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.
James OtisThere can be no prescription old enough to supersede the Law of Nature and the grant of God Almighty, who has given to all men a natural right to be free, and they have it ordinarily in their power to make themselves so, if they please.
James OtisThe only principles of public conduct that are worthy of a gentleman or a man are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of his country.
James Otis[The passage of the Sugar Act] set people a thinking, in six months, more than they had done in their whole lives before.
James OtisThe colonists are by the law of nature free-born, as indeed all man are, white or black...It is a clear truth that those who every day barter away other men's liberty will soon care little for their own.
James OtisEvery 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.
James Otis