In Adams wrote “A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law,” which justified opposition to the recently enacted Stamp Act—an effort to raise revenue by requiring all publications and legal documents to bear a stamp—by arguing that Parliament’s intrusions into colonial affairs exposed the inherently coercive and corrupt Jun 01, · A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law: May – 21 October Reference Cite as “IV. “A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law,” No. 2, 19 August ,” Founders Online, National Archives, blogger.com Jun 01, · VI. “A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law,” No. 4, 21 October Author Adams, John Recipient Boston Gazette (newspaper) Date 21 October Ancestor groups A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law: May – 21 October Reference Cite as “VI
IV. “A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law,” No. 2, 1 …
WE have been afraid to think. We have felt a reluctance to examining into the grounds of our privileges, and the extent in which we have an indisputable right to demand them against all the power and authority, on earth.
And many who have not scrupled to examine for themselves, have yet for certain prudent reasons been cautious, and diffident of declaring the result of their enquiries. The cause of this timidity is perhaps hereditary and to be traced back in history, as far as the cruel treatment the first settlers of this country received, before their embarkation for America, from the government at Home.
Every body knows how dangerous it was to speak or write in favour of any thing in those days, but the triumphant system of religion and politicks. And our fathers were particularly, the objects of the persecutions and proscriptions of the times. It is not unlikely therefore, dissertation on the canon and feudal, that, although they were inflexibly steady in refusing their positive assent to any thing against their dissertation on the canon and feudal, they might have contracted habits of reserve, and a cautious diffidence of asserting their opinions publickly.
These habits they probably brought with them to America, and have transmitted down to us. These peculiar causes might operate upon them; but without these we all know, that human nature itself, from indolence, modesty, humanity or fear, has always too much reluctance to a manly assertion of its rights. Hence perhaps it has happened that nine tenths of the species, are groaning and gasping in misery and servitude.
But whatever the cause has been, the fact is certain, we have been excessively cautious of giving offence by complaining of grievances. They have prevailed on us to consent to many things, which were grosly injurious to us, and to surrender many others with voluntary tameness, to which we had the clearest right.
Have we not been treated formerly, with abominable insolence, by officers of the navy? I mean no insinuation against any gentleman now on this station, dissertation on the canon and feudal heard no complaint of any one of them to his dishonor. Have not some generals, from England, treated us like servants, nay more like slaves than like Britons? Have we not been under the most ignominious contribution, the most abject submission, the most supercilious insults of some custom house officers?
Have we not been trifled with, browbeaten, and trampled on, by former governors, in a manner which no king of England since James the second has dared to indulge towards his subjects? Have we not raised up one family, 1 in them placed an unlimitted confidence, and been soothed and battered and intimidated by their influence, into a great part of this infamous tameness and submission? This disposition has been the great wheel and the mainspring in the American machine of court politicks.
Do you consider your self as a missionary of loyalty or of rebellion? Are you not representing your King his ministry and parliament as tyrants, imperious, unrelenting tyrants by such reasoning as this?
Is not this representing your most gracious sovereign, as endeavouring to destroy the foundations of his own throne? Are you not putting language into the royal mouth, which if fairly pursued will shew him to have no right to the crown on his own sacred head? Do you not represent them as forgetting that the prince of Orange, dissertation on the canon and feudal, was created King William by the People, on purpose that their rights might be eternal and inviolable?
Is there not something extremely fallacious, in the common-place images of mother country and children colonies? Are we the children of Great-Britain, any more than the cities of London, Exeter and Bath?
Are we not brethren and fellow subjects, with those in Britain, only under a somewhat different method of legislation, and a totally different method of taxation? But admitting we are children; have not children a right to complain when their parents are attempting to break their limbs, to administer poison, or to sell them to enemies for slaves? Let me intreat you to consider, will the mother, be pleased, when you represent dissertation on the canon and feudal as deaf to the cries of her children?
When you compare her to the infamous miscreant, who lately stood on the gallows for starving her child? When you resemble her to Lady Macbeth in Shakespear, I cannot think of it without horror. Let us banish forever from our minds, my countrymen, all such unworthy ideas of the King, his ministry and parliament. Let us not suppose, that all are become luxurious effeminate and unreasonable, on the other side the water, as many designing persons would insinuate.
Let us presume, what is in fact true, that the spirit of liberty, is as ardent as dissertation on the canon and feudal among the body of the nation, though a few individuals may be corrupted.
This spirit however without knowledge, would be little better than a brutal rage. Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak and write. Let every order and degree among the people rouse their attention and animate their resolution. Let them all become attentive to the grounds and principles of government, ecclesiastical and civil.
Let us study the law of nature; search into the spirit of the British constitution; read the histories of ancient ages; contemplate the great examples of Greece and Rome; set before us, the conduct of our own British ancestors, who have defended for us, the inherent rights of mankind, against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests, in short against the gates of earth and hell.
