By What Authority - The Dominion

American Political History · May 1, 2022 · 18m

In 1683, in a colony that had never held an election, under an Irish Catholic governor appointed by a Catholic duke, New York — of all colonies — wrote down a sweeping charter of English liberty: a Charter of Liberties declaring that no man could be taxed without the consent of his own representatives, and that those rights were a possession, not a gift from any king. Within three years it was dead, killed in London by a single change of wording that turned every right into a revocable grant. This is the story of that charter and its undoing, and of the machine the Crown built on the…