_CAUSES THAT LED TO THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION._
One of the principal causes that led to the American Revolution was the
question of what was lawful under the constitution of the British
empire, and what was expedient under the existing circumstances of the
colonies. It was the contention of the American Whigs that the British
parliament could not lawfully tax the colonies, because by so doing it
would be violating an ancient maxim of the British constitution: "No
taxation without representation."
On the contrary, many of the profoundest constitutional lawyers of
America as well as of England, both rejected the foregoing contention,
and at the same time admitted the soundness and the force of the
venerable maxim upon which the contention was alleged to rest, but the
most of them denied that the maxim was violated by the acts of
parliament laying taxation upon the colonies. Here everything depends on
the meaning to be attached to the word "representation"--and that
meaning is to be ascertained by examining what was understood by the
word in England at the time when this old maxim originated, and in
subsequent ages during which it had been quoted and applied. During this
whole period the idea was that representation in parliament was
constituted not through any uniform distribution among individual
persons, but rather through a distribution of such privileges among
certain organized communities, as counties, cities, boroughs, and
universities. Very few people in England then had votes for members of
the house of commons--only one-tenth of the population of the entire
realm. Such was the state of the electoral system that entire
communities, such as the cities of Leeds, Halifax, Birmingham,
Manchester, and Liverpool, communities which were as populous and as
rich as entire provinces in America, and yet they had no vote whatever
for members of parliament. The people of these several communities in
England did not refuse to pay taxes levied by act of parliament, because
of that reason. It is still a principle of parliamentary representation
that from the moment a member is thus chosen to sit in parliament, he is
the representative of the whole empire, and not of his particular
constituency. He "is under no obligation, therefore, to follow
instructions from the voters or the inhabitants of the district from
which he is chosen. They have no legal means of enforcing instructions.
They cannot demand his resignation. Moreover, members of the house of
lords represent, in principle, the interest of the whole empire and of
all classes, as truly as the Commons."[11] Therefore the historic
meaning of the word "representation," as the word has always been used
in English constitutional experience, seemed to justify the Loyalist
contention that the several organized British communities in America, as
an integral part of the British empire, were to all intents and purposes
represented in the British parliament, which sat at the capital as the
supreme council of the whole empire and exercised legislative authority
coextensive with the boundaries of that empire. The Loyalists admitted
that for all communities of British subjects, both in England and
America, the existing representation was very imperfect; that it should
be reformed and made larger and more uniform, and they were ready and
anxious to join in all forms of constitutional agitation under the
leadership of such men as Chatham, Camden, Burke, Barre, Fox and Pitt,
to secure such reform, and not for a rejection of the authority of the
general government, nullification, and disruption of the empire.
Accordingly, when certain English commoners in America at last rose up
and put forward the claim that merely because they had no votes for
members of the house of commons, therefore that house did not represent
them, and therefore they could not lawfully be taxed by parliament, this
definition of the word "representation" up to that time had never been
given to it in England or enjoyed by commoners in England. Nine-tenths
of the people of England did not vote. Had not those British subjects in
England as good a right as these British subjects in America to deny
they were represented in parliament, and that they could not be lawfully
taxed by parliament? It was the right and duty of the imperial
legislature to determine in what proportion the different parts of the
empire should contribute to the defence of the whole, and to see that no
one part evaded its obligation and unjustly transferred its part to
others. The right of taxation was established by a long series of legal
authorities, and there was no real distinction between internal and
external taxation. It now suited colonists to describe themselves as
apostles of liberty and to denounce England as an oppressor. It was a
simple truth that England governed her colonies more liberally than any
other country in the world. They were the only existing colonies which
enjoyed real political liberty. Their commercial system was more liberal
than that of any other colony. They had attained under British rule to a
degree of prosperity which was surpassed in no quarter of the globe.
