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The idea of governing provinces and colonies by force is visionary and chimerical. The experiment has often been tried, and it has never succeeded. It ends infallibly in the ruin of one country or the other.

— Jonathan Shipley Speech (1774)

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More quotes by Jonathan Shipley

The true art of government consists in not governing too much.

It has always been a most arduous task to govern distant provinces, with even a tolerable appearance of justice.

Speech (1774)

I look upon North America as the only great nursery of freemen left on the face of the earth.

Speech (1774)

Arbitrary taxation is plunder authorized by law.

Speech (1774)

The people are certainly the best judges whether they are well governed; and the Crown can have no rights inconsistent with the happiness of the people.

Speech (1774)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jonathan Shipley (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.