Let us read and recollect and impress upon our souls, the views and ends, of our own more immediate forefathers, in exchanging their native country for a dreary, inhospitable wilderness.
Let us examine into the nature of that power and the cruelty of that oppression which drove them from their homes. Recollect their amazing fortitude, their bitter sufferings! The hunger, the nakedness, the cold, which they patiently endured! The severe labours of clearing their grounds, building their houses, raising their provisions amidst dangers from wild beasts and savage men, before they had time or money or materials for commerce!
Recollect the civil and religious principles and hopes and expectations, which constantly supported and carried them through all hardships, and patience and resignation! Let us recollect it was liberty! The hope of liberty for themselves and us and ours, which conquered all discouragements, dangers and trials! In such researches as these let us all in our several departments chearfully engage!
But especially the proper patrons and supporters of law, learning and religion. Let the pulpit resound with the doctrines and sentiments of religious liberty.
Let us hear the danger of thraldom to our consciences, from ignorance, extream poverty and dependance, dissertation on the canon and feudal, in short from civil and political slavery. Let us see delineated before us, the true map of man. Let us hear the dignity of his nature, and the noble rank he dissertation on the canon and feudal among the works of God! that consenting to slavery is a sacriligious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of God, as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest or happiness; and that God almighty has promulgated from heaven, liberty, peace, and good-will to man!
Let it be known, that British liberties are not the grants of princes or parliaments, but original rights, conditions of original contracts, coequal with prerogative and coeval with government.
Let them search for the foundations of British laws and government in the frame of human nature, in the constitution of the intellectual and moral world. There let us see, that truth, liberty, justice and benevolence, are its everlasting basis; and if these could be removed, the superstructure is overthrown of course.
Let the colleges join their harmony, in the same delightful concern. Let every declamation turn upon the beauty of liberty and virtue, and the deformity, turpitude and malignity of slavery and vice. Let the public disputations become researches into the grounds and nature and ends of government, and the means of preserving the good and demolishing the evil, dissertation on the canon and feudal.
Let the dialogues and all the exercises, become the instruments of impressing on the tender mind, and of spreading and distributing, far and wide, the ideas of right and the sensations of freedom.
The encroachments upon liberty, in the reigns of the first James and the first Charles, by turning the general attention of learned men to government, are said to have produced the greatest number of consummate statesmen, which has ever been seen in any age, or nation. Your Clarendons, Southamptons, Seldens, Hampdens, Faulklands, Sidneys, Locks, Harringtons, are all said to have owed their eminence in political knowledge, to the tyrannies of those reigns.
The prospect, now before us, in America, ought in the same manner to engage the attention of every man of learning to matters of power and of right, that we may be neither led nor driven blindfolded to irretrievable destruction. Nothing less than this seems to have been meditated for us, by somebody or other in Great-Britain. There seems to be a direct and formal design on foot, to enslave all America.
This however must be done by degrees. The first step that is intended seems to be an entire subversion of the whole system of our Fathers, by an introduction of the cannon and feudal law, into America. The designs and labours of a cer tain society, 5 to introduce the former of them into America, have been well exposed to the public by a writer of great abilities, 6 and the further attempts to the same purpose that may be made by that society, or by the ministry or parliament, I leave to the conjectures of the thoughtful.
But I must proceed no further at present. No one of any feeling, born and educated in this once happy country, can consider the numerous distresses, the gross indignities, the barbarous ignorance, the haughty usurpations, that we have reason to fear are meditating for ourselves, our children, dissertation on the canon and feudal, our neighbours, in short for all our countrymen and all their posterity, without the utmost agonies of heart, and many tears.
MS not found. Reprinted from the Boston Gazette21 Oct. The family of Lt. Thomas Hutchinson, dissertation on the canon and feudal. In Aug. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, ; 4 vols.
description ends The source of this quotation and those that follow has not been determined. For an interesting analysis dissertation on the canon and feudal the role of the parent-child analogy in Revolutionary thought, dissertation on the canon and feudal, see Edwin G. Denounce: announce or proclaim, obs. and supplement. description ends under 1b. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
Jonathan Mayhew. JA never wrote a sequel. Skip navigation. Go to main content. Adams Papers. Preceding From Adams to Boston Gazette [30 September ] Next From Adams to Boston Gazette [11 Dissertation on the canon and feudal ] All All correspondence between Adams and Boston Gazette.
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Jun 01, · VI. “A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law,” No. 4, 21 October Author Adams, John Recipient Boston Gazette (newspaper) Date 21 October Ancestor groups A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law: May – 21 October Reference Cite as “VI In Adams wrote “A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law,” which justified opposition to the recently enacted Stamp Act—an effort to raise revenue by requiring all publications and legal documents to bear a stamp—by arguing that Parliament’s intrusions into colonial affairs exposed the inherently coercive and corrupt Jun 01, · A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law: May – 21 October Reference Cite as “IV. “A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law,” No. 2, 19 August ,” Founders Online, National Archives, blogger.com
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