England had loaded herself with debt in order to remove one great danger
to their future; she cheerfully bore the whole burden of their
protection by sea. At the Peace of Paris she had made their interests
the very first object of her policy, and she only asked them in return
to bear a portion of the cost of their own defence. Less than eight
millions of Englishmen were burdened with a national debt of 140,000,000
pounds. The united debt of about three millions of Americans was now
less than 800,000 pounds. The annual sum the colonists were asked to
contribute was less than 100,000, with an express condition that no part
of that sum should be devoted to any other purpose than the defence and
protection of the colonies, and the country which refused to bear this
small tax was so rich that in the space of three years it had paid off
1,755,000 pounds of its debt. No demand could be more moderate and
equitable than that of England. The true motive of the resistance was a
desire to pay as little as possible and to throw as much as possible
upon the mother country. Nor was the mode of resistance more
honorable--the plunder of private houses, and custom-houses, and mob
violence, connived at and unpunished. This was the attitude of the
colonies within two years after the Peace of Paris, and these were the
fruits of the new sense of security which British triumphs in Canada had
given to the colonists.
[11] John W. Burgess, "Political Science and Comparative Constitutional
Law," 67-68, also 65-69.
This is a brief statement and a fair one of the principal arguments of
the Loyalists. Certainly the position taken by them was a very strong
one. A learned American writer upon law, one of the justices of the
Supreme Court of the United States, in referring to the decision of
Chief Justice Hutchinson sustaining the legality of the writs of
assistance, gave this opinion: "A careful examination of the question
compels the conclusion that there was at least reasonable ground for
holding, as a matter of mere law, that the British parliament had power
to bind the colonies."[12] This view has been sustained by the highest
English authorities upon British constitutional law, from the time of
Lord Mansfield to the present. "As a matter of abstract right," says Sir
Vernon Harcourt, "the mother country has never parted with the claim of
ultimate supreme authority for the imperial legislature. If it did so,
it would dissolve the imperial tie, and convert the colonies into
foreign and independent states." It is now apparent that those Americans
who failed in their honest and sacrificial championship of measures that
would have given us political reform and political safety, but without
civil war, and without an angry disruption of the English-speaking race
can justly be regarded as having been, either in doctrine or in purpose,
or in act, an unpatriotic party, and yet even at the present time it is
by no means easy for Americans, if they be descended from men who fought
in behalf of the Revolution, to take a disinterested attitude, that is
an historical one towards those Americans who thought and fought against
the Revolution.
[12] Horace Gray, Quincy's Mass. Reports, 1761-62, Appendix I., page
540.
No candid historian, however, now contends that the government of
England had done anything prior to the commencement of the Revolutionary
War that justified a Declaration of Independence; for, as previously
stated, the amount of taxes required by Parliament was moderate, the
money was needed for a proper purpose, and it seemed there was no other
way of obtaining it.
Another important factor in the causes of the American Revolution was
the so-called "Quebec Act." This act John Adams asserted constituted a
"frightful system," and James Rowdoin pronounced it to be "an act for
encouraging and establishing Popery." The policy of this legislation may
be doubted. Of its justice there can be no doubt. The establishment of
the Catholic clergy in Canada and their resultant domination has
entailed many disadvantages upon the governing powers of the dominion.
But at the time the law was passed it was a simple act of justice. Had
Parliament refused to do this it would have been guilty of that tyranny
charged against it by the Revolutionists, and today the dominion would
not be a part of the British Empire. To the student of American history
it at first seems very strange and unaccountable why at the outbreak of
the Revolution, the recently conquered French provinces were not the
first to fly to arms, especially as their mother country, France, had
espoused the cause of the Revolutionists. Instead of this the French
Canadians remained loyal to their conqueror and resisted by force of
arms all attempts to conquer Canada. The explanation of this curious
state of affairs is the "Quebec Act."
By this act the French Canadians were to retain their property, their
language, their religion, their laws, and to hold office. In fact, they
were allowed greater liberty than they had when subject to France. All
this was allowed them by the British Parliament, and this was resented
by the English colonists, for they were not allowed to confiscate their
lands and drive out the inhabitants as the New Englanders did when they
conquered Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. They
also claimed that by the laws of the realm Roman Catholics could not
vote, much less hold office. At a meeting of the first Continental
Congress, held October 21, 1774, an address to the people of Great
Britain was adopted, setting forth the grievances of the colonies, the
principal one of which was as follows:
"Nor can we suppress our astonishment that a British Parliament should
ever consent to establish in that country a religion that has deluged
your island in blood and dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder
and rebellion through every part of the world, and we think the
legislature of Great Britain is not authorized to establish a religion
fraught with such sanguinary and infamous tenets."
