If we may forcibly
defend a natural right, we may employ force to regain natural rights
of which we have been disseized. It is admitted amongst us that of all
wars the Revolution is the most easily to be defended; but I desire to
see it occupy the high moral ground which the most paternal and
beneficial government occupies when it defends the natural and
inalienable rights of its citizens.
The real question was this: Who may of right govern the North American
colonies? the colonists themselves, or the Parliament of Great Britain?
In the colonies there was no difference of opinion upon this point,
though there was some as to the mode of securing its exercise. If,
then, the right of self-government were in the colonists, did they use
all proper means of securing its exercise previous to a resort to
arms? They spent ten years in the work of petition, remonstrance and
expostulation--and those ten years of experience convinced the people
that the policy of the British Ministry and Parliament was fixed and
irreversible; that there was only resistance to the execution of this
policy on the one hand, and submission, which must end in abject
slavery, on the other. If the American Revolution be morally
indefensible, then not only are all wars indefensible, but all human
governments, the wisest and the best, equally so.
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