Caesar Rodney Quotes

The various American charters were entered into and granted by the king for himself only …. No mention is made in them of the parliament.

I am free to confess that the exercise of that (Britain’s), authority is not perfectly constitutional in respect to the Colonies. We know that the whole landed interest of Britain is represented in that body (Parliament), while neither the land nor the people of America hold the least participation in the legislative authority of the State. Representation, or a participation in the supreme councils of the State, is the great principle upon which the freedom of the British Government is established and secured.

The American people believe that we ought to control our government. On the other hand, we've seen government more and more controlling us

There are limits, beyond which, if parliaments go, their acts bind not.

The inhabitants of the English colonies in North-America … are entitled to life, liberty and property: and they have never ceded to any foreign power whatever, a right to dispose of either without their consent.

Every good Englishman, abstracted from all regard for America, must oppose … being taxed by the British Parliament. For my own part, I am convinced that no argument … can be produced in support of this right.

The Stamp Act is an act of parliament, and as such ought to be observed. This house, sir, has too great a reverence for the supreme legislature of the nation, to question its just authority: it by no means appertains to us to presume to adjust the boundaries of the power of parliament

The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means neither more nor less than this, namely, that Parliament thus defined has, under the English constitution, the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and, further, that no person or body is recognized by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament.

Where is the man to be found at this day, when we see … bishops with indifference. Who will believe that the apprehension of Episcopy contributed 50 years ago, as much as any other cause to arouse the attention, not only of the inquiring mind, but of the common people, and urge them to close thinking on the constitutional authority of Parliament over the colonies.

In the British government, the danger of encroachment on the rights of the people, is understood to be confined to the executive magistrate. The representatives of the people in the legislature, are not only exempt themselves, from distrust, but are considered as sufficient guardians of the rights of their constituents against the danger from the executive. Hence, it is a principle, that the parliament is unlimited in its power, or, in their own language, is omnipotent. Hence, too, all the ramparts for protecting the rights of the people, such as the Magna Carta, their Bill of Rights &c., are not reared against the parliament, but against the royal prerogative.

There is no alternative. Either the colonies are a part of the community of Great Britain, or they are in a state of nature with respect to her, and in no case can be subject to that legislative power which represents her community, which is the British Parliament…. They [the American colonists] ought to reflect, that whatever may be their condition, they cannot apply to parliament to better it. If they reject the jurisdiction of parliament, they must not in any case sue for its interposition on their behalf.

America was not annexed to the realm, and … it was not fitting that Parliament should make laws for those countries.

… no line … can be drawn between the supreme authority of Parliament and the total independence of the colonies: it is impossible that there should be two independent legislatures in one and the same state.

The House of Commons, refused to receive the addresses of the colonies, when the matter was pending; besides, we hold our rights neither from them nor from the Lords.

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.

In this character of the Americans, a love of freedom is the predominating feature, which marks and distinguishes the whole … Your colonies become suspicious, restive and intractable whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force of shuffle from them by chicane what they think is the only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English colonies probably than in any other people of the earth …

We stand at present on the confines between the liberty of the subject and the prerogatives of the king.

The liberties, franchises, and privileges of parliament are the ancient and undoubted birth-right and inheritance of the subjects of England.

These colonies are, and of right ought to be, individual states.

That every tax imposed upon English subjects without consent is against the natural rights and the bounds prescribed by the English constitution. That the Stamp Act in special, is a tax imposed on the colonies without their consent. That it is the duty of every person in the colonies to oppose by every lawful means the execution of those acts imposed on them…

Civil liberty is the power of a civil society or state to govern itself by its own discretion or by laws of its own making, without being subject to the impositions of any power in appointing and directing which the collective body of the people have no concern and over which they have no control

The only representatives of the people of these colonies are persons chosen therein, by themselves; and that no taxes ever have been, or can be constitutionally imposed on them, but by their respective legislatures.

My idea, therefore, without considering whether we yield as matter of right or grant as matter of favor, is to admit the people of our colonies into an interest in the constitution; and, by recording that admission in the journals of Parliament, to give them as strong an assurance as the nature of the thing will admit that we mean forever to adhere to that solemn declaration of systematic indulgence.

Our devotion to individual freedom limits our readiness to give central government the power to override our traditional power structure.

A right to impose an internal tax on the colonies, without their consent for the single purpose of revenue, is denied, a right to regulate their trade without their consent is, admitted.