This act also granted the Catholic clergy a full parliamentary title to
their old ecclesiastical estates, and to tithes paid by members of their
own religion, but no Protestant was obliged to pay tithes. It provided
for a provincial governing council in which Catholics were eligible to
sit, and it established the Catholic clergy securely in their livings.
There were then in the Province of Quebec two hundred and fifty
Catholics to one Protestant[13]. Surely it would have been a monstrous
perversion of justice to have placed this vast majority under the
domination of this petty minority, it would have degraded the Catholics
into a servile caste and reproduced in America, in a greatly aggravated
form, the social conditions which existed in Ireland, but those
determined sticklers for freedom of conscience and "the right of
self-government," those clamorers for the liberty of mankind, the
disunion propagandists, were horrified at the bestowal of any "freedom"
or "right" upon a people professing a religion different from their
own. "The friends of America" in England, Chatham, Fox, Burke, Barre and
others, joined them in their denunciation of the act, the last named
especially deprecating the "Popish" measure.
[13] In the debates on the Canadian bill in 1779, it was stated that
there were but 365 Protestants and 150,000 Catholics within the Province
of Quebec.
On February 15, 1776, it was resolved that a committee of three, "two of
whom should be members of congress," be appointed to pursue such
instructions as shall be given them by that body.[14] Benjamin Franklin,
Samuel Chase and Chas. Carroll were chosen for this purpose, and John
Carroll, a Jesuit, who afterwards became the first Roman Catholic
Archbishop of the United States, accompanied them. The two Carrolls were
chosen because they were Catholics, but they were not justified in
joining an expedition that might kindle the flame of religious war on
the Catholic frontier. The commissioners carried with them an "Address
to the Inhabitants of the Province of Quebec"[15] from Congress, which
for cool audacity and impertinence can scarcely be paralleled. It
commenced with "We are too well acquainted with the liberality of
sentiment distinguishing your natures to imagine that difference of
religion will prejudice you against a hearty amity with us," etc.
[14] Washington's Writings, Vol. III., page 361.
[15] Debates, etc., page 603.
The address from the Continental Congress was translated into French and
was very favorably received. They then begged the translator, as he had
succeeded so well, to try his hand on that addressed to Great Britain.
He had equal success in this, and read his performance to a numerous
audience. But when he came to that part which treats of the new
modelling of the province, draws a picture of the Catholic religion and
Canadian manners, they could not restrain their resentment nor express
it except in broken curses. "O the perfidious, double-faced Congress!
Let us bless and obey our benevolent prince, whose humanity is
consistent and extends to all religions. Let us abhor all who would
seduce us from our loyalty by acts that would dishonor a Jesuit, and
whose address, like their resolves, is destructive of their own
objects."
While the commissioners were applying themselves with the civil
authorities, Rev. Mr. Carroll was diligently employed with the clergy,
explaining to them that the resistance of the united colonies was caused
by the invasion of their charter by England. To this the clergy replied
that since the acquisition of Canada by the British government its
inhabitants had no aggression to complain of, that on the contrary the
government had faithfully complied with all the stipulations of the
treaty, and had in fact sanctioned and protected the laws and customs of
Canada with a delicacy that demanded their respect and gratitude, and
that on the score of religious liberty the British government had left
them nothing to complain of.
And therefore that when the well-established principle that allegiance
is due to protection, the clergy could not teach that even neutrality
was consistent with the allegiance due to such ample protection as
Great Britain had shown the Catholics of Canada. The judicious and
liberal policy of the British government to the Catholics had succeeded
in inspiring them with sentiments of loyalty which the conduct of the
people and the public bodies of some of the united colonies had served
to strengthen and confirm. Mr. Carroll was also informed that in the
colonies whose liberality he was now avouching, the Catholic religion
had not been tolerated hitherto. Priests were excluded under severe
penalties and Catholic missionaries among the Indians rudely and cruelly
treated.
