This obedience is founded on the protection derived from government: for protection and allegiance are the reciprocal bonds, which connect the prince and his subjects.” Not only did this contractual imagery explain the people’s obedience to the prerogative powers of the king (which their consent expressed in their representative legislatures could never do), but eventually the notion of an original contract between crown and people also made sense of the colonists’ developing view in 1774 that they were connected to Great Britain exclusively through the king, “Parliament” being “no party to
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