Those whose rights are guaranteed, by not being taken away, exercise no other rights than as members of the community they are entitled to without a charter; and, therefore, all charters have no other than an indirect negative operation.

They do not give rights to A, but they make a difference in favour of A by taking away the right of B, and consequently are instruments of injustice.
But charters and corporations have a more extensive evil effect than what relates merely to elections.

They are sources of endless contentions in the places where they exist, and they lessen the common rights of national society.

A native of England, under the operation of these charters and corporations, cannot be said to be an Englishman in the full sense of the word.

He is not free of the nation, in the same manner that a Frenchman is free of France, and an American of America.
His rights are circumscribed to the town, and, in some cases, to the parish of his birth; and all other parts, though in his native land, are to him as a foreign country.