John Adams, who was a member of the congress that sent the commissioners
to Canada, in a letter to his wife, did not state the true reason for
sending a Jesuit priest there, and also warned her against divulging the
fact that a priest had been sent, for fear of offending his
constituents[16]
He wrote as follows:--
"Mr. John Carroll of Maryland, a Roman Catholic priest and a Jesuit, is
to go with the committee, the priests of Canada having refused baptism
and absolution to our friends there. Your prudence will direct you to
communicate the circumstances of the priest, the Jesuit, and the Romish
religion, only to such persons as can judge of the measure upon large
and generous principles, and will not indiscreetly divulge it."[16]
[16] Letter of John Adams to his wife, Vol. I., page 86.
John Adams also wrote: "We have a few rascally Jacobites and Roman
Catholics in this town (Braintree), but they do not dare to show
themselves."[17]
[17] Life and Works of John Adams, Vol. IX., page 335.
[Illustration: KILLING AND SCALPING OF FATHER RASLE AT NORRIDGEWOCK
By Massachusetts scalp hunters, L100 bounty was offered for the scalp of
a male Indian, and L50 for that of women or children.]
To any statesman who looked into the question inquiringly and with clear
vision, it must have appeared evident that, if the English colonies
resolved to sever themselves from the British Empire, it would be
impossible to prevent them. Their population was said to have doubled in
twenty-five years. They were separated from the mother country by three
thousand miles of water, their seaboard extended for more than one
thousand miles, their territory was almost boundless in its extent and
resources, and the greater part of it no white man had traversed or
seen. To conquer such a country would be a task of greatest difficulty
and stupendous cost. To hold it in opposition to the general wish of the
people would be impossible. The colonists were chiefly small and
independent freeholders, hardy backwoodsmen and hunters, well skilled in
the use of arms and possessed of all the resources and energies which
life in a new country seldom fails to develop. They had representative
assemblies to levy taxes and organize resistance. They had militia,
which in some colonies included all adult freemen between the ages of
sixteen and fifty or sixty, and, in addition to Indian raids, they had
the military experience of two great wars. The first capture of
Louisburg, in 1745, had been mainly their work. In the latter stages of
the war, which ended in 1763, there were more than twenty thousand
colonial troops under arms, ten thousand of them from New England alone,
and more than four hundred privateers had been fitted out in colonial
harbors.[18]
[18] Ramsey, History of the American Revolution, Vol. I, page 40;
Hildreth, Vol. II., page 486; Grahame, Vol. IV., page 94.
There were assuredly no other colonies in the world so favorably
situated as these were at the close of the Seven Years' War. They had
but one grievance, the Navigation Act, and it is a gross and flagrant
misrepresentation to describe the commercial policy of England as
exceptionally tyrannical. As Adam Smith truly said, "Every European
nation had more or less taken to itself the commerce of its colonies,
and upon that account had prohibited the ships of foreign nations from
trading with them, and had prohibited them from importing European goods
from any foreign nation," and "though the policy of Great Britain with
regard to the trade of her colonies has been dictated by the same
mercantile spirit as that of other nations, it has, upon the whole, been
less illiberal and oppressive than any of them."[19]
[19] Wealth of Nations, Vol. IV., chapter 7; Tucker's Four Tracts, page
133.
There is, no doubt, much to be said in palliation of the conduct of
England. If Virginia was prohibited from sending her tobacco to any
European country except England, Englishmen were prohibited from
purchasing any tobacco except that which came from America or Bermuda.
If many of the trades and manufactures in which the colonies were
naturally most fitted to excel were restrained or crushed by law,
English bounties encouraged the cultivation of indigo and the
exportation to England of pitch, tar, hemp, flax and ship timber from
America, and several articles of American produce obtained a virtual
monopoly of the English market by their exemption from duties which were
imposed on similar articles imported from foreign countries.
