The strongest reason, however, for passing it is the nature of the opposition which it has experienced.

The organs of that opposition repeated every day that the English were the conquerors, and the lords of the country, the dominant race; the electors of the House of Commons, whose power extends both over the Company at home, and over the Governor-General in Council here.

The constituents of the British Legislature, they told us, were not to be bound by laws made by any inferior authority.

The firmness with which the Government withstood the idle outcry of two or three hundred people, about a matter with which they had nothing to do, was designated as insolent defiance of public opinion.

We were enemies of freedom, because we would not suffer a small white aristocracy to domineer over millions.