Note 36 — Chapter I

Horace Gray, Jr., sums up the whole matter in the following paragraph: "A careful examination of the subject compels the conclusion that the decision of Hutchinson and his associates has been too strongly condemned as illegal, and that there was at least reasonable ground for holding, as matter of mere law, that the British Parliament had power to bind the colonies that even a statute contrary to the Constitution could not be declared void by the judicial courts; that by the English statutes, as practically construed by the courts in England, Writs of Assistance might be general in form; that the Superior Court of Judicature of the province had the power of the English Court of Exchequer; and that the Writs of Assistance prayed for, though contrary to the spirit of the English Constitution, could hardly be refused by a provincial court, before general warrants had been condemned in England, and before the Revolution had actually begun in America. The remedy adopted by the colonies was to throw off the yoke of Parliament; to confer on the judiciary the power to declare unconstitutional statutes void; to declare general warrants unconstitutional in express terms; and thus to put an end here to general Writs of Assistance" (Quincy's Reports, Appendix, 540).