The revenue laws were habitually violated. Smuggling was very lucrative,
and therefore very popular, and any attempt to interfere with it was
greatly resented. The attention of the British government was urgently
called to it during the war. At a time when Great Britain was straining
every nerve to free the English colonies from the incubus of France, and
when millions of pounds sterling were being remitted from England to pay
colonists for fighting in their own cause, it was found that French
fleets, French garrisons, and the French West India Islands were
systematically supplied with large quantities of provisions by the New
England colonies. Pitt, who still directed affairs, wrote with great
indignation that this contraband trade must be stopped, but the whole
community of the New England seaports appeared to favor or was partaking
in it, and great difficulty was found in putting the law into
execution.[20]
[20] Hildreth Vol. II., page 498; McPherson's Annals of Commerce, Vol.
III., page 330; Arnold's History of Rhode Island, Vol. II., pages
227-235.
From a legal point of view, the immense activity of New England was for
the most part illicit. In serene ignorance the New England sailor
penetrated all harbors, conveying in their holds, from the North, where
they belonged, various sorts of interdicted merchandise, and bringing
home cargoes equally interdicted from all ports they touched. The
merchants, who since 1749, through Hutchinson's excellent statesmanship,
had been free from the results of a bad currency, greatly throve. The
shipyards teemed with fleets, each nook of the coast was the seat of
mercantile ventures. It was then that in all the shore towns arose the
fine colonial mansions of the traders along the main streets, that are
even admired today for their size and comeliness. Within the houses
bric-a-brac from every clime came to abound, and the merchants and their
wives and children were clothed gaily in rich fabrics from remote
regions. Glowing reports of the gaiety and luxury of the colonies
reached the mother country.[21] The merchants and sailors were, to a
man, law-breakers. It was this universal law-breaking, after the fall of
Quebec, that the English ministry undertook to stop over its extended
empire. This caused friction, which gave rise to fire, which increased
until the ties with the mother land were quite consumed.
[21] Gordon's History of the American War, Vol. I., page 157.
As early as 1762 there were loud complaints in Parliament of the
administration of custom houses in the colonies. Grenville found on
examination that the whole revenue derived by England from the custom
houses in America amounted only to between one and two thousand pounds a
year, and that for the purpose of collecting this revenue the English
exchequer was paying annually between seven and eight thousand pounds.
Nine-tenths, probably, of all the tea, wine, fruit, sugar and molasses
consumed in the colonies, were smuggled. Grenville determined to
terminate this state of affairs. Several new revenue officers were
appointed with more rigid rules for the discharge of their duties.
"Writs of assistance" were to be issued, authorizing custom house
officers to search any house they pleased for smuggled goods. English
ships of war were at the same time stationed off the American coast for
the purpose of intercepting smugglers.
Adam Smith, writing in 1776, says:
"Parliament, in attempting to exercise its supposed right, whether well
or ill-grounded, of taxing the colonies, _has never hitherto demanded of
them anything which even approached to a just proportion to what was
paid by their fellow subjects at home_. Great Britain has hitherto
suffered her subjects and subordinate provinces to disburden themselves
upon her of almost the whole expense."
The colonists had profited by the successful war incomparably more than
any other British subjects. Until the destruction of the French power, a
hand armed with a rifle or tomahawk and torch seemed constantly near the
threshold of every New England home. The threatening hand was now
paralyzed and the fringe of plantations by the coast could now extend
itself to the illimitable West in safety. No foreign foe could now
dictate a boundary line and bar the road beyond it. The colonists were
asked only to bear a share in the burden of the empire by a
contribution to the sum required for maintenance of the ten thousand
soldiers and of the armed fleet which was unquestionably necessary for
the protection of their long coast line and of their commerce.
James Otis started the Revolution in New England by what Mr. Lecky calls
an "incendiary speech" against writs of assistance, and if half of what
Hildreth asserts and Bancroft admits in regard to smuggling along the
coast of New England is true, there is no reason to wonder that such
writs were unpopular in Boston. James Otis, whose father had just been
disappointed in his hopes of obtaining a seat upon the bench, was no
doubt an eloquent man and all the more dangerous because he often
thought he was right. That it is always prudent to distrust the
eloquence of a criminal lawyer we have ample proof, in the advice he
gave the people on the passage of the Stamp Act. "It is the duty," he
said, "of all, humbly and silently to acquiesce in all the decisions of
the supreme legislature. Nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand of
the colonists will never once entertain a thought but of submission to
our sovereign and to authority of Parliament, in all possible
contingencies. They undoubtedly have the right to levy internal taxes on
the colonies."
