History of the Loyalists: the Commencement of the Difficulties

Year
1893
Month
1
Day
4
Article Title
History of the Loyalists: the Commencement of the Difficulties
Author
James Hannay
Page Number
1
Article Type
Language
Article Contents
HISTORY OF THE LOYALISTS THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE DIFFICULTIES. Benjamin Franklin's Testimony — Resolve to Repeal the Stamp Act— Constitutional Arguments—Virtual Representation—The Stamp Act Repealed. BY JAMES HANNAY. CHAPTER I. Concluded. OPPOSITION TO THE ACT IN THE OTHER COLONIES. In the other colonies there were similar demonstrations against the stamp act. At Providence and Newport in Rhode Island effigies were exhibited and burnt. At Portsmouth, N.H., there was a great procession to commemorate the so-called death of Liberty and her revival. In Connecticut Mr. Ingersoll, the distributor of stamps was burnt in effigy and compelled to resign his office. In New York the same act was cried about the streets as the folly of England and the ruin of America. The stamps arrived about the end of October, and the lieutenant governor, Cadwallader Colden, placed them in Fort George for safe keeping. On the evening of the 1st November a mob of several thousand persons assembled and threatened Colden and his family with death if he did not give up the stamps to be destroyed. He refused and in revenge they broke open his stable, took out his coach and made a bonfire of it in the bowling green: an effigy of Colden, which bad been bung on a gallows, was burnt with it. They next proceeded to the house of one Major James, who was supposed to be a friend of the stamp act, and after plundering it, consumed every article of furniture it had contained in a bonfire. The next day the stamps were delivered to the city authorities and deposited in the City hall. They were never used in New York. At Philadelphia there were demonstrations against the stamp act, and John Hughes, who had been appointed stamp distributor, resigned his office. Abiel Holmes, in his American Annals, published in 1805, says of the Philadelphia proceedings: “The body of Quakers, with a part of the Church of England and of the Baptists, seemed inclined to submit to the stamp act; but great pains were taken to engage the Dutch and the tower class of people in the opposition.” Here we have a very candid confession which furnishes a key to the whole policy of the revolutionary party. "The lower class of people” were used to do the work of a few dissatisfied leaders who kept in the background. Disorder and mob violence were reduced to a system to carry out the alma of the anti- British party. This same system was carried out in all the colonies. In Maryland, the house of Mr. Hood, the stamp distributor, was pulled down and he was compelled to resign his office. In Virginia, George Mercer, the distributor of stamps from that colony, resigned his office under pressure from the people, and the event was celebrated by a public illumination and the ringing of belle. A CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. While these violent proceedings were being enacted the stamp act was attacked in a more orderly and legitimate manner. The merchants of New York directed their correspondents in England to ship no more goods to them until it was repealed, and announced to them that they would not cell on commission any goods which should be shipped from Great Britain after January, 1766, unless on the condition of the repeal of the act. The merchants and traders of Philadelphia and Boston followed the example of the New York business men, and the effect was immediately felt in the decline of importations from the mother country. In this manner a public opinion was created in England against the stamp act and the way prepared for its repeal. The stamp act had been passed while Mr. George Grenville was premier, but in the latter part of 1765, Grenville retired and the Marquis of Rockingham came into power. Grenville was as narrow-minded and as obstinate as the king himself and had he remained in office the great struggle between the colonies and the mother country might have taken place over the stamp act. But the new premier was a man of a different spirit and he was free to deal with the crisis that had arisen without reference to his predecessor. It was evident that the act must either be enforced or repealed. As it was the law was a dead letter. As documents on unstamped paper were not legal, and as the people would not use the stamps business was suspended and the courts were closed. This condition of affairs could not be allowed to continue. Accordingly when parliament met in Dec. 1765, the speech from the throne recommended the state of affairs in America to the consideration of parliament. