The third portion of the Declaration like the first is based on precedents. The enumeration of the "long train of abuses" is similar to the Grand Remonstrance of Parliament in the reign of Charles I. The list of abuses really forms a history of the relations between the English king and the colonies during the second and third quarters of the 18th century. The actions of the king are held to be in violation of rights which Englishmen had embodied in such docu ments as the Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights and the Act of Set tlement. As Englishmen the colonists regarded themselves as entitled to the rights of English men. They did not share the belief prevalent in England that the inhabitants of colonies were to be treated somewhat differently from English men who stayed at home. Their ancestors had left England when English ideas of representa tion in Parliament were undergoing a change during the control of Long Parliament and Cromwell. In the new land of America they developed theories and customs of representa tion essentially different from those restored by Charles II. Englishmen at home might feel that they were represented by Parliament they voted for any one of its members or not, but in the colonies the idea had grown that a representative in a legislative body only represented the men who had a voice in his selection and who lived in the territorial district from which he was chosen. So to the colonists
imposing of taxes without our consents meant one thing, while to Englishmen it meant another. The other grievances enumerated, such as the deprival of the benefits of trial by jury and the quartering of aimed troops among the colonists, undoubtedly played an im portant part in bringing about the War of the American Revolution, but probably no one thing contributed so much to the opening of that war as the feeling expressed in the phrase ((the imposing of taxes without our consent? Bibliography.—Channing, Hart and Turner, 'Guide to the Study of American History' ; Friedenwald, 'Declaration of Dunning, 'Political Theories' ; Willoughby, 'Political Theories,' 'Nature of the Merriam, Political Sul livan, 'Antece'dents of the Declaration of In dependence,' in American Historical Associa tion 1903.