w different their language, and his practice, here!
To declare, as their duty required, the known rights of their country,
to oppose the usurpation of every foreign judicature, to disregard
the imperious mandates of a Minister or Governor, have been the avowed
causes of dissolving Houses of Representatives in America. But if such
powers be really vested in his Majesty, can he suppose they are
there placed to awe the members from such purposes as these? When the
representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when
they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they
have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their
hands, then, indeed, their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the
state, and calls for an exercise of the power of dissolution. Such being
the causes for which the representative body should, and should not, be
dissolved, will it not appear strange, to an unbiassed observer, that
that of Great Britain was not dissolved, while those of the colonies
have repeatedly incurred that sentence?

* On further inquiry, I find two instances of dissolutions
before the Parliament would, of itself, have been at an end:
viz. the Parliament called to meet August 24, 1698, was
dissolved by King William, December 19, 1700, and a new one
called, to meet February 6, 1701, which was also dissolved
November 11, 1701, and a new one met December 30, 1701.

But your Majesty or your Governors have carried this power beyond every
limit known or provided for by the laws. After dissolving one House of
Representatives, they have refused to call another, so that, for a great
length of time, the legislature provided by the laws has been out of
existence. From the nature of things, every society must at all times
possess within itself the sovereign powers of legislation. The feelings
of human nature revolt against the supposition of a state so situated,
as that it may not, in any emergency, provide against dangers which
perhaps threaten immediate ruin. While those bodies are in existence
to whom the people have delegated the powers of legislation, they alone
possess, and may exercise, those powers. But when they are dissolved, by
the lopping off one or more of their branches, the power reverts to the
people, who may use it to unlimited extent, either assembling together
in person, sending deputies, or in any other way they may think proper.
We