Page:A Declaration of the People's Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature (1775) (IA declarationofpeo00shar).djvu/279

This page needs to be proofread.

may arise from their improvements) to the use and benefit of all beneficial Laws which were in force at the time of their ancestors emigration.

That these, however, “must be understood with” some “Restrictions,” cannot be denied; — as the Laws of “Revenue,” (for instance,) which the learned Gentleman himself has mentioned: for these were merely local, and cannot therefore be legally enforced in any new Dominions without the express Assent or Grant of the Inhabitants in such new Dominions, the same being absolutely necessary to give them a local effect within the said Dominions: because nothing but free Grant and Assent of the inhabitants and Landholders gave them force, originally, even in the Mother-Country; and, therefore, nothing but the like authority (that is, the free Grant of the inhabitants upon the spot, wherever they are introduced)