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Can there be any liberty where property is taken away without consent?

James Otis

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James Otis
Age: 58 †
Born: 1725
Born: February 5
Died: 1783
Died: May 23
Journalist
Lawyer
Politician
Barnstable
Massachusetts
James Otis Jr.
Property
Liberty
Taken
Freedom
Away
Without
Consent

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I will to my dying day oppose with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villainy on the other, as this writ of assistance is.
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Every man may reign secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror and desolation around him, until the trump of the archangel shall excite different emotions in his soul.
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But I think I can sincerely declare that I cheerfully submit myself to every odious name for conscience' sake and from my soul I despise all those whose guilt, malice, or folly has made them my foes.
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Government is founded not on force, as was the theory of Hobbes nor on compact, as was the theory of Locke and of the revolution of 1688 nor on property, as was the assertion of Harrington. It springs from the necessities of our nature, and has an everlasting foundation in the unchangeable will of God.
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What must be the wealth that avarice, aided by power, cannot exhaust!
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I am forced to get my living by the labour of my hand and the sweat of my brow... for bitter bread, earned under the frowns of some who have no natural or divine right to be above me, and entirely owe their grandeur and honor to grinding the faces of the poor.
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A man is accountable to no person for his doings.
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A man's house is his castle.
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My dear sister, I hope, when God Almighty in his righteous providence shall take me out of time into eternity, that it will be by a flash of lightning.
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I have accordingly considered it, and now appear not only in obedience to your order, but likewise in behalf of the inhabitants of this town, who have presented another petition, and out of regard to the liberties of the subject.
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Let the consequences be what they will, I am determined to proceed.
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Parliaments are in all cases to declare what is good for the whole but it is not the declaration of parliament that makes it so.
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Dew depends not on Parliament.
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Every British Subject born on the continent of America, or in any other of the British dominions, is by the law of God and nature, by the common law, and by act of parliament, (exclusive of all charters from the crown) entitled to all the natural, essential, inherent and inseparable rights of our fellow subjects in Great- Britain.
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[The passage of the Sugar Act] set people a thinking, in six months, more than they had done in their whole lives before.
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Every one with this writ may be a tyrant in a legal manner, also may control, imprison, or murder any one within the realm.
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One of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle.
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Taxation without representation is tyranny.
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No parts of his Majesty's dominions can be taxed without their consent.
James Otis