another without his consent; upon which principle the right of representation in the same body which exercises the power of making laws for levying taxes, one of the main pillars of the British Constitution, is evidently founded." These ideas were speedily formulated into the maxim— Taxation without representation is tyranny; and upon that principle the Americans thereafter rested in opposing the taxation schemes of the mother country. Charles Townshend, who had been Secretary of War, was made First Lord of Trade two months before Grenville became Premier. He was a thorough aristocrat and stickler for the royal prerogative, and was disposed to act with more rigor in restraining popular liberty in America than any of his predecessors. He advocated the substitution of royal authority for the colonial charters, and a new territorial 'arrangement of the provinces. The conclusion of peace with France, then very near, was to be the time when these vigorous measures against the Americans were to be put into operation; and as preliminary thereto, Townshend proposed making crown officers in the colonies independent of the people for their salaries, and maintaining a standing army there at the expense of the inhabitants for their own subjugation. He also proposed a stamp tax, which Bute had suggested to Parliament on the recommendation of his secretary Charles Jenkinson; and when, soon afterward, Jenkinson became Secretary of the Treasury, he proposed the measure to Grenville. The latter, at about the same time, with short-sightedness equal to Townshend's, introduced a bill CHAP. I. LOYALTY OF THE AMERICANS. 609 for enforcing the navigation laws, which empowered every officer and seaman of the British navy to act as custom-house officers and informers, and so subjecting to search and seizure every American vessel on sea or in port. These measures for enslaving and plundering the colonists were proposed, and partially put into operation, at the moment when peace was established and the loyal colonies were rejoicing because of the honor and dominion which the war just ended had won for the British crown. Otis, at a townmeeting in Boston, expressed the feelings of the Americans, when he said: "We in America have abundant reason to rejoice. The heathen are driven out and the Canadians conquered. The British dominion now extends from sea to sea, and from the great rivers to the ends of the earth. Liberty and knowledge, civil and religious, will be co-extended, improved and preserved to the latest posterity. No constitution of government has appeared in the world so admirably adapted to these great purposes as that of Great Britain. Every British subject in America is, of common right, by act of Parliament, and by the laws of God and nature, entitled to all the essential privileges of Britons. By particular charters particular privileges are justly granted, in consideration of undertaking to begin so glorious an empire as British America. Some weak and wicked minds have endeavored to infuse jealousies with regard to the colonies; the true interests of Great Britain and her plantations are mutual, and what God in his providence has united, let no man dare attempt to pull asunder." These words rebuked the Lords of Trade, who were continually assailing the royal ear with stories about the aspirations of the American colonies for absolute independence; and they were also a significant demand upon Charles Townshend to keep his hands off the American charters. In the spring of 1764, Grenville read, in the House of Commons, a series of resolutions declaring the intention of the government to raise a tax in America by a duty on stamped paper. A stamp duty had been proposed in 1732, during Walpole's administration, but that sagacious minister said: "I will leave the taxation of America to some of my successors, who have more courage than I have." Sir William Keith, governor of Pennsylvania, proposed such a tax in 1739. Franklin thought it just, when in the convention at Albany in 1754. But when it was proposed to Pitt in 1759, he said: “I will never burn my fingers with an American stamp act." Early in 1764, Mr. Huske, a native of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, then residing in England, and holding a seat in Parliament, desirous of showing his excessive loyalty, arose in his place, alluded to Franklin's opinion in the Albany convention, and delighted the House of Commons with the assurance that the Americans were able to pay a liberal tax. He recommended that one should be levied that would amount annually to two and a half million dollars. Encouraged by these precedents and this assurance, Grenville, a few weeks afterward (March 9, 1764), presented his Stamp Act scheme, asking for a million dollars. On his own motion the consideration of it was postponed, and it slept for almost a year. For the part which he played in the matter, John Huske incurred the hot resentment of his countrymen, and he was hung in effigy on "Liberty Tree" in Boston, with the following inscription on his breast: 'Question. What, Brother Huske? Why this is bad! Answer. Ah, indeed! but I'm a wicked lad; My mother always thought me wild; 'The gallows is thy portion, child,' She often said; behold, 'tis true, And now the dog must have his due; For idle gewgaws, wretched pelf, I sold my country, d―d myself; And for my great, unequalled crime, The d-l takes H-e before his time. But if some brethren I could name, Who shared the crime should share the shame, The agents of the colonies in England remonstrated with Grenville concerning the proposed stamp tax, when