the repeal. Now I turn to the honorable gentleman who so stoutly
challenges us to tell whether, after the repeal, the provinces were
quiet. This is coming home to the point. Here I meet him directly, and
answer most readily, _They were quiet_. And I, in my turn, challenge him
to prove when, and where, and by whom, and in what numbers, and with
what violence, the other laws of trade, as gentlemen assert, were
violated in consequence of your concession, or that even your other
revenue laws were attacked. But I quit the vantage-ground on which I
stand, and where I might leave the burden of the proof upon him: I walk
down upon the open plain, and undertake to show that they were not only
quiet, but showed many unequivocal marks of acknowledgment and
gratitude. And to give him every advantage, I select the obnoxious
colony of Massachusetts Bay, which at this time (but without hearing
her) is so heavily a culprit before Parliament: I will select their
proceedings even under circumstances of no small irritation. For, a
little imprudently, I must say, Governor Bernard mixed in the
administration of the lenitive of the repeal no small acrimony arising
from matters of a separate nature. Yet see, Sir, the effect of that
lenitive, though mixed with these bitter ingredients,--and how this
rugged people can express themselves on a measure of concession.
"If it is not now in our power," (say they, in their address to Governor
Bernard,) "in so full a manner as will be expected, to show our
respectful gratitude to the mother country, or to make a dutiful,
affectionate return to the indulgence of the King and Parliament, it
shall be no fault of ours; for this we intend, and hope shall be able
fully to effect."
Would to God that this temper had been cultivated, managed, and set in
action! Other effects than those which we have since felt would have
resulted from it. On the requisition for compensation to those who had
suffered from the violence of the populace, in the same address they
say,--"The recommendation enjoined by Mr. Secretary Conway's letter, and
in consequence thereof made to us, we shall embrace the first convenient
opportunity to consider and act upon." They did consider; they did act
upon it. They obeyed the requisition. I know the mode has been chicaned
upon; but it was substantially obeyed, and much better obeyed than I
fear the Parliamentary requisition of this session will be, though
enforced by all your rigor and backed with all your power. In a word,
the damages of popular fury were compensated by legislative gravity.
Almost every other part of America in various ways demonstrated their
gratitude. I am bold to say, that so sudden a calm recovered after so
violent a storm is without parallel in history. To say that no other
disturbance should happen from any other cause is folly. But as far as
appearances went, by the judicious sacrifice of one law you procured an
acquiescence in all that remained. After this experience, nobody shall
persuade me, when an whole people are concerned, that acts of lenity are
not means of conciliation.
I hope the honorable gentleman has received a fair and full answer to
his question.
I have done with the third period of your policy,--that of your repeal,
and the return of your ancient system, and your ancient tranquillity and
concord. Sir, this period was not as long as it was happy. Another scene
was opened, and other actors appeared on the stage. The state, in the
condition I have described it, was delivered into the hands of Lord
Chatham, a great and celebrated name,--a name that keeps the name of
this country respectable in every other on the globe. It may be truly
called
Clarum et venerabile nomen
Gentibus, et multum nostræ quod proderat urbi.
