It is with GREAT pleasure I give you the words of Josiah Tucker, a Welshman from 1775, reacting to the American founding fathers (I have bolded for emphasis but the italics are his because he was salty AF, if anyone wants the specific thing I got this from send me an ask or a dm because I have to look it up.):
“You have now plainly and flatly told us, without any Colouring or Disguise, that you renounce all Subjection whatever to the Legislature of the Parent-State; and that you will not acknowledge, that she has any other Authority or Jurisdiction over you;—but what you yourselves shall please to give her. This is speaking plainly and to the Purpose: And so far you have acted a fair and consistent Part.
But, Gentlemen, are you and your Constituents, (for here I include you all) equally consistent and uniform in other Parts of your Conduct? And can it be affirmed, that you are as strenuous Advocates for Liberty in other Cases, as you are in this? You bravely declare, “That by the immutable Laws of Nature, you are entitled to Life, Liberty, and Property.” Certainly you are: And the Reason you give is not a bad one, when soberly understood, viz. “Because you have never ceded to any Sovereign Power whatever, a Right to dispose of either without your Consent.” Permit me therefore to ask, Why are not the poor Negroes, and the poor Indians entitled to the like Rights and Benefits? And how comes it to pass, that these immutable Laws of Nature are become so very mutable, and so very insignificant in respect to them? They probably never ceded to any Power,—most certainly they never ceded to you, a Right of disposing of their Lives, Liberties, and Properties, just as you please. And yet what horrid Cruelties do you daily practice on the Bodies of the poor Negros; over whom you can have no Claim, according to your own Principles? What shameful Robberies and Usurpations are you daily guilty of in respect to the poor Indians, the only true and rightful Proprietors of the Country which you inhabit? These Things, Gentlemen, ought not to be: For whilst you, and your Constituents, are chargeable with so much real Tyranny, Injustice, and Oppression; you declaim with a very ill Grace against the imaginary Tyranny, and the pretended Oppression of the Mother Country. I am not unacquainted with you Manner of carrying on your bartering Trade with the Indians, any more than with your Treatment of your unhappy Slaves the Blacks. I could also give some Specimens of your equitable Mode of measuring, and making Purchases of Lands from the Natives;—even when you condescend to the Formality and Farce of making a Purchase from them:—Also how you contrive to thin the Numbers of these unhappy Tribes by Means of your grand Engines of Death, Rum, and the Small-Pox: And then how you drive the miserable Survivors away, and seize their Lands.”
titsay
turnnoffyourmind
germansingergirl
theartofmadeline
dailybridgerton
