though it was undoubtedly most
fundamental. To this point Mr. Samuel Adams had given much thought;
and in letters which he drafted for the Massachusetts Assembly, in
the famous circular letter particularly, and in the letter of January
12,1769, sent to the Assembly's agent in England, Mr. Dennys De Berdt,
Mr. Adams formulated a theory designed to show that the colonies
were "subordinate" but not subject to the British Parliament. The
delimitation of colonial and parliamentary jurisdictions Mr. Adams
achieved by subordinating all legislative authority to an authority
higher than any positive law, an authority deriving its sanction from
the fixed and universal law of nature. This higher authority, which no
legislature could "overleap without destroying its own foundation," was
the British Constitution.

Mr. Adams spoke of the British Constitution with immense confidence, as
something singularly definite and well known, the provisions of which
were clearly ascertainable; which singular effect doubtless came from
the fact that he thought of it, not indeed as something written down
on paper and deposited in archives of state, but as a series of
propositions which, as they were saying in France, were indelibly
"written in the hearts of all men." The British Constitution, he said,
like the constitution of every free state, "is fixed," having its
foundation not in positive law, which would indeed give Parliament an
ultimate and therefore a despotic authority, but in "the law of God
and nature." There were in the British Empire many legislatures, all
deriving their authority from, and all finding their limitations in,
the Constitution. Parliament had certainly a supreme or superintending
legislative authority in the Empire, as the colonial assemblies had
a "subordinate," in the sense of a local, legislative authority; but
neither the Parliament nor any colonial assembly could "overleap the
Constitution without destroying its own foundation." And therefore,
since the Constitution is founded "in the law of God and nature," and
since "it is an essential natural right that a man shall quietly enjoy
and have the sole disposal of his property," the Americans must enjoy
this right equally with Englishmen, and Parliament must be bound to
respect this right in the colonies as well as in England; from which it
followed irresistibly that the consent of the colonies to any taxation
must be sought exclusively in their own assemblies, it bein