of payment, and enacting the law providing for the necessary taxation.

Other rights which the Colonies claimed were adjusted by a compromise or left unsettled as being so close to the border-line as to require adjudication in each case as it

arose.

The Colonies had during all this period objected to all interference of the English and British Government in affairs that they regarded as properly of local importance and interest. When the Post Office establishment was extended to the Colonies in 1707, they almost uniformly took upon themselves to regulate the manner in which the post-riders and postmasters should conduct themselves. When the British Government tried to enforce the Act of Parliament of 1710, which made it a penalty to cut or injure pine trees suitable for ships' masts growing on land not appropriated to private ownership, they made prosecution and punishment so difficult that the law became a dead letter. When the British Government tried, in 1741, to stop the issue of bills of credit by the Colonies, by compelling Massachusetts Bay to tax itself to pay off all its bills then outstanding, the situation was made so difficult that the British Government allowed the matter to drop.

That the individual in the American Colonies had all the rights, privileges, and immunities as against the Government that every inhabitant of England or Great Britain had, was undoubted. The right was secured by every Colonial Charter, and the Charters were regarded as merely declaratory of the existing law.

The British Imperial Constitution for the American Colonies and Provinces, as it existed in 1750, may, therefore, thus be summarized:

Ist. Concerning the political relationship between Great Britain and the Colonies:

It was adjudged and declared by Great Britain and

assented to by the Colonies that they were dependent on Great Britain, and that Great Britain, as the Imperial or Sovereign State, and the Colonies, as dependencies, or constitutionally subject States, constituted a single political organism known as the British Empire; that Great Britain, acting through the King in Council or Parliament, had power to make constitutions for or constitutional settlements with the Colonies, respecting their wishes as far as it deemed consistent with the common interests. In the infancy of the Colonies the inhabitants were little consulted, as it was usually impossible for them, owing to their lack of homogeneity and the sparseness of their settlements, to have any definite ideas as a community on the subject of their government. As the Colonies increased in compactness of organization, the form of government was established by Charters or Proclamations, which evidenced the constitutional settlements made from time to time between the King in Council and the Agents or General Assemblies of the Colonies.

2d. Concerning the respective spheres of jurisdiction of the Imperial State and the Colonies:

It was adjudged and declared by Great Britain and assented to by the Colonies that Great Britain, through its King, represented the whole Empire in the matter of making war and peace, and in all dealings with foreign States; and that Great Britain, through the King in Council, or through Parliament, or through any other governmental agency specially appointed for the purpose, had power to administer the common interests of the whole Empire, and that the Colonies had the exclusive power to administer their local interests in those respects in which they did not conflict with the interests of the Empire, under the condition that their local administration should conform to the equity of the laws of Great Britain that is, should not be repugnant to it, but

should be consistent with it as nearly as the local circumstances and conditions would permit; that Great Britain, through the King in Council, or through Parliament, had powers of administration reasonably incidental to the preservation of the common welfare, even though such administration extended to subjects which would ordinarily be within the sphere of jurisdiction of the Colonies, provided that such dispositions should not be repugnant, but agreeable, as nearly as might be, considering the circumstances and conditions of the whole Empire, to the laws and customs prevailing in the Colonies; that, for the purpose of preventing the intrusion of the Colonies into the sphere of jurisdiction of Great Britain, it was to be represented in the Colonies by a royal Governor with power of veto and sometimes by a royal Council, and that the King in Council should also have the power to veto Colonial legislation; and that, for the purpose of preventing intrusion by Great Britain into the sphere of jurisdiction of the Colonies, the petitions of their General Assemblies were to be considered and adjudicated upon by the King in Council and by Parliament, and the Agents of the Colonies were to be heard by the Board of Trade and Plantations and the Committee of the Privy Council for Plantation Affairs, before any action affecting the local interests of the Colonies became final.

The power to legislate in the common interests included the right to regulate foreign trade and the trade with the Indians, and probably also the right to regulate intercolonial trade (though this latter power seems not to have been exercised after the time of Charles II. and James II., owing to the prevalent belief in England that the dependence of the Colonies on England could be secured only by keeping them divided and fostering their jealousy of each other); to coin money and regulate its value, and fix the standard of weights and

measures; to establish an Imperial postal service; to constitute Imperial and Colonial Courts, unless the right to establish Colonial Courts were granted to a Colony in its Charter; to establish a Supreme Court of Appeal in England for the Colonies (the Court being a Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which was evidently regarded as the proper body to hear Colonial causes, since such causes had to be decided not by the laws of England but by the equity of those laws); to define and punish piracies and felonies on the high seas and offences against the law of nations; to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water; to provide and maintain an army, navy, and fortifications for the Imperial defence, and to have power over the militia of the Colonies when raised by the Colonies for the Imperial defence; to regulate the mode of proof of the acts, records, and proceedings of a Colony, in another Colony; and to provide for the extradition of criminals from one Colony to another.

Among the matters of common interest concerning which the Colonies could act when authorized, were the entering into treaty, alliance, or confederation with other Colonies; granting letters of marque and reprisal; coining money; emitting bills of credit; or making anything other than gold and silver coin a legal tender in payment of debts.

The right to tax for the Imperial defence and welfare had never, up to 1750 (or until 1764), been exercised by Great Britain. Its rights in this respect had, up to that time, been confined to an adjudication by the King in Council, after hearing the Agents of the Colonies, of the amounts of money or the numbers of troops which ought justly to be supplied by each Colony, and to making requisitions upon the respective Colonies, which responded through action taken by their General Assemblies for raising the money or troops.

3d. Concerning the rights of individuals in the Colonies against the Imperial and the Colonial Governments. It was adjudged and declared by Great Britain and assented to by the Colonies that neither the Imperial nor the Local Governments were to deprive the citizens of the Colonies of the equal protection of the laws (and hence were not to grant any monopoly except for patents, copyrights, etc.) or deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Due process of law, as against the Imperial Government, consisted in the Colonies being heard, through their Agents, acting both as diplomatic representatives and as attorneys at law, by the Board of Trade and Plantations and the Committee of the Privy Council for Plantation Affairs, before any action of the State of Great Britain depriving them, or any of their inhabitants, of life, liberty, or property, became final.

Under this Constitution, Great Britain and the Colonies were Member-States of a Federal Empire, in which Great Britain was the Imperial State and Central Government which adjudicated upon the limits of its own jurisdiction and concerning its action within these limits, after advising with the Colonial Agents, who acted as the representatives of the Colonies at the Court of the Imperial State. The usual instrumentality through which Great Britain made these adjudications or dispositions was the King, assisted by the Committee of the Privy Council for Plantation Affairs as a Secretarial Board or Chancellery, and by the Board of Trade and Plantations as an underSecretarial Board or sub-Chancellery, but the adjudications of the King were reviewable and controllable by the Parliament, composed of King, Lords, and Commons, acting in conformity with the conditions and trusts which rested upon the State.

The whole political organism composed of Great Britain and the Colonies was a Federal Empire, and not a