Sir, the venerable age of this great man, his merited rank, his superior
eloquence, his splendid qualities, his eminent services, the vast space
he fills in the eye of mankind, and, more than all the rest, his fall
from power, which, like death, canonizes and sanctifies a great
character, will not suffer me to censure any part of his conduct. I am
afraid to flatter him; I am sure I am not disposed to blame him. Let
those who have betrayed him by their adulation insult him with their
malevolence. But what I do not presume to censure I may have leave to
lament. For a wise man, he seemed to me at that time to be governed too
much by general maxims. I speak with the freedom of history, and I hope
without offence. One or two of these maxims, flowing from an opinion not
the most indulgent to our unhappy species, and surely a little too
general, led him into measures that were greatly mischievous to himself,
and for that reason, among others, perhaps fatal to his
country,--measures, the effects of which, I am afraid, are forever
incurable. He made an administration so checkered and speckled, he put
together a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically
dovetailed, a cabinet so variously inlaid, such a piece of diversified
mosaic, such a tessellated pavement without cement,--here a bit of black
stone and there a bit of white, patriots and courtiers, king's friends
and republicans, Whigs and Tories, treacherous friends and open
enemies,--that it was, indeed, a very curious show, but utterly unsafe
to touch and unsure to stand on. The colleagues whom he had assorted at
the same boards stared at each other, and were obliged to ask,--"Sir,
your name?"--"Sir, you have the advantage of me."--"Mr. Such-a-one."--"I
beg a thousand pardons."--I venture to say, it did so happen that
persons had a single office divided between them, who had never spoke
to each other in their lives, until they found themselves, they knew not
how, pigging together, heads and points, in the same truckle-bed.[11]
Sir, in consequence of this arrangement, having put so much the larger
part of his enemies and opposers into power, the confusion was such that
his own principles could not possibly have any effect or influence in
the conduct of affairs. If over he fell into a fit of the gout, or if
any other cause withdrew him from public cares, principles directly the
contrary were sure to predominate. When he had executed his plan, he had
not an inch of ground to stand upon. When he had accomplished his scheme
of administration, he was no longer a minister.
When his face was hid but for a moment, his whole system was on a wide
sea without chart or compass. The gentlemen, his particular friends,
who, with the names of various departments of ministry, were admitted to
seem as if they acted a part under him, with a modesty that becomes all
men, and with a confidence in him which was justified even in its
extravagance by his superior abilities, had never in any instance
presumed upon any opinion of their own. Deprived of his guiding
influence, they were whirled about, the sport of every gust, and easily
driven into any port; and as those who joined with them in manning the
vessel were the most directly opposite to his opinions, measures, and
character, and far the most artful and most powerful of the set, they
easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the vacant, unoccupied, and
derelict minds of his friends, and instantly they turned the vessel
wholly out of the course of his policy. As if it were to insult as well
as to betray him, even long before the close of the first session of his
administration, when everything was publicly transacted, and with great
parade, in his name, they made an act declaring it highly just and
expedient to raise a revenue in America. For even then, Sir, even before
this splendid orb was entirely set, and while the western horizon was in
a blaze with his descending glory, on the opposite quarter of the
heavens arose another luminary, and for his hour became lord of the
ascendant.
This light, too, is passed and set forever. You understand, to be sure,
that I speak of Charles Townshend, officially the reproducer of this
fatal scheme, whom I cannot even now remember without some degree of
sensibility. In truth, Sir, he was the delight and ornament of this
House, and the charm of every private society which he honored with his
presence. Perhaps there never arose in this country, nor in any country,
a man of a more pointed and finished wit, and (where his passions were
not concerned) of a more refined, exquisite, and penetrating judgment.
If he had not so great a stock as some have had, who flourished
formerly, of knowledge long treasured up, he knew, better by far than
any man I ever was acquainted with, how to bring together within a short
time all that was necessary to establish, to illustrate, and to decorate
that side of the question he supported. He stated his matter skilfully
and powerfully. He particularly excelled in a most luminous explanation
and display of his subject. His style of argument was neither trite and
vulgar, nor subtle and abstruse. He hit the House just between wind and
water. And not being troubled with too anxious a zeal for any matter in
question, he was never more tedious or more earnest than the
preconceived opinions and present temper of his hearers required, to
whom he was always in perfect unison. He conformed exactly to the temper
of the House; and he seemed to guide, because he was always sure to
follow it.