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN’S EVIDENCE. Benjamin Franklin, agent for Pennsylvania, was then in England, and he was examined before a committee of the house of commons in regard to the state of affairs in America. He affirmed that the general temper of the colonists towards the mother country was, until this act was passed, the best in the world. They considered themselves as a part of the British Empire, and having a common interest in it and not as foreigners. They were jealous for the honor and prosperity of the nation and would always be ready to support it, as far as their power went. They had always been ready to tax themselves, but having assemblies of their own they objected to parliament laying upon them each a tax as that imposed by the stamp act. They admitted that parliament had a right to impose some duties, such as those that were meant to regulate commerce, but they drew a distinction between such duties and internal taxes. The authority of parliament to regulate commerce had never been disputed by the colonists. The control of the sea belonged to Britain. She maintained by her fleets the safety of navigation upon it, and might therefore have a natural and equitable right to some toll or duty, on merchandise carried through that part of her dominions, towards defraying the expenses she had to incur in ships to maintain the safety of its carriage. But the imposition of internal taxes was quite a different matter. The colonists held that by the charters granted to them for the several provinces they were entitled to all the privileges and liberties of Englishmen. They knew that one of the privileges of English subjects is that they are not to be taxed except by their own consent. Such was Franklin's statement of the rights of the colonists. It was pointed out to him that in the charter of Pennsylvania there was a clause by which the king declared that he would levy no taxes on the inhabitants unless it were with the content of the colonial assembly or by an act of parliament. These words Franklin admitted seemed to reserve a right of taxation to parliament, but he showed that, in point of fact, it had never been acted upon, and that the people understood that parliament would never assume to impose taxes upon them unless it first gave them representation in that body. RESOLVE TO REPEAL THE STAMP ACT. Franklin was asked if the colonists would be satisfied with the repeal of the stamp act without a formal renunciation of the abstract right of parliament to impose it, and he stated be believed they would. He thought the parliamentary declaration of right would give them very little concern if it were never attempted to be carried into practice. The question which Franklin thus answered seems to have been framed with a view to justify the course which the ministry had determined to follow. Lord Rockingham and his colleagues had made up their minds to repeal the stamp act, but to accompany this repeal with a declaration of the absolute supremacy of the crown and parliament. This was an unfortunate determination, because it served to show that parliament had yielded to the demands of the colonists, not from a desire to do them justice but from mere weakness. If the stamp act had been repealed unconditionally it might have been said that parliament had thus sought to remedy a wrong, but as it was, the way was left open for future differences, and the colonists were plainly told that their lawless conduct had wrung from a reluctant parliament a concession which no appeal to law or argument would have given them. PITT ON REPRESENTATION AND TAXATION. On the 24th February, 1766, the government introduced a bill into parliament which after declaring in its first clause “that the king's majesty, by and with the consent of the lords, spiritual and temporal, and the commons of Great Britain in parliament assembled, had, both, and of right ought to to have, fall power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity, to bind the colonists and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain in all cases whatsoever,” went on to repeal the stamp act. This measure produced a memorable constitutional debate in both houses. In the commons Pitt argued that “as the colonies are not represented in parliament, Great Britain had no legal right or power to lay a tax upon them— that taxation is no part of the governing or legislative power. Taxes,” said the great orator, "are the voluntary gift and grant of the commons alone. In legislation the three estates of the realm are alike concerned; but the concurrence of the peers and the crown to a tax is only necessary to clothe it with the form of a law; the gift and grant is in the commons alone. . . The distinction between legislation and taxation is essentially necessary to liberty." Such were the views of Pitt, as enunciated in the house of commons, and the rules thus laid down, whether they be abstract law or not, are the ones that are now acted upon in all parliaments and legislatures under the British flag. Supply is granted not in the first instance by a bill, but by resolutions in committee of the house of commons, upon which a bill is founded, and this bill when thus passed by the lower house cannot be altered as much as to the dotting of an i or the crossing of a t in the upper chambers. This practice seems to fully justify the principle laid down by Pitt that taxation is no part of the governing or legislative power, but a voluntary