had violated the terms of the contract, to enjoin the further performance or attempt to perform the services not included in it. This unwritten contract was described in the Address as "the transcendent relation formed by the ties of law, loyalty, faith and blood," which was the supreme law governing the relations of the States of the Empire to each other.

The purpose of the Address to the People of Great Britain was, in part, to urge them to settle the matter out of court and thus avoid the necessity of having the matter go to final judgment, and in part to notify them that, if they persisted in supporting their Parliament in the position that the Empire was not a federal organism and thus making it impossible for the King to adjudicate and execute the unwritten Constitution of the Empire, the Colonies would regard the Empire as dissolved by the act of the people and State of Great Britain. In this Address it was declared that the statutes complained of were violations of the "rights of the whole Empire,”—that is, of the unwritten Constitution of the Federal Empire. The people of Great Britain were declared to be addressed as "fellow-subjects" of the same King,-that is, as subject to the adjudication and execution, by the King of Great Britain, as ex officio the Disposer of the affairs of the Empire, of the terms of the Constitution of the Empire. An appeal was made to their "justice and magnanimity to compel the Parliament to repeal the statutes which were in excess of the constitutional powers of the State of Great Britain, and thus remove the necessity for an adjudication and execution of the Constitution of the Empire by the King.

The ultimatum of America therefore was, in a word, that the British Empire be recognized, by the State of Great Britain, as a Federal Empire.

CHAPTER XVII

BRITISH PROPOSITIONS, 1775

'HE decision in the case of Campbell v. Hall, ren

THE

dered November 28, 1774, after four arguments, by the Court of Kings Bench, presided over by Chief Justice Mansfield, recognizing as it did that the King had legislative power over dependencies arising by conquest, and that such power was conditioned and limited so that he could make no laws which were "contrary to fundamental principles, or excepting from the laws of trade or authority of Parliament, or granting privileges [to inhabitants of the Colonies] exclusive of his other subjects," gave a new trend to thought on both sides of the water, and particularly in America. Thenceforward, though the Court in that case had recognized Parliament as the Supreme Legislature of the Empire, there was a distinct and increasing tendency in America to regard the King—that is, the King in Council-as the Supreme Head of the Empire, and to deny to Parliament all power in the Empire.

The exact question involved in that case was, whether the King, after having granted, by Proclamation in Council, to the Island of Grenada, in the West Indiesone of the countries ceded by France to Great Britain by the Treaty of Paris of February 4, 1763, upon the close of the war-the right to have an elected House of Representatives as a part of its General Assembly, could, by a subsequent Proclamation in Council, lay a tariff duty on articles imported into the Island. The Court held that

the King would have had power to levy the tax, had he not granted Grenada the right to have an elective branch of its Legislature, but that by such grant he had precluded himself from levying the tax.

In the argument on behalf of the Crown, Attorney General Thurlow (afterwards Lord Chancellor) said:

My reason for stating that dominion and property were acquired over Grenada by conquest was, because I shall infer that the Constitution has intrusted the King with the disposition of the property, and with the ordering of that dominion conquered; subject to the legislation of the country [i. e., of Great Britain].

The King, both in conquests and colonies, has had this right. There has not been an instance in which the King has not exercised the disposition of the laws and property of the conquered country.

Lord Mansfield, delivering the opinion of the Court, said:

If the King has power (and when I say the King, I mean in this case to be understood "without concurrence of Parliament") to make new laws for a conquered country, this being a power subordinate to his own authority as a part of the Supreme Legislature in Parliament, he can make none which are contrary to fundamental principles, none excepting from the laws of trade or authority of Parliament, or [granting] privileges exclusive of his other subjects.

The present proclamation [of July 20, 1764, levying the tax] is an act of this subordinate legislative power. If made before the 11th of October, 1763 [the date of the proclamation granting to Grenada the right to have a Legislative Assembly], it would have been made on the most reasonable and equitable grounds; putting the Island of Grenada on the same footing as the other Islands. The only question which remains then is, whether the King had power, after the 4th of February, 1763, of himself, to impose the duty.

It is not to be wondered at that an adjudged case in point is not to be found; no dispute ever was started before upon the King's legislative right over a conquest. It never was denied in a court of law or equity in Westminster Hall, never was questioned in Parliament.

Upon full consideration, we are all of opinion that before the 20th of July, 1764, the King had precluded himself from an exercise of the legislative authority by virtue of his prerogative, which he had before over the Island of Grenada.

We therefore think that, by the two proclamations [of October 11, 1763, and March 26, 1764, the latter inviting settlers to the Island] and the commission to Governor Melville [of April 29, 1764], the King had immediately and irrevocably granted to all who did or should inhabit, all who had or should have property in the Island of Grenada-in general, to all whom it may concern-that the subordinate legislation over the Island should be exercised by the Assembly and the Governor and Council, in like manner as in the other Provinces under the King.

And, therefore, though the right of the King to have levied taxes on a conquered country, subject to him in right of his Crown, was good, and the duty reasonable, equitable and expedient, and according to the finding of the verdict paid in the Barbadoes and all the other Leeward Islands; yet, by the inadvertency of the King's servants, the order in which the several instruments passed the office (for the patent of the 20th of July, for raising the impost stated, should have been first), the order is inverted and the last we think contrary to and a violation of the first, and therefore void.

However proper soever the thing may be respecting the object of these letters patent, it can only now be done

by act of the Assembly of the Island, or by the Parliament of Great Britain.

While the British looked upon this case as supporting the claim of Parliament over the Colonies, the Americans, on the other hand, disregarded this feature of it (which was, in fact, a mere dictum), and laid stress upon the

point actually decided, namely, that the King—that is, the King in Council-had legislative power over the dependencies of Great Britain, but that his legislative power was conditioned and limited.

As Blackstone, in his Commentaries, had regarded the American Colonies as conquests, the effect of this decision, if his proposition was correct, was to declare that the King had legislative power over the American Colonies. Though the Americans vigorously denied Blackstone's proposition, they seem to have accepted the statement of Attorney General Thurlow, in the argument of the case, that the power of the King was the same "both in conquests and in colonies."

After that decision, the only question left, as the Americans looked at it, was whether the King or the Parliament was the Supreme Head of the Empire-that is, whether Parliament had no power over the Colonies or whether it had power over them under the same conditions and limitations as the King, in the exercise of which, however, it was supreme over the King.

If the Colonies were true States, the only bond of union between them and the State of Great Britain was logically the King, since the King was the representative of that State in its dealings with foreign States. If the Colonies were municipal corporations, Parliament was the representative of the State of Great Britain in dealing with them, and its powers were the same as it exercised in the Realm. If they were neither true States nor true municipal corporations, the question arose whether they most nearly resembled States or municipal corporations. The Colonies claimed that they so nearly resembled States that the King was the sole representative of the State of Great Britain as respected them. Some persons in the Colonies stopped here, and denied all power to Parliament; others took the position that, while the King was the usual and proper representative of the State of