I beg pardon, Sir, if, when I speak of this and of other great men, I
appear to digress in saying something of their characters. In this
eventful history of the revolutions of America, the characters of such
men are of much importance. Great men are the guideposts and landmarks
in the state. The credit of such men at court or in the nation is the
sole cause of all the public measures. It would be an invidious thing
(most foreign, I trust, to what you think my disposition) to remark the
errors into which the authority of great names has brought the nation,
without doing justice at the same time to the great qualities whence
that authority arose. The subject is instructive to those who wish to
form themselves on whatever of excellence has gone before them. There
are many young members in the House (such of late has been the rapid
succession of public men) who never saw that prodigy, Charles Townshend,
nor of course know what a ferment he was able to excite in everything by
the violent ebullition of his mixed virtues and failings. For failings
he had undoubtedly,--many of us remember them; we are this day
considering the effect of them. But he had no failings which were not
owing to a noble cause,--to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate
passion for fame: a passion which is the instinct of all great souls. He
worshipped that goddess, wheresoever she appeared; but he paid his
particular devotions to her in her favorite habitation, in her chosen
temple, the House of Commons. Besides the characters of the individuals
that compose our body, it is impossible, Mr. Speaker, not to observe
that this House has a collective character of its own. That character,
too, however imperfect, is not unamiable. Like all great public
collections of men, you possess a marked love of virtue and an
abhorrence of vice. But among vices there is none which the House abhors
in the same degree with _obstinacy_. Obstinacy, Sir, is certainly a
great vice; and in the changeful state of political affairs it is
frequently the cause of great mischief. It happens, however, very
unfortunately, that almost the whole line of the great and masculine
virtues, constancy, gravity, magnanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and
firmness, are closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of which you
have so just an abhorrence; and, in their excess, all these virtues very
easily fall into it. He who paid such a punctilious attention to all
your feelings certainly took care not to shock them by that vice which
is the most disgustful to you.
That fear of displeasing those who ought most to be pleased betrayed him
sometimes into the other extreme. He had voted, and, in the year 1765,
had been an advocate for the Stamp Act. Things and the disposition of
men's minds were changed. In short, the Stamp Act began to be no
favorite in this House. He therefore attended at the private meeting in
which the resolutions moved by a right honorable gentleman were settled:
resolutions leading to the repeal. The next day he voted for that
repeal; and he would have spoken for it, too, if an illness (not, as was
then given out, a political, but, to my knowledge, a very real illness)
had not prevented it.
The very next session, as the fashion of this world passeth away, the
repeal began to be in as bad an odor in this House as the Stamp Act had
been in the session before. To conform to the temper which began to
prevail, and to prevail mostly amongst those most in power, he declared,
very early in the winter, that a revenue must be had out of America.
Instantly he was tied down to his engagements by some, who had no
objection to such experiments, when made at the cost of persons for whom
they had no particular regard. The whole body of courtiers drove him
onward. They always talked as if the king stood in a sort of humiliated
state, until something of the kind should be done.
Here this extraordinary man, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, found
himself in great straits. To please universally was the object of his
life; but to tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is
not given to men. However, he attempted it. To render the tax palatable
to the partisans of American revenue, he made a preamble stating the
necessity of such a revenue. To close with the American distinction,
this revenue was _external_ or port-duty; but again, to soften it to the
other party, it was a duty of _supply_. To gratify the _colonists_, it
was laid on British manufactures; to satisfy the _merchants of Britain_,
the duty was trivial, and (except that on tea, which touched only the
devoted East India Company) on none of the grand objects of commerce. To
counterwork the American contraband, the duty on tea was reduced from a
shilling to three-pence; but to secure the favor of those who would tax
America, the scene of collection was changed, and, with the rest, it
was levied in the colonies. What need I say more? This fine-spun scheme
had the usual fate of all exquisite policy. But the original plan of the
duties, and the mode of executing that plan, both arose singly and
solely from a love of our applause. He was truly the child of the House.
He never thought, did, or said anything, but with a view to you. He
every day adapted himself to your disposition, and adjusted himself
before it as at a looking-glass.
