380 Appendix.

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Pamphlet
Md.Hist.Soc.

The whole of this Charge amounts to this, that the Lower House
did not implicitly acquiesce in the Objections of the Upper House,
but presumed to enter into a Dispute on the Weight and Pertinency
of them; whence it is inferred, that they had not that Regard for His
Majesty's Service which they pretended; but this is a mere gratis
dictum, for if the Lower House were not satisfied that the Objec-
tions offered by the Upper House were well grounded, an Acquies-
cence in such Objections, and a Departure from a Plan which they
thought right, would have been a slavish Submission, unbecoming
the Representatives of a free People, and a base Prostitution of the
Rights incident to their Station. The Upper House have, in this
Message, gone a Step higher in their Pretentions that they ever did
before, for they not only claim a Right of objecting to Money Bills,
but that their Amendments shall be implicitly adopted; and that,
as they are the Standards of Loyalty, and the constitutional Guar-
dians of the Peoples Liberties, every Deviation from their good

p. 17

Will and Pleasure, is to be branded with Disaffection to the King,
and an Attempt to subvert the Liberties of the Subject; for they go
on and say, "would not they (the Lower House) had they been
really desirous of granting his Majesty the demanded Supplies, have
given some Indications of that Desire, by their Conduct?" How?
In taking proper Measures to adapt a Bill for that Purpose, to the
Approbation of the Upper House." This indeed is talking in an
unusual Strain of dictatorial Insolence. The Lower House, it seems,
are not to consider the Equity of the Mode, they are not to exer-
cise their own Judgments in framing of Money Bills, but they are
to take proper Measures to know the Sense of their Masters, and
to be the serville Instruments of carrying their arbitrary Dictates
into Execution; so that they would be just in the same Situation with
the Parliament of Paris, who have nothing to do but to know their
Master's Will, and to publish their Arrets accordingly.
But the Reason they give, why the Lower House should not have
persisted in what they thought right, is very curious, and furnishes a
further Illustration of the arbitrary Schemes of those Gentlemen,
in subjecting the Lower House to their Controul; and that is, that
the Lower House could not be so ignorant, as to imagine it could
pass into a Law without their Consent; the plain Import of which is,
that the Lower House ought therefore to send up a Bill which they
knew would be agreeable to the Upper House. This is in one Word

p. 18

to exclude the Lower House from being a Branch of the Legislature,
for if it is the Duty of the Lower House to frame Bills agreeable to
the Sense of the Upper House, because without their Concurrence
there can be no Law, the Lower House is a mere Cypher in the
Constitution, and may as well send up a Charte Blanche to the Upper
House, and receive any Bill they shall think fit to frame, as to send
up a Bill, and then submit to any Alterations they shall propose,