This was the first internal taxation laid by England on America. A word is necessary as to the meaning of the phrase in those days. An external tax, perhaps merely an export duty, was levied and paid in England; its effect was seen in higher prices in the colonies. Internal taxation would include all taxes actually paid in America on goods coming from England. The provisions of the Sugar Act were regarded as "trade restrictions," and not as intended to raise an English revenue.
There is perhaps no better place to discuss the justice of the Revolution than right here. Even to-day the illegality, the utter wrongfulness of the American position, is occasionally raised among us by those who see the great obligations to the mother country under which the colonies lay, and who recall the needless hardships suffered by the wretched Tories, the martyrs of a lost cause. Doubtless wrongs were inflicted in the course of the struggle, and the great expenditures of England were in large part unrequited. But it must be remembered that the world had not yet reached the point where the losers in a war were gently treated, and that no amount of financial obligation will ever compel to the acceptance of political servitude. By habit of mind and force of circumstances America had developed a political theory puzzlingly novel to the old world and as yet not thoroughly understood by the new. It was upon this unformulated theory that all future differences were to arise. It interfered in all affairs in which the question arose: Should the colonies be governed, and especially should they be taxed, without a voice in their own affairs?
No one in England doubted that Parliament had a right to tax America without its consent. Customs restrictions were long familiar. As to internal taxation, why, it was asked, should the colonies have a voice in Parliament? Birmingham and Manchester, great centres of population, were not represented, while that uninhabited heap of stones, Old Sarum, sent a member to the Commons. Resting on these abuses, even Pitt and Burke were content to argue that taxation of America was just. For them it was a question whether that right should be exercised.
With the best will in the world to be on good terms with the mother country, America could not agree in such reasoning. The case had nothing to do with obligations. As for these, the colonists knew that England would never have won against the French in Canada without their aid. But that was not the question. Should those who for a hundred and thirty-five years had paid no tax to England pay one now? Were the people who for seventy years had drawn a fine distinction between paying their governor of their own accord and paying him at the command of the king, and who in every year of royal governorship had made their contention plain—were they to be satisfied to pay taxes because Birmingham did?
Undoubtedly there were other causes for discontent. "To me," says Sabine, in the preface to his "American Loyalists," "the documentary history, the state papers of the period teach nothing more clearly than this, namely, that almost every matter brought into discussion was practical, and in some form or other related to LABOR, to some branch of COMMON INDUSTRY." He reminds us that twenty-nine laws limited industry in the colonies, and concludes that "the great object of the Revolution was to release LABOR from these restrictions." Undoubtedly these restrictive laws had their effect upon the temper of the people. Undoubtedly also there was much fear lest there should be established in the colonies a bureaucracy of major and minor officials, corruptly, as in England, winning fortunes for themselves. Yet the question of taxation, a matter of merely theoretical submission, which produced no hardship and would not impoverish the country, was the main cause of trouble. The two branches of the race had long unconsciously parted their ways, and the realization of it was upon them.
Upon the proposal of the Stamp Act the colonies did everything in their power to prevent the passage of the bill. They urged that internal taxation had never been levied before. Protests, arguments, and petitions were sent across the water, but in vain. The Commons fell back upon its custom "to receive no petition against a money bill," and would listen to nothing. "We have the power to tax them, and we will tax them."[13] And following this utterance of one of the ministry, the bill was passed.
It is interesting to note that no resistance to the tax was expected. Its operation was automatic; there was no hardship in its provisions; of course the colonists would yield. Even Franklin, who should have known his countrymen better, expected submission. "The sun is down," he wrote, but "we may still light candles. Frugality and industry will go a great way toward indemnifying us." His correspondent, Charles Thomson, had in this case the truer foresight, and predicted the works of darkness.[14]
Throughout the colonies there was not only sorrow, but anger. When even Hutchinson had protested against the Stamp Act, it can be seen how the Whigs would feel. Non-importation agreements were widely signed, and people accustomed to silks and laces prepared to go into homespun. But the act, passed in February, 1765, was not to go into effect until November. Before that date, much could be done.
What was done came from the lower as well as the upper classes. The people acted promptly. One colony after another sent crowds to those who had accepted, in advance, the positions of stamp-officers. One by one, under persuasion or intimidation, the officers resigned until none were left. In New York the governor fled to the military for protection, and from the parapet of the fort looked helplessly on while the people burnt before his eyes his own coach, containing images of himself and the devil. But before this happened, Boston, first of all the capitals to take a positive stand, began to draw upon itself the particular resentment of the king.