First Continental Congress

“ As to the two first articles of expense, every Colony had made such provision as by their respective Assemblies, the best judges on such occasions, was thought expedient, and suitable to their several circumstances: respecting the last, it is well known to all men the least acquainted with American affairs, that the Colonies were established, and generally defended themselves without the least assistance from Great Britain; and that, at the time of her taxing them, by the Statutes before mentioned, most of them were labouring under very heavy debts contracted in the last war. ”

“ In their piety, generosity, and good sense, we repose high confidence; and cannot, upon a review of past events, be persuaded that they, the defenders of true religion, and the asserters of the rights of mankind, will take part against their affectionate Protestant brethren in the Colonies in favour of our open and their own secret enemies, whose intrigues for several years past have been wholly exercised in sapping the foundations of Civil and Religious Liberty. ”

“ Against the temporary inconveniences you may suffer from a stoppage of Trade, you will weigh in the opposite balance the endless miseries you and your descendants must endure from an established arbitrary power. ”

“ In every case of opposition by a People to their Rulers, or of one state to another, duty to Almighty God, the creator of all, requires that a true and impartial judgment be formed of the measures leading to such opposition, and of the causes by which it has been provoked, or can in any degree be justified, that neither affection on the one hand, nor resentment on the other, being permitted to give a wrong bias to reason, it may be enabled to take a dispassionate view of all circumstances, and to settle the publick conduct on the solid foundations of Wisdom and Justice. ”

“ We deeply deplore the urgent necessity that presses us to an immediate interruption of commerce that may prove injurious to them. We trust they will acquit us of any unkind intentions towards them, by reflecting that we are driven by the hands of violence into unexperienced and unexpected publick convulsions, and that we are contending for freedom, so often contended for by our ancestors. ”

“ Between these Provinces and that body subsists the social band, which we ardently wish may never be dissolved, and which cannot be dissolved until their minds shall become indisputably hostile, or their inattention shall permit those who are thus hostile, to persist in prosecuting, with the powers of the Realm, the destructive measures already operating against the Colonists, and, in either case, shall reduce the latter to such a situation that they shall be compelled to renounce every regard but that of self-preservation. ”

“ Administration, attributing to trifling causes, a conduct that really proceeded from generous motives, were encouraged in the same year [1767] to make a bolder experiment on the patience of America.
By a Statute, commonly called the Glass, Paper, and Tea Act, made fifteen months after the repeal of the Stamp Act, the Commons of Great Britain resumed their former language, and again undertook to "give and grant Rates" and Duties to be paid in these Colonies," for the express purpose of "raising a Revenue to defray the charges of the Administration of Justice; the support of Civil Government ”

“ On the intelligence of these transactions arriving in Great Britain, the publick spirited Town last mentioned, was singled out for destruction, and it was determined the Province it belongs to should partake of its fate. In the last session of Parliament, therefore, were passed the Acts for shutting up the Port of Boston, indemnifying the murderers of the inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay, and changing their chartered Constitution of Government. To enforce these Acts, that Province is again invaded by a Fleet and Army. ”

“ We do not incline to accelerate their motion, already alarmingly rapid; we have chosen a method of opposition that does not preclude a hearty reconciliation with our fellow-citizens on the other side of the Atlantic. ”

“ In the session of Parliament last mentioned, an Act was passed for changing the Government of Quebec, by which Act the Roman Catholick Religion, instead of being tolerated, as stipulated by the Treaty of Peace, is established; and the people there are deprived of a right to an Assembly ”

“ This conduct must appear equally astonishing and unjustifiable, when it is considered how unprovoked it has been by any behaviour of these Colonies. From their first settlement, their bitterest enemies never fixed on any of them a charge of disloyalty to their Sovereign, or disaffection to their mother country. In the wars she has carried on, they have exerted themselves whenever required, in giving her assistance ”

“ The immediate tendency of these Statutes is to subvert the right of having a share in Legislation, by rendering Assemblies useless; the right of Property, by taking the money of the Colonists without their consent; the right of Trial by Jury, by substituting in their place trials in Admiralty and Vice Admiralty Courts, where single Judges preside, holding their commissions during pleasure ”

“ They have acted in all things, even in their Remonstrance, with temper and moderation; they have avoided some subjects of dispute, and have laid a foundation for removing some causes of former altercation. ”