He had observed (indeed, it could not escape him) that several persons,
infinitely his inferiors in all respects, had formerly rendered
themselves considerable in this House by one method alone. They were a
race of men (I hope in God the species is extinct) who, when they rose
in their place, no man living could divine, from any known adherence to
parties, to opinions, or to principles, from any order or system in
their politics, or from any sequel or connection in their ideas, what
part they were going to take in any debate. It is astonishing how much
this uncertainty, especially at critical times, called the attention of
all parties on such men. All eyes were fixed on them, all ears open to
hear them; each party gaped, and looked alternately for their vote,
almost to the end of their speeches. While the House hung in this
uncertainty, now the _hear-hims_ rose from this side, now they
rebellowed from the other; and that party to whom they fell at length
from their tremulous and dancing balance always received them in a
tempest of applause. The fortune of such men was a temptation too great
to be resisted by one to whom a single whiff of incense withheld gave
much greater pain than he received delight in the clouds of it which
daily rose about him from the prodigal superstition of innumerable
admirers. He was a candidate for contradictory honors; and his great aim
was, to make those agree in admiration of him who never agreed in
anything else.
Hence arose this unfortunate act, the subject of this day's debate: from
a disposition which, after making an American revenue to please one,
repealed it to please others, and again revived it in hopes of pleasing
a third, and of catching something in the ideas of all.
This revenue act of 1767 formed the fourth period of American policy.
How we have fared since then: what woful variety of schemes have been
adopted; what enforcing, and what repealing; what bullying, and what
submitting; what doing, and undoing; what straining, and what relaxing;
what assemblies dissolved for not obeying, and called again without
obedience; what troops sent out to quell resistance, and, on meeting
that resistance, recalled; what shiftings, and changes, and jumblings of
all kinds of men at home, which left no possibility of order,
consistency, vigor, or even so much as a decent unity of color, in
anyone public measure--It is a tedious, irksome task. My duty may call
me to open it out some other time; on a former occasion[12] I tried your
temper on a part of it; for the present I shall forbear.
After all these changes and agitations, your immediate situation upon
the question on your paper is at length brought to this. You have an act
of Parliament stating that "it is _expedient_ to raise a revenue in
America." By a partial repeal you annihilated the greatest part of that
revenue which this preamble declares to be so expedient. You have
substituted no other in the place of it. A Secretary of State has
disclaimed, in the king's name, all thoughts of such a substitution in
future. The principle of this disclaimer goes to what has been left, as
well as what has been repealed. The tax which lingers after its
companions (under a preamble declaring an American revenue expedient,
and for the sole purpose of supporting the theory of that preamble)
militates with the assurance authentically conveyed to the colonies, and
is an exhaustless source of jealousy and animosity. On this state, which
I take to be a fair one,--not being able to discern any grounds of
honor, advantage, peace, or power, for adhering, either to the act or to
the preamble, I shall vote for the question which leads to the repeal of
both.
If you do not fall in with this motion, then secure something to fight
for, consistent in theory and valuable in practice. If you must employ
your strength, employ it to uphold you in some honorable right or some
profitable wrong. If you are apprehensive that the concession
recommended to you, though proper, should be a means of drawing on you
further, but unreasonable claims,--why, then employ your force in
supporting that reasonable concession against those unreasonable
demands. You will employ it with more grace, with better effect, and
with great probable concurrence of all the quiet and rational people in
the provinces, who are now united with and hurried away by the
violent,--having, indeed, different dispositions, but a common interest.
If you apprehend that on a concession you shall be pushed by
metaphysical process to the extreme lines, and argued out of your whole
authority, my advice is this: when you have recovered your old, your
strong, your tenable position, then face about,--stop short,--do nothing
more,--reason not at all,--oppose the ancient policy and practice of the
empire as a rampart against the speculations of innovators on both sides
of the question,--and you will stand on great, manly, and sure ground.
On this solid basis fix your machines, and they will draw worlds towards
you.
