The War of Independence

by John Fiske

Samuel Adams.

In the Boston town-meeting in May, almost as soon as the news had arrived, the American view of the case was very clearly set forth in a series of resolutions drawn up by Samuel Adams. This was the first of the remarkable state papers from the pen of that great man, who now, at the age of forty-two, was just entering upon a glorious career. Samuel Adams was a graduate of Harvard College in the class of 1740. He had been reared in politics from boyhood, for his father, a deacon of the Old South Church, had been chief spokesman of the popular party in its disputes with the royal governors. Of all the agencies in organizing resistance to Great Britain none were more powerful than the New England town-meetings, among which that of the people of Boston stood preëminent, and in the Boston town-meeting for more than thirty years no other man exerted so much influence as Samuel Adams. This was because of his keen intelligence and persuasive talk, his spotless integrity, indomitable courage, unselfish and unwearying devotion to the public good, and broad sympathy with all classes of people. He was a thorough democrat. He respected the dignity of true manhood wherever he found it, and could talk with sailors and shipwrights like one of themselves, while at the same time in learned argument he had few superiors. He has been called the "Father of the Revolution," and was no doubt its most conspicuous figure before 1775, as Washington certainly was after that date.

This earliest state paper of Samuel Adams contained the first formal and public denial of the right of Parliament to tax the colonies, because it was not a body in which their people were represented. The resolutions were adopted by the Massachusetts assembly, and a similar action was taken by Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina. The colonies professed their willingness to raise money in answer to requisitions upon their assemblies, which were the only bodies competent to lay taxes in America. Memorials stating these views were sent to England, and the colony of Pennsylvania sent Dr. Franklin to represent its case at the British court. Franklin remained in London until the spring of 1775 as agent first for Pennsylvania, afterward for Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Georgia,—a kind of diplomatic representative of the views and claims of the Americans.

The Virginia Resolutions, 1765.

Grenville told Franklin that he wished to do things as pleasantly as possible, and was not disposed to insist upon the Stamp Act, if the Americans could suggest anything better. But when it appeared that no alternative was offered except to fall back upon the old clumsy system of requisitions, Grenville naturally replied that there ought to be some more efficient method of raising money for the defence of the frontier. Accordingly in March, 1765, the Stamp Act was passed, with so little debate that people hardly noticed what was going on. But when the news reached America there was an outburst of wrath that was soon heard and felt in London. In May the Virginia legislature was assembled. George Washington was sitting there in his seat, and Thomas Jefferson, then a law-student, was listening eagerly from outside the door, when Patrick Henry introduced the famous resolutions in which he declared, among other things, that an attempt to vest the power of taxation in any other body than the colonial assembly was a menace to the common freedom of Englishmen, whether in Britain or in America, and that the people of Virginia were not bound to obey any law enacted in disregard of this principle. The language of the resolutions was bold enough, but a keener edge was put upon it by the defiant note which rang out from Henry in the course of the debate, when he commended the example of Tarquin and Cæsar and Charles I. to the attention of George III. "If this be treason," he exclaimed, as the speaker tried to call him to order, "if this be treason, make the most of it!"

The other colonies were not slow in acting. Massachusetts called for a general congress, in order that all might discuss the situation and agree upon some course to be pursued in common. South Carolina responded most cordially, at the instance of her noble, learned, and far-sighted patriot, Christopher Gadsden. On the 7th of October, delegates from nine colonies met in a congress at New York, adopted resolutions like those of Virginia, and sent a memorial to the king, whose sovereignty over them they admitted, and a remonstrance to Parliament, whose authority to tax them they denied. The meeting of this congress was in itself a prophecy of what was to happen if the British government should persist in the course upon which it had now entered.

Stamp Act riots.

Meanwhile the summer had witnessed riots in many places, and one of these was extremely disgraceful. Chief-justice Hutchinson had tried to dissuade the ministry from passing the Stamp Act, but an impression had got abroad among the wharves and waterside taverns of Boston that he had not only favoured it but had gone out of his way to send information to London, naming certain merchants as smugglers. Under the influence of this mistaken notion, on the night of the 26th of August a drunken mob plundered Hutchinson's house in Boston and destroyed his library, which was probably the finest in America at that time. Here, as is apt to be the case, the mob selected the wrong victim. Its shameful act was denounced by the people of Massachusetts, and the chief-justice was indemnified by the legislature. In the other instances the riots were of an innocent sort. Stamp officers were forced to resign. Boxes of stamped paper arriving by ship were burned or thrown into the sea, and at length the governor of New York was compelled by a mob to surrender all the stamps entrusted to his care. These things were done for the most part under the direction of societies of workingmen known as "Sons of Liberty," who were pledged to resist the execution of the Stamp Act. At the same time associations of merchants declared that they would buy no more goods from England until the act should be repealed, and lawyers entered into agreements not to treat any document as invalidated by the absence of the required stamp. As for the editors, they published their newspapers decorated with a grinning skull and cross-bones instead of the stamp.

Repeal of the Stamp Act.

These demonstrations produced their effect in England. In July, 1765, the Grenville ministry fell, and the new government, with Lord Rockingham at its head, was more inclined to pay heed to the wishes and views of the Americans. The debate over the repeal of the Stamp Act lasted nearly three months and was one of the fiercest that had been heard in Parliament for many a day. William Pitt declared that he rejoiced in the resistance of the Americans, and urged that the act should be repealed because Parliament ought never to have passed it; but there were very few who took this view. As the result of the long debate, at the end of March, 1766, the Stamp Act was repealed, and a Declaratory Act was passed in which Parliament said in effect that it had a right to make such laws for the Americans if it chose to do so.