he told them that if they could devise a better scheme for raising a revenue, he would be satisfied. The revenue must be raised, and he knew of no better method than the one proposed. In the House of Commons he made similar remarks, and stated that the consideration of the subject had been postponed, because there were some doubts about the right of Parliament to levy such a tax. He asserted the right, and called upon the Opposition to deny it if they thought it fitting. No one spoke but Mr. Beckford, who said: "As we are strong, I hope we shall be merciful." As the right was not denied, the matter resolved itself into a question of method. The subject excited great feeling in the colonies. Public and private discussions ran high. Great questions that lie at the foundations of civil and natural rights were pondered thoughtfully. The people became divided in opinion, and the party names, afterward so familiar, of Whigs, Patriots, and Sons of Liberty on one side, and Loyalists and Tories on the other, now first came into vogue. Men and women, in every social condition, were found on each side in the division, and all professed loyalty to the crown and adherence to the British constitution. Thoughtful men saw in CHAP. I. THE RIGHT TO TAX THE COLONISTS. 611 the measure prophecies of great changes in America. "If the colonist is taxed without his consent, he will, perhaps, seek a change," said Holt's New York Gazette, in May, 1764. "It is a menace of the rights of man; a challenge to a conflict for inalienable rights," said a writer in the Virginia Gazette. "The ways of Heaven are inscrutable. This step of the mother country, though intended to secure dependence, may produce fatal resentment and be subversive of that end," wrote Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, who, twelve years afterward, offered in the Continental Congress the resolution that the colonies were "free and independent States." The agent of Connecticut (Mr. Dyer), then in England, wrote: "If the colonies do not now unite, they may bid farewell to liberty, burn their charters, and make the best of thraldom." In Massachusetts, the voice of that stern Puritan and conscientious Christian gentleman, Samuel Adams, who was then a little more than forty years of age, was lifted up, with words of logic and defiance, against the measure; and he wrote the address of the citizens of Boston to the Massachusetts legislature, saying: "There is no room for delay. Those unexpected proceedings may be preparatory to more extensive taxation; for if our trade may be taxed, why not our lands and everything we possess? If taxes are laid upon us in any shape, without our having a legal representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the character of free subjects to the miserable state of tributary slaves? This annihilates our charter right to govern and tax ourselves. We claim British rights, not by charter only; we are born to them. Use your endeavors that the weight of the other North American colonies may be added to that of this province, that by united application all may happily obtain redress." So the Bostonians denied the right of Parliament to tax the colonies, and looked to the power of union for a redress of grievances. The patriots. in other colonies were in accord with those of Massachusetts, and there was an universal expression of the sentiment: "If we are taxed without our consent-if we are not represented in the body that taxes us, and we submit, we are slaves." The resolution to resist took deep root in the hearts of multitudes of men and women in the colonies; and when the subject of a stamp tax was again presented to Parliament, there was very little difference of opinion in America concerning its unrighteousness. The words of Otis had again gone forth to electrify the American people, and put leading men in England into a thoughtful mood. With wonderful power and clearness of language he enunciated great principles, declared the loyalty of the colonies, and defined natural rights. The following sentences from the extraordinary pamphlet that contains them, will give an idea of its character: “There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the law of nature and the grant of God Almighty, who has given all men the right to be free. If every prince since Nimrod had been a tyrant, it would not prove a right to tyrannize. The administrators of legislative authority, when they verge towards tyranny, are to be resisted; if they prove incorrigible, they are to be deposed. Nor do the political and civil rights of the British colonists rest on a charter from the crown. Old Magna Charta was not the beginning of all things; nor did it rise on the borders of chaos out of the unformed mass. A time may come when Parliament shall declare every American charter void; but the natural, inherent, and inseparable rights of the colonists as men and as citizens would remain, and, whatever became of charters, can never be abolished till the general conflagration. The world is at the eve of the highest scene of earthly power and grandeur that has ever been displayed to the view of mankind. Who will win the prize is with God. But human nature must and will be rescued from the general slavery that has so long triumphed over the species." Thus spake the prophet. Lord Mansfield rebuked those in England who spoke of his utterances with contempt. They answered, "The man is mad." "What then?" answered the great jurist. "One madman often makes many. Massaniello was mad; nobody doubted it; yet, for all that, he overturned the government of Naples." |