t there
is such a thing as a higher law.

The court decided in favour of the validity of the writs; and John
Adams, who heard the judgment, wrote long after that in that hour the
child Independence was born. The English view triumphed for the time,
and the governor wrote home that the murmurs soon ceased. The States,
and ultimately the United States, rejected general warrants; and since
1817 they are in agreement with the law of England. On that point,
therefore, the colonies were in the right.

Then came the larger question of taxation. Regulation of external
traffic was admitted. England patrolled the sea and protected America
from the smuggler and the pirate. Some remuneration might be
reasonably claimed; but it ought to be obtained in such a way as not
to hamper and prohibit the increase of wealth. The restrictions on
industry and trade were, however, contrived for the benefit of England
and to the injury of her colonies. They demanded that the arrangement
should be made for their mutual advantage. They did not go so far as
to affirm that it ought to be to their advantage only, irrespective of
ours, which is our policy with our colonies at the present time. The
claim was not originally excessive. It is the basis of the imputation
that the dispute, on both sides, was an affair of sordid interest. We
shall find it more just to say that the motive was empire on one side
and self-government on the other. It was a question between liberty
and authority, government by consent and government by force, the
control of the subject by the State, and the control of the State by
the subject. The issue had never been so definitely raised. In
England it had long been settled. It had been settled that the
legislature could, without breach of any ethical or constitutional
law, without forfeiting its authority or exposing itself to just
revolt, make laws injurious to the subject for the benefit of English
religion or English trade. If that principle was abandoned in America
it could not well be maintained in Ireland, and the green flag might
fly on Dublin Castle.

This was no survival of the dark ages. Both the oppression of Ireland
and the oppression of America were the work of the modern school, of
men who executed one king and expelled another. It was the work of
parliament, of the parliaments of Cromwell and of William III. And
the parliament would not consent to renounce its own specific policy,
its right