In private talk he was more vigorous than in his formal utterance.
"Hallowell says that Otis told him Parliament had a right to tax the
colonies and he was a d---- fool who denied it, and that this people
would never be quiet till we had a council from home, till our charter
was taken away and till we had regular troops quartered upon us."[22]
[22] John Adams' Diary, January 16, 1776.
John Adams wrote in his diary, under date of January 16, 1770,
concerning Otis, as follows: "In one word Otis will spoil the club. He
talks so much and takes up so much of our time and fills it with trash,
obsceneness, profaneness, nonsense and distraction that we have none
left for rational amusements or inquiries. I fear, I tremble, I mourn
for the man and for his country. Many others mourn over him with tears
in their eyes."
Again John Adams says, after an attack upon him by Otis: "There is a
complication of malice, envy and jealousy in the man, in the present
disordered state of his mind, that is quite shocking."[23] On the 7th of
May, 1771, Otis, who at this time had recovered his reason was elected
with John Hancock to the assembly. They both left their party and went
over to the side of the government. John Adams wrote "Otis' change was
indeed startling. John Chandler, Esq., of Petersham gave me an account
of Otis' conversion to Toryism, etc." Hutchinson writing to Governor
Bernard, says, "Otis was carried off today in a post-chaise, bound hand
and foot. He has been as good as his word--set the Province in a flame
and perished in the attempt."
[23] John Adams' Diary, October 27, 1772; John Adams' Works, Vol. II
page 26; Letters to Bernard December 3, 1771.
In Virginia the revolutionary movement of the poor whites or
"crackers," led by Patrick Henry, was against the planter aristocracy,
and Washington was a conspicuous member of the latter class. In tastes,
manners, instincts and sympathies he might have been taken as an
admirable specimen of the better class of English country gentlemen, and
he had a great deal of the strong conservative feeling which is natural
to that class. He was in the highest sense a gentleman and a man of
honor, and he carried into public life the severest standard of private
morals.
It was only slowly and very deliberately that Washington identified
himself with the disunionist cause. No man had a deeper admiration for
the British constitution, or a more sincere desire to preserve the
connection, and to put an end to the disputes between the two countries.
From the first promulgation of the Stamp Act, however, he adopted the
conviction that a recognition of the sole right of the colonies to tax
themselves was essential to their freedom, and as soon as it became
evident that Parliament was resolved at all hazards to assert its
authority by taxing the Americans, he no longer hesitated. Of all the
great men in history he was the most invariably judicious, and there is
scarcely a rash word or action of judgment related of him. America had
found in Washington a leader who could be induced by no earthly motive
to tell a falsehood or to break an engagement or to commit a
dishonorable act.
In the despondency of long-continued failure, in the elation of sudden
success, at times when his soldiers were deserting by hundreds, and when
malignant plots were formed against his reputation; amid the constant
quarrels, rivalries and jealousies of his subordinates; in the dark hour
of national ingratitude and in the midst of the most universal and
intoxicating flattery, he was always the same calm, wise, just and
single-minded man, pursuing the course which he believed to be right,
without fear, favor or fanaticism.
In civil as in military life he was pre-eminent among his contemporaries
for the clearness and soundness of his judgment, for his perfect
moderation and self-control, for the quiet dignity and the indomitable
firmness with which he pursued every path which he had deliberately
chosen.
[Illustration: READING THE STAMP ACT IN KING STREET: OPPOSITE THE STATE
HOUSE.]
As previously stated, the heart of the Old Dominion was fired by Patrick
Henry, one of the most unreliable men living. Byron called him a
forest-born Demosthenes, and Jefferson, wondering over his career,
exclaimed: "Where he got that torrent of language is inconceivable. I
have frequently closed my eyes while he spoke and, when he was done,
asked myself what he had said without being able to recollect a word of
it." He had been successively a storekeeper, a farmer and a shopkeeper,
but had failed in all these pursuits and became a bankrupt at
twenty-three. Then he studied law a few weeks and practiced a few years.
