stitutional right to impose the former, but not
the latter. The Tory opposition in the British Parliament denied the
distinction between _external_ and _internal_ taxes, and maintained that
if Parliament had the right to impose the one they had equally the right
to impose the other; but the advocates of American rights maintained the
distinction between _external_ and _internal_ taxation; and also Dr.
Franklin, in his evidence at the bar of the House of Commons, in
February, 1766, which I have quoted at length above, as the best
exposition of the colonial side of the questions at issue between
England and America. I will here reproduce two questions and answers on
the subject now under consideration:

Q.--"You say they do not object to the right of Parliament, in levying
duties on goods, to be paid on their importation; now, is there any kind
of difference between a duty on the importation of goods and an excise
on their consumption?"

A.--"Yes, a very material one; an excise, for the reasons I have just
mentioned, they think you can have no right to levy within their
country. But the sea is yours; you maintain by your fleets the safety of
navigation in it, and keep it clear of pirates; you may have therefore a
natural and equitable right to some toll or duty on merchandise carried
through that part of your dominions, towards defraying the expense you
are at in ships to maintain the safety of that carriage."

Q.--"Does this reasoning hold in the case of a duty laid on the produce
of their lands exported? And would they not then object to make a duty?"

A.--"If it tended to make the produce so much dearer abroad as to lessen
the demand for it, to be sure they would object to such a duty; _not to
your right of levying it_, but they would complain of it as a burden,
and petition you to lighten it."

It will be observed that in these words of Dr. Franklin there is the
fullest recognition of the right of Parliament to impose duties on all
articles imported into, or exported from, the colonies; the only
exception was the levying direct or _internal_ taxes for the purposes of
revenue, the right to impose which was held, and we think justly held,
to belong to the representative Legislatures elected by the colonists
themselves. Such also were the views of the two great statesmen, Pitt
and Burke, who with such matchless eloquence advocated the rights of
the colonies--whose speeches have become household words in America, and