After a century of great laxity toward the colonies—a century in which the colonists were favored by political privileges shared by no other people of that age; after the environment had established new social conditions, and remoteness and isolation had created a local and individual hatred of restraint; after the absence of traditions had made possible the institution of representation by population, and self-government had taken on a new meaning in the world; after a great gulf had been fixed between the social, political, and economic institutions of the two parts of the British empire—only then did the British government enter upon a policy intended to make the empire a unity.[44]
Independence had long existed in spirit in most of the essential matters of colonial life, and the British government had only to seek to establish its power over the colonies in order to arouse a desire for formal independence. The transition in England, therefore, to an imperial ideal, about the middle of the eighteenth century, doubtless caused the rending of the empire. Walpole and Newcastle, whose administrations had just preceded the reign of George III., had let the colonies alone, and thus aided the colonial at the expense of the imperial idea; while their successors, Grenville and Townshend, ruling not wisely but too well, forced the colonists to realize that they cared more for America than for England.
The time had come, though these ministers failed to see it, when the union of Great Britain with her colonies depended on the offspring’s disposition toward the mother-country. Good feeling would preserve the union, but dissatisfaction would make even forcible control impossible. Social and political and economic ties still bound the colonists to the home land, but these were weak ties as compared with an irrepressible desire for self-growth. The expression of their political ideals unrestrained by the conservatism of the parent was a desired end to which they strove, almost unconscious of their object.
To understand the American Revolution, therefore, several facts must be clearly in mind—first, that Great Britain had for one hundred and fifty years been growing to the dignity of an empire, and that the thirteen colonies were a considerable part of that empire; second, the colonies had interests of their own which were not favored by the growing size and strength of the empire. They were advancing to new political ideals faster than the mother-country. Their economic interests were becoming differentiated from those of England. They were coming to have wants and ambitions and hopes of their own quite distinct from those of Great Britain.
At the fatal time when the independent spirit of America had grown assertive, the politically active part of the British people began unconsciously to favor an imperial policy, which their ministers suggested, and which to them seemed the very essence of sound reasoning and good government. They approved of the proposed creation of executives who should be independent of the dictation of the colonial assemblies. There were also to be new administrative organs having power to enforce the colonial trade regulations; and the defensive system of the colonies was to be improved by a force of regular troops, which was in part to be supported by colonial taxes.
In order to accomplish these objects, the king’s new minister, the assiduous Grenville, who knew the law better than the maxims of statesmanship, induced Parliament, in March, 1764, to resolve upon “certain stamp duties” for the colonies. A year later the “Gentle Shepherd,” as Pitt had dubbed him, proved his watchfulness by getting a stamp act passed,[45] which, though nearly a duplicate of one in force in England, and like one of Massachusetts’ own laws, nevertheless aroused every colony to violent wrath.
This sudden flame of colonial passion rose from the embers of discontent with Grenville’s policy of enforcing the trade or navigation laws—those restrictions upon colonial industries and commerce which were the outgrowth of a protective commercial policy which England had begun even before the discovery of America.[46] As the colonies grew they began to be regarded as a source of wealth to the mother-country; and, at the same time that bounties were given them for raising commodities desired by England, restrictions were placed upon American trade.[47] When the settlers of the northern and middle colonies began manufacturing for themselves, their industry no sooner interfered with English manufactures than a law was passed to prevent the exportation of the production and to limit the industry itself. This system of restrictions, though it necessarily established a real opposition of interest between America and England, does not seem on the whole to have been to the disadvantage of the colonies;[48] nor was the English colonial system a whit more severe than that of other European countries.
In 1733, however, the Molasses Act went into effect,[49] and, had it been enforced, would have been a serious detriment to American interests. It not only aimed to stop the thriving colonial trade with the Dutch, French, and Spanish West Indies, but was intended to aid English planters in the British West Indies by laying a prohibitive duty on imported foreign sugar and molasses. It was not enforced, however, for the customs officials, by giving fraudulent clearances, acted in collusion with the colonial importers in evading the law; but, in 1761, during the war with France, the thrifty colonists carried on an illegal trade with the enemy, and Pitt demanded that the restrictive laws be enforced.
The difficulty of enforcing was great, for it was hard to seize the smuggled goods, and harder still to convict the smuggler in the colonial courts. Search-warrants were impracticable, because the legal manner of using them made the informer’s name public, and the law was unable to protect him from the anger of a community fully in sympathy with the smugglers. The only feasible way to put down this unpatriotic trade with the enemy was to resort to “writs of assistance,” which would give the customs officers a right to search for smuggled goods in any house they pleased.[50] Such warrants were legal, had been used in America, and were frequently used in England;[51] yet so highly developed was the American love of personal liberty that when James Otis, a Boston lawyer, resisted by an impassioned speech the issue of such writs his arguments met universal approval.[52] In perfect good faith he argued, after the manner of the ancient law-writers, that Parliament could not legalize tyranny, ignoring the historical fact that since the revolution of 1688 an act of Parliament was the highest guarantee of right, and Parliament the sovereign and supreme power. Nevertheless, the popularity of Otis’ argument showed what America believed, and pointed very plainly the path of wise statesmanship.
When, in 1763, the Pontiac Indian rebellion endangered the whole West and made necessary a force of soldiers in Canada, Grenville, in spite of the recent warning, determined that the colonies should share the burden which was rapidly increasing in England. He lowered the sugar and molasses duties,[53] and set out to enforce their collection by every lawful means. The trouble which resulted developed more quickly in Massachusetts, because its harsh climate and sterile soil drove it to a carrying-trade, and the enforced navigation laws were thought to threaten its ruin. It was while American economic affairs were in this condition that Grenville rashly aggravated the discontent by the passage of his Stamp Act.