The first success he made in this line was in an effort to persuade a
jury to render one of the most unjust verdicts ever recorded in
court. Finally he embarked on the stormy sea of politics. One day he
worked himself into a fine frenzy, and in a most dramatic manner
demanded "Liberty or Death," although he had both freely at his
disposal. He was a slaveholder nearly all his life. He bequeathed slaves
and cattle in his will, and one of his eulogists brags that he would buy
or sell a horse or a negro as well as anybody.
John Adams of Braintree, now Quincy, was a graduate of Harvard College,
and a lawyer by profession. He ranks next to Washington as being the
most prominent of the Revolutionary leaders. He was the son of a poor
farmer and shoemaker. He married Abigail Smith, the daughter of the
Congregational minister in the adjoining town of Weymouth. Much
disapprobation of the match appears to have been manifested, for Mr.
Adams, the son of a poor farmer, was thought scarcely good enough to be
match with the minister's daughter, descended from many of the shining
lights of the colony.[24]
[24] "Letters of Mrs. Adams." Memoirs, XXIX.
John Adams was a cousin of Samuel Adams. He joined the disunionists,
probably, because he saw that if the Revolution was successful there
would be great opportunity for advancement under the new government.
This proved to be the case, for he was the first minister to Great
Britain, the successor of Washington as second president of the United
States. His eldest son became the sixth president, and his grandson,
Charles Francis Adams, ably represented his country as minister to Great
Britain during the Civil War of 1861.
The Stamp Act received the royal assent on March 22, 1765, and it was to
come into operation on the first day of November following. The
"Virginia Resolutions," through which Patrick Henry first acquired a
continental fame, voted by the House of Burgess in May following, denied
very definitely the authority of Parliament to tax the colonies. At
first men recoiled. Otis was reported to have publicly condemned them in
King street, which was no doubt true, for, as we have seen, he fully
admitted the supremacy of Parliament.
The principal objection made by the colonists to the Stamp Act was that
it was an internal tax. They denied the right of Parliament to impose
internal taxation, claiming that to be a function that could be
exercised only by colonial assemblies. They admitted, however, that
Parliament had a right to levy duties on exports and imports, and they
had submitted to such taxation for many years without complaint.
In order to soften the opposition, and to consult to the utmost of his
power the wishes of the colonists, Grenville informed the colonial
agents that the distribution of the stamps should be confided not to
Englishmen but to Americans. Franklin, then agent for Pennsylvania,
accepted the act and, in his canny way, took steps to have a friend
appointed stamp distributor for his province. This made him very
unpopular and the mob threatened to destroy his house.
The Stamp Act, when its ultimate consequences are considered, must be
deemed one of the most momentous legislative acts in the history of
mankind.
A timely concession of a few seats in the upper and lower houses of the
Imperial Parliament would have set at rest the whole dispute. Franklin
had suggested it ten years before, anticipating even Otis, Grenville was
quite ready to favor it, Adam Smith advocated it. Why did the scheme
fail? Just at that time in Massachusetts a man was rising into
provincial note, who was soon to develop a heat, truly fanatical, in
favor of an idea quite inconsistent with Franklin's plan. He from the
first claimed that representation of the colonies in Parliament was
quite impracticable or, if accepted, would be of no benefit to the
colonies, and that there was no fit state for them but independence. His
voice at first was but a solitary cry in the midst of a tempest, but it
prevailed mightily in the end.
This sole expounder of independence was Samuel Adams, the father of the
Revolution. Already his influence was superseding that of Otis, in
stealthy ways of which neither Otis nor those who made an idol of him
were sensible, putting into the minds of men, in the place of the ideas
for which Otis stood, radical conceptions which were to change in due
time the whole future of the world. "Samuel Adams at this time was a man
of forty-two years of age, but already gray and bent with a physical
infirmity which kept his head and hands shaking like those of a
paralytic. He was a man of broken fortunes, a ne'er-do-well in his
private business, a failure as a tax collector, the only public office
he had thus far undertaken to discharge."[25] He had an hereditary
antipathy to the British government, for his father was one of the
principal men connected with Land-Bank delusion, and was ruined by the
restrictions which Parliament imposed on the circulation of paper money,
causing the closing up of the bank by act of Parliament and leaving
debts which seventeen years later were still unpaid.