gift of the commons alone. LORD CAMDEN AND LORD MANSFIELD. In the house of lords, Lord Camden, a very high authority on constitutional law, held views similar to those which had been expressed by Pitt, He affirmed that he spoke as “the defender of the law and the constitution; that as the affair was of the greatest consequence, and in its consequences might involve the fate of kingdoms, he had taken the strictest review of all his arguments, he had examined and re-examined all his authorities; and that his researches had more and more convinced him that the British parliament had no right to tax the Americans. The stamp act was absolutely illegal contrary to the fundamental laws of nature, contrary to the fundamental laws of the constitution—a constitution governed en the eternal and immutable laws of nature. The doctrine which he was asserting was not new; it was as old as the constitution; it grew up with it; indeed it was its support. Taxation and representation are inseparably united. God hath joined them; no British government can put them asunder.” Lord Camden’s views were opposed by Lord Northington, the chancellor, and Lord Mansfield, the chief justice. The latter then put forth what Lord Campbell calls "his doctrine of virtual representation-" He said, "there can be no doubt but that the inhabitants of the colonies are represented in parliament as the greatest part of the people of England are represented, among nine millions of whom there are eight who have no votes in electing members of parliament. Every objection, therefore, to the dependency of the colonies upon parliament which arises upon the ground of representation, goes to the whole present constitution of Great Britain. For what purpose then are arguments drawn from a distinction in which there is no real difference of a virtual and an actual representation. A member of parliament, chosen for any borough, represents not only the constituents and inhabitants of that particular place, but he represents the inhabitants of every other borough in Great Britain. He represents the city of London and all the other commons of the land, and the inhabitants of all the colonies and dominions of Great Britain, and is in duty and conscience bound to take care of their interests." VIRTUAL REPRESENTATION AN ABSURDITY. Such was the argument by which Lord Mansfield sought to excuse the stamp act, and the fact emphasizes in a striking manner the vast difference that exists between a mere lawyer and a statesman. What could be more aboard than to talk of the men of New York or Massachusetts being virtually represented by the member for some rotten borough, the nominee of the duke of New castle or some other great lord, a member who knew nothing of their wants, cared nothing for their interests and probably regarded all colonists as an inferior order of beings, a delusion which haunts the minds of many Englishmen even at the present day. As to the question whether a member of parliament is a delegate or not it is hardly worth arguing. Expounders of the constitution may hold whatever views they please, but if the representative of a constituency does not vote as the majority of the electors wish they turn him out and leave him to find his consolation in constitutional fictions. The electors of St. John would be very ill satisfied if they were told that one of their members, however little he accomplished for their benefit, was a perfect representative of the people of Toronto or of Halifax. In such a case they would probably suggest that he would be more in his element if actually representing Toronto or Halifax and leaving some man of less diffused benevolence to represent St. John. THE ATTITUDE OF THE LOYALISTS. The stamp act was repealed and the people of the colonies were so much delighted that they did not stop to criticize the declaration of the omnipotence of parliament which the repealing act contained. The news of the repeal produced many demonstrations of joy in all the colonies; loyal addressee were voted to the king and in New York a statue was erected to Pitt, the great champion of American rights. It would have been well if the British ministry had seen in the resistance to the stamp act a warning against future invasions of what the American colonists regarded as their liberties. Certainly the warning was conveyed in language which could not be mistaken, and it should be borne in mind in considering it that practically all the colonists were united against the stamp act. The men who afterwards became Loyalists, although firmly attached to their monarch and their flag, were nearly all unalterably opposed to taxation without representation. This is a fact which some American writers are at great pains to conceal, but it is very important in considering the true character of the Loyalist movement. The Loyalists were not men who were ready to submit to unjust taxation, but they believed that the unity of the empire was more important than any temporary inconvenience and they were not ready to sever the ties which bound them to Great Britain until all constitutional means of redress had been exhausted.