed on as maxims, and established as preliminaries, even before a parliament existed. Let
them search for the foundations of British laws and government in the frame of human nature, in
the constitution of the intellectual and moral world. There let us see that truth, liberty, justice,
and benevolence, are its everlasting basis; and if these could be removed, the superstructure is
overthrown of course.
Let the colleges join their harmony in the same delightful concert. Let every declamation turn
upon the beauty of liberty and virtue, and the deformity, turpitude, and malignity, of slavery and

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vice. Let the public disputations become researches into the grounds and nature and ends of
government, and the means of preserving the good and demolishing the evil. Let the dialogues,
and all the exercises, become the instruments of impressing on the tender mind, and of spreading
and distributing far and wide, the ideas of right and the sensations of freedom.
In a word, let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing. The encroachments upon
liberty in the reigns of the first James and the first Charles, by turning the general attention of
learned men to government, are said to have produced the greatest number of consummate
statesmen which has ever been seen in any age or nation. The Brookes, Hampdens, Vanes,
Seldens, Miltons, Nedhams, Harringtons, Nevilles, Sidneys, Lockes, are all said to have owed
their eminence in political knowledge to the tyrannies of those reigns. The prospect now before
us in America, ought in the same manner to engage the attention of every man of learning, to
matters of power and of right, that we may be neither led nor driven blindfolded to irretrievable
destruction. Nothing less than this seems to have been meditated for us, by somebody or other in
Great Britain. There seems to be a direct and formal design on foot, to enslave all America. This,
however, must be done by degrees. The first step that is intended, seems to be an entire
subversion of the whole system of our fathers, by the introduction of the canon and feudal law
into America. The canon and feudal systems, though greatly mutilated in England, are not yet
destroyed. Like the temples and palaces in which the great contrivers of them once worshipped
and inhabited, they exist in ruins; and much of the domineering spirit of them still remains. The
designs and labors of a certain society, to introduce the former of them into America, have been
well exposed to the public by a writer of great abilities; and the further attempts to the same
purpose, that may be made by that society, or by the ministry or parliament, I leave to the
conjectures of the thoughtful. But it seems very manifest from the Stamp Act itself, that a design
is formed to strip us in a great measure of the means of knowledge, by loading the press, the
colleges, and even an almanac and a newspaper, with restraints and duties; and to introduce the
inequalities and dependencies of the feudal system, by taking from the poorer sort of people all
their little subsistence, and conferring it on a set of stamp officers, distributors, and their
deputies. But I must proceed no further at present. The sequel, whenever I shall find health and
leisure to pursue it, will be a "disquisition of the policy of the stamp act." In the mean time,
however, let me add, -- These are not the vapors of a melancholy mind, nor the effusions of
envy, disappointed ambition, nor of a spirit of opposition to government, but the emanations of a
heart that burns for its country’s welfare. No one of any feeling, born and educated in this once
happy country, can consider the numerous distresses, the gross indignities, the barbarous
ignorance, the haughty usurpations, that we have reason to fear are meditating for ourselves, our
children, our neighbors, in short, for all our countrymen and all their posterity, without the
utmost agonies of heart and many tears.

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NOTES

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