e things have we not seen already! What
monsters have not been generated from this unnatural contention! Whilst
every principle of authority and resistance has been pushed, upon both
sides, as far as it would go, there is nothing so solid and certain,
either in reasoning or in practice, that has not been shaken. Until very
lately, all authority in America seemed to be nothing but an emanation
from yours. Even the popular part of the colony constitution derived all
its activity, and its first vital movement, from the pleasure of the
crown. We thought, Sir, that the utmost which the discontented colonists
could do was to disturb authority; we never dreamt they could of
themselves supply it, knowing in general what an operose business it is
to establish a government absolutely new. But having, for our purposes
in this contention, resolved that none but an obedient assembly should
sit, the humors of the people there, finding all passage through the
legal channel stopped, with great violence broke out another way. Some
provinces have tried their experiment, as we have tried ours; and theirs
has succeeded. They have formed a government sufficient for its
purposes, without the bustle of a revolution, or the troublesome
formality of an election. Evident necessity and tacit consent have done
the business in an instant. So well they have done it, that Lord Dunmore
(the account is among the fragments on your table) tells you that the
new institution is infinitely better obeyed than the ancient government
ever was in its most fortunate periods. Obedience is what makes
government, and not the names by which it is called: not the name of
Governor, as formerly, or Committee, as at present. This new government
has originated directly from the people, and was not transmitted
through any of the ordinary artificial media of a positive constitution.
It was not a manufacture ready formed, and transmitted to them in that
condition from England. The evil arising from hence is this: that the
colonists having once found the possibility of enjoying the advantages
of order in the midst of a struggle for liberty, such struggles will not
henceforward seem so terrible to the settled and sober part of mankind
as they had appeared before the trial.

Pursuing the same plan of punishing by the denial of the exercise of
government to still greater lengths, we wholly abrogated the ancient
government of Massachusetts. We were confident that the first feelin