Tour ministers, in their own and his Majesty's name, have already
adopted the American distinction of internal and external duties. It is
a distinction, whatever merit it may have, that was originally moved by
the Americans themselves; and I think they will acquiesce in it, if they
are not pushed with too much logic and too little sense, in all the
consequences: that is, if external taxation be understood, as they and
you understand it, when you please, to be not a distinction of
geography, but of policy; that it is a power for regulating trade, and
not for supporting establishments. The distinction, which is as nothing
with regard to right, is of most weighty consideration in practice.
Recover your old ground, and your old tranquillity; try it; I am
persuaded the Americans will compromise with you. When confidence is
once restored, the odious and suspicious _summum jus_ will perish of
course. The spirit of practicability, of moderation, and mutual
convenience will never call in geometrical exactness as the arbitrator
of an amicable settlement. Consult and follow your experience. Let not
the long story with which I have exercised your patience prove fruitless
to your interests.
For my part, I should choose (if I could have my wish) that the
proposition of the honorable gentleman[13] for the repeal could go to
America without the attendance of the penal bills. Alone I could almost
answer for its success. I cannot be certain of its reception in the bad
company it may keep. In such heterogeneous assortments, the most
innocent person will lose the effect of his innocency. Though you should
send out this angel of peace, yet you are sending out a destroying angel
too; and what would be the effect of the conflict of these two adverse
spirits, or which would predominate in the end, is what I dare not say:
whether the lenient measures would cause American passion to subside, or
the severe would increase its fury,--all this is in the hand of
Providence. Yet now, even now, I should confide in the prevailing virtue
and efficacious operation of lenity, though working in darkness and in
chaos, in the midst of all this unnatural and turbid combination: I
should hope it might produce order and beauty in the end.
Let us, Sir, embrace some system or other before we end this session. Do
you mean to tax America, and to draw a productive revenue from thence?
If you do, speak out: name, fix, ascertain this revenue; settle its
quantity; define its objects; provide for its collection; and then
fight, when you have something to fight for. If you murder, rob; if you
kill, take possession; and do not appear in the character of madmen as
well as assassins, violent, vindictive, bloody, and tyrannical, without
an object. But may better counsels guide you!
Again, and again, revert to your old principles,--seek peace and ensue
it,--leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself. I
am not here going into the distinctions of rights, nor attempting to
mark their boundaries. I do not enter into these metaphysical
distinctions; I hate the very sound of them. Leave the Americans as they
anciently stood, and these distinctions, born of our unhappy contest,
will die along with it. They and we, and their and our ancestors, have
been happy under that system. Let the memory of all actions in
contradiction to that good old mode, on both sides, be extinguished
forever. Be content to bind America by laws of trade: you have always
done it. Let this be your reason for binding their trade. Do not burden
them by taxes: you were not used to do so from the beginning. Let this
be your reason for not taxing. These are the arguments of states and
kingdoms. Leave the rest to the schools; for there only they may be
discussed with safety. But if, intemperately, unwisely, fatally, you
sophisticate and poison the very source of government, by urging subtle
deductions, and consequences odious to those you govern, from the
unlimited and illimitable nature of supreme sovereignty, you will teach
them by these means to call that sovereignty itself in question. When
you drive him hard, the boar will surely turn upon the hunters. If that
sovereignty and their freedom cannot be reconciled, which will they
take? They will cast your sovereignty in your face. Nobody will be
argued into slavery. Sir, let the gentlemen on the other side call forth
all their ability; let the best of them get up and tell me what one
character of liberty the Americans have, and what one brand of slavery
they are free from, if they are bound in their property and industry by
all the restraints you can imagine on commerce, and at the same time are
made pack-horses of every tax you choose to impose, without the least
share in granting them. When they bear the burdens of unlimited
monopoly, will you bring them to bear the burdens of unlimited revenue
too? The Englishman in America will feel that this is slavery: that it
is _legal_ slavery will be no compensation either to his feelings or his
understanding.