The Controversy between Great Britain and Her Colonies Reviewed; the Several Pleas of the Colonies, in Support of Their Right to All the Liberties and Privileges of British Subjects...
- William Knox (author)
- Jack P. Greene (collection editor)
In this 1769 pamphlet, William Knox argues against colonial claims to exemption from Parliament’s authority, contending that if American colonists are British subjects entitled to English liberties, they must also be bound by Parliament’s laws, since the two claims cannot logically be separated. He methodically dismantles colonial resolutions from Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, along with arguments from Dickinson and Franklin, insisting that no distinction—internal versus external taxes, or taxation versus regulation—can shield the colonies from full parliamentary jurisdiction. Knox concludes that Parliament’s sovereignty over the colonies is total and consistent with British constitutional tradition, framing colonial resistance as based on inconsistent, self-serving, and historically unfounded reasoning.
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The text of these 18th century pamphlets has been converted by machine from scanned PDFs of the original microfilm copies. While the text has been machine-proofed, transcription errors may still remain. For example, the 18th-century long S, ſ , may be rendered as “f,” some words may be incorrectly transcribed, and there may be repeated words or phrases.