Government has hardened into a tyrannical monopoly, and the human race in general becomes as absolutely property as beasts in the plow.
John DickinsonThe rights essential to happiness. . . . We claim them from a higher source - from the King of kings and Lord of all the earth.
John DickinsonLet these truths be indelibly impressed on our minds โ that we cannot be happy, without being FREE โ that we cannot be free, without being secure in our propertyโ that we cannot be secure in our property, if, without our consent, others may, as by right, take it away โ that taxes imposed on us by parliament, do thus take it away.
John DickinsonNo free people ever existed, or can ever exist, without keeping the purse strings in their own hands. Where this is the case, they have a constitutional check upon the administration, which may thereby by brought into order without violence. But when such a power is not lodged in the people, oppression proceeds uncontrolled in its career, till the governed, transported into rage, seek redress in the midst of blood and confusion.
John DickinsonKings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness... We claim them from a higher source - from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives.
John Dickinson