[25] Hosmer, Life of Hutchinson, page 82.
It appears that Governor Hutchinson was a leading person in dissolving
the bank, and from that time Adams was the bitter enemy of Hutchinson
and the government. Hutchinson in describing him says, "Mr. S. Adams had
been one of the directors of the land bank in 1741 which was dissolved
by act of Parliament. After his decease his estate was put up for sale
by public auction, under authority of an act of the General Assembly.
The son first made himself conspicuous on this occasion. He attended the
sale, threatened the sheriff to bring action against him and threatened
all who should attempt to enter upon the estate under pretence of a
purchase, and by intimidating both the sheriff and those persons who
intended to purchase, he prevented the sale, kept the estate in his
possession and the debts to the land bank remained unsatisfied. He was
afterwards a collector of taxes for the town of Boston and made
defalcation which caused an additional tax upon the inhabitants. He was
for nearly twenty years a writer against government in the public
newspapers. Long practice caused him to arrive at great perfection and
to acquire a talent of artfully and fallaciously insinuating into the
minds of readers a prejudice against the characters of all he attacked
beyond any other man I ever knew, and he made more converts to his cause
by calumniating governors and other servants of the crown than by
strength of reasoning. The benefit to the town from his defence of their
liberties, he supposed an equivalent to his arrears as their collector,
and prevailing principle of the party that the end justified the means
probably quieted the remorse he must have felt from robbing men of their
characters and injuring them more than if he had robbed them of their
estates."[26]
[26] Hutchinson's History, Vol. III., pages 294-295.
In a letter written by Hutchinson about this time he thus characterizes
his chief adversary:
"I doubt whether there is a greater incendiary in the King's dominion or
a man of greater malignity of heart, who has less scruples any measure
ever so criminal to accomplish his purposes; and I think I do him no
injustice when I suppose he wishes the destruction of every friend to
government in America."[27]
[27] M. A. History, Vol. XXV., page 437.
In a letter dated March 13, 1769, Adams petitioned the town, requesting
that he be discharged from his indebtedness to the town for the amount
that he was in arrears as tax collector. He states that the town
treasurer, by order of the town, had put his bond in suit and recovered
judgment for the sum due L2009.8.8. He stated that his debts and
L1106.11 will fully complete the sum which he owes and requests "that
the town would order him a final discharge upon the condition of his
paying the aforesaid sum of L1106.11 into the province treasury." This
letter of Adams to the town of Boston fully confirms the statement made
by Hutchinson that he was a defaulter, for it appears from this letter
that during the several years he was collector of taxes for the town,
that he did not make a proper return for the taxes which he had
collected, and it was only after suit and judgment had been obtained
against his bondsmen that restitution was made, his sureties having to
pay over $5000 in cash and the balance was made up of uncollected
taxes.[28]
[28] This letter was purchased at the E. H. Leffingwell sale of January
6, 1891, for $185, by the city of Boston, and can be seen at the city
clerk's office. In connection with this see "Life of Samuel Adams," by
his great-grandson, William V. Wells, Vol. I., pages 35-38. Here he
emphatically denies that bonds or sureties were given by collectors.
Evidently he had not consulted Boston Town Records, 1767, page 9, when
it was voted that Samuel Adams' bond "shall be put in Suit," and when
bonds and sureties were required of his successor, neither could he have
known of the existence of this letter.
Adams was poor, simple, ostentatiously austere; the blended influence of
Calvinistic theology and republican principles had indurated his whole
character. He hated monarchy and the Episcopal church, all privileged
classes and all who were invested with dignity and rank, with a fierce
hatred. He was the first to foresee and to desire an armed struggle, and
he now maintained openly that any British troops which landed should be
treated as enemies, attacked and if possible destroyed.