found on the circumstance that the
Colonies were not represented in Parliament, propounding, on the
contrary, what Lord Campbell calls "his doctrine of virtual
representation." "There can," said he, "be no doubt but that the
inhabitants of the Colonies are represented in Parliament, as the
greatest part of the people of England are represented, among nine
millions of whom there are eight who have no votes in electing members
of Parliament. Every objection, therefore, to the dependency of the
Colonies upon Parliament which arises upon the ground of representation
goes to the whole present constitution of Great Britain.... For what
purpose, then, are arguments drawn from a distinction in which there is
no real difference of a virtual and an actual representation? A member
of Parliament chosen for any borough represents not only the
constituents and inhabitants of that particular place, but he represents
the inhabitants of every other borough in Great Britain. He represents
the City of London and all the other Commons of the land, and the
inhabitants of all the colonies and dominions of Great Britain, and is
in duty and conscience bound to take care of their interests."

Lord Mansfield's doctrine of a virtual representation of the Colonies
must be admitted to be overstrained. The analogy between the case of
colonists in a country from no part of which representatives are sent to
Parliament, and that of a borough or county where some classes of the
population which may, in a sense, be regarded as spokesmen or agents of
the rest form a constituency and return members, must be allowed to
fail; yet the last sentences of this extract are worth preserving, as
laying down the important constitutional principle, subsequently
expanded and enforced with irresistible learning and power of argument
by Burke, that a member of the House of Commons is not a delegate,
bound, under all circumstances, to follow the opinions or submit to the
dictation of his constituents, but that from the moment of his election
he is a councillor of the whole kingdom, bound to exercise an
independent judgment for the interests of the whole people, rather than
to guide himself by the capricious or partial judgments of a small
section of it. But in its more immediate objects--that of establishing
the two principles, that the constitution knows of no limitation to the
authority of Parliament, and of no distinction between the power of
taxation and that of any