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The Rights of the Colonists - Page 3

© Brian Tubbs

Before Otis gets too far down this road, he takes a brief detour, seizing on the opportunity to condemn slavery. "The colonists are by the law of nature freeborn, as indeed all men are, white or black. No better reasons can be given for enslaving those of any color than such as Baron Montesquieu has humorously given as the foundation of that cruel slavery exercised over the poor Ethiopians, which threatens one day to reduce both Europe and America to the ignorance and barbarity of the darkest ages."

After emphasizing his condemnation of slavery a bit more, Otis returns to the context of the current dispute. He writes: "The colonists, being men, have a right to be considered as equally entitled to all the rights of nature with the Europeans, and they are not to be restrained in the exercise of any of these rights but for the evident good of the whole community." He adds that, while the king's subjects in North America have submitted to British authority, "they have not renounced their natural liberty in any greater degree than other good citizens, and if 'tis taken from them without their consent they are so far enslaved."

Otis nevertheless concedes that "one of the first principles from whence I intend to deduce the civil rights of the British colonies" is that the American colonists are "subject to and dependent on Great Britain." Within this context, Otis admits that that Parliament "has an undoubted power and lawful authority to make acts for the general good that, by naming them, shall and ought to be equally binding as upon the subjects of Great Britain within the realm." With a hint of humor, he adds: "This principle, I presume, will be readily granted on the other side the Atlantic."

Otis, however, returns quickly to the point that being politically dependent upon Great Britain and lawfully subject to Parliament and the king is not tantamount to surrendering one's civil rights. On the contrary, he writes: "That the colonists, black and white, born here are freeborn British subjects, and entitled to all the essential civil rights of such is a truth not only manifest from the provincial charters, from the principles of the common law, and acts of Parliament, but from the British constitution, which was re-established at the Revolution with a professed design to secure the liberties of all the subjects to all generations..."

Otis writes that no one ever "dreamed" that these basic, fundamental rights only belonged to those living in England. Yet, he asks: "Now can there be any liberty where property is taken away without consent? Can it with any color of truth, justice, or equity be affirmed that the northern colonies are represented in Parliament?"

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