CHAPTER VIII

CAUSES AND COURSE OF THE REVOLUTION (1763-1781)

82. SPIRIT OF UNREST

CONSIDERING the prosperity of the English colonies and the freedom of their government, we often wonder that as soon as the French and Indian War was over, they began to get into trouble with the home government; and that after about ten years of friction and strife, they revolted and set up a government for themselves. To this day, it is not easy to see just why the colonists felt so dissatisfied. They professed and doubtless felt the warmest attachment to the king, whom God

GEORGE III, ABOUT 1765. (From a painting by Sir William Beechy.)

and Parliament had provided for them. They read English books, wore English clothes, and felt high respect for English visitors. After the crisis, John Adams said that nobody in the colonies had desired or planned independence before the Revolution.

The great reason for the division of the British Empire into two parts seems to be that the colonists were so free and did so many things for themselves that they could not see

why they should not be relieved from almost all restraints. One reason for a change of feeling was the coming to the throne of

young King George III (1760). His predecessors, George I and George II, were Germans who had little interest in their English kingdom. George III said, "Born and bred in this country, I glory in the name of Briton." His mother used to say to him, 'George, be a king"; and he soon began systematically to get away from the control by Parliament and to build up a personal government.

Opposed to the king's policy was a group of brilliant statesmen, of whom the most famous were William Pitt (later Earl of Chatham), Charles James Fox, and Edmund Burke; they counseled wise and moderate dealing with the colonies.

A new spirit began to stir among the colonists when the danger of invasion by French neighbors ceased forever in 1763. As the French statesman Turgot had said, "Colonies are like fruits: they stick to the tree only while they are green; soon as they can take care of

as

themselves they do what

Carthage did and what America will do."

On the other side of the ocean the home government also showed a new spirit by attempts to stiffen the Navigation Acts and to stop the evasions (§ 80). In 1764 a new "Sugar Act" was passed (§ 78) which laid a tax on sugar and coffee and other tropical products imported from any but the British West India colonies; the molasses duty was much reduced. Then followed in 1765 the first general tax ever laid by Parliament upon the English colonies. The "Stamp Act" pro

HART'S NEW AMER. HIST.-9

vided for "certain stamp duties, and other duties, in the British colonies and plantations in America, toward further defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same." The duties were to be imposed on all sorts of legal documents, law proceedings, wills, licenses and commissions, land patents, bills of sale; and also on playing cards, newspapers, pamphlets, advertisements, almanacs, and the like. The proceeds of the tax (estimated at £100,000 a year) were to go toward the expense of troops which were to be sent to America for the defense of the colonies.

83. COLONIAL IDEAS OF THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION Somehow the colonies would never accept the British assurance that these taxes would not be used to help support the British government. For some years the colonists had been trying to think out a theory of their relations to the British Empire which would make such action by Parliament unlawful.

A brilliant and able young Massachusetts lawyer named James Otis argued against "writs of assistance" (1761), which authorized British customs officers to search any private house for smuggled goods. He raised the point that such a writ was contrary to the unwritten law of American liberty. "Reason and the constitution are both against this writ. . . . All precedents are under the control of the principles of law. No acts of Parliament can establish such a writ. . . . An act against the constitution is void." John Adams said of him, "Otis was Isaiah and Ezekiel united - Otis was a flame of fire - Otis's oration against writs of assistance breathed into this nation the breath of life."

Notwithstanding Otis's argument, the writs of assistance. were again issued in Massachusetts; but his speech and his later pamphlets stated three principles of great weight in the approaching Revolution: (1) that the colonists possessed certain inalienable personal rights; (2) that there was a traditional system of colonial government, which could not be

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altered by Great Britain without the consent of the colonies; (3) that under that system the colonies were united to Great Britain through the same sovereign, but were not a dependent part of Great Britain, nor subject to Parliament.

In accordance with the practice of a century and a half (§ 57), the British government about this time vetoed a statute of Virginia which reduced the stipends of the established clergy. A test case was made (1763), commonly called "the Parson's Cause," in which Patrick Henry gained his first reputation and also won the jury by an argument that there was a limit to the legal control of the mother country over colonial legislation. In a bold and significant phrase he declared that "a King, by .. disallowing acts of so salutary a nature, from being the Father of his people degenerates into a Tyrant, and forfeits all rights to his subjects' obedience."

...

84. STAMP ACT CONTROVERSY (1765)

Against the Stamp Act (§ 82), the best writers in America poured forth a flood of argument and protest; and they fashioned phrases which were the watchwords of the Revolution.

(1) Taxation. They flatly denied the right of any one to lay taxes within the colonies, except the colonial governments. As one writer rhetorically put it, "If they have a right to impose a stamp tax, they have a right to lay on us a poll tax, a land tax, a window tax; and why not tax us for the light of the sun, the air we breathe, and the ground we are buried in?" (2) Representation. To cover this point they laid down the maxim of "No taxation without representation"; and, they argued, how could they be represented in a Parliament thousands of miles away?

(3) Nature of colonial government. They insisted that the colonists had an inherited right not to be ruled in such matters by Parliament. As the Boston merchant, John Hancock, said, “I will never carry on Business under such great disad

vantages and Burthen. I will not be a slave; I have a right to the libertys & Privileges of the English Constitution, and I as an Englishman will enjoy them."

The movement passed very quickly from talk to outright opposition, which took the following serious forms:

(1) Some of the colonial assemblies passed strong resolutions, such as Patrick Henry's Virginia Resolutions, which declared "That every attempt to vest such power in any other person or persons whatever than the General Assembly aforesaid, is illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust, and has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American liberty."

(2) Two more quiet but effective means were the organization of "Sons of Liberty," a kind of patriotic society; and an attempt to boycott British goods.

(3) In many places mobs made discussion impossible: the stamps were seized, stamp distributors were threatened, and compelled to resign, or were burned in effigy before their own doors, and their property destroyed. In thus forsaking an orderly government, and resorting to violence, the people who engaged in these outbreaks damaged their own cause.

(4) The most effective method was the holding of a Stamp Act Congress of delegates from nine colonies, in New York, October 7, 1765. They petitioned the British government to withdraw the act, and drew up a formal statement of “The most essential rights and liberties of the colonists, and of the grievances under which they labor."

When November I came, the date for putting the Stamp Act in force, it was entirely ignored, and documents were simply left without stamps. Parliament finally decided to repeal the act; but it claimed the right to pass acts binding upon the colonies.

85. REVOLUTION APPROACHING (1767-1773)

The way was thus kept open for a renewal of the struggle. By the Townshend Act in 1767, Parliament laid new duties on