The repeal of the Grenville Stamp Act had not brought a
return of friendly feeling, for the reason that the Commons
had preferred to adopt the policy of George III. instead of
the policy of Pitt. The right to tax America was affirmed in
the very act withdrawing the tax. When Lord North came
into power he adopted a weak and fatal mixture of concession
and coercion. After the destruction of the tea in Boston
harbor the policy of coercion became dominant. In 1774, the
Charter of Massachusetts was taken away, and the port of
Boston was closed to all commerce. The British Government
labored under the singular delusion that the inconvenience
thus inflicted would bring the colonies at once to terms. It
was boldly said that the question was merely one of shillings
and pence, and that the colonists would give way as soon as
they came to see that their policy entailed a loss. There were
a few who held the opposite ground. On the night of April
19, 1774, Mr. Fuller moved to go “into Committee of the
whole House to take into consideration the duty of threepence
a pound on tea, payable in all his Majesty’s dominions in
America.” It was understood that the aim of the motion was
the repealing of the Act; and it was in seconding the motion
that Mr. Burke made his famous speech on American taxation.
But the policy advocated in the speech was voted down by
182 to 49. Thus the ministry determined to drift on in the
old way. It soon became evident, however, that some change
was imperatively necessary. The method determined upon by
Lord North was an insidious scheme for sowing dissensions
among the colonies, and thus breaking that strength which
comes from united action. His plan was to offer that whenever
a colony, in addition to providing for its own government,
should raise a fair proportion for the general defence,
and should place this sum at the disposal of Parliament, that
colony should be exempted from all further taxation, except
such duties as might be necessary for the regulation of commerce.
He thus designed to array the colonies against one
another, and so open the way for treating with them individually.
This was put forward by North as a plan for conciliation.
While Burke saw clearly the mischief that lurked in the
scheme of the ministry, he was anxious to avail himself of the
idea of conciliation; and with this end in view he brought
forward a series of resolutions “to admit the Americans to an
equal interest in the British Constitution, and to place them at
once on the footing of other Englishmen.” It was in moving
these resolutions that the following speech was made.
The method of treatment by the orator is so elaborate, that
a brief analysis of the argument may be of service. The
speech is divided into two parts: first, Ought we to make concessions?
and if so, secondly, What ought we to concede?
Under the first head the orator enters with surprising minuteness
of detail into an examination of the condition of the colonies.
He surveys (1) their population; (2) their commerce;
(3) their agriculture, and (4) their fisheries. Having thus determined
their material condition, he shows that force cannot
hold a people possessing such advantages in subjection to the
mother country, if they are inspired with a spirit of liberty.
He shows that such a spirit prevails, and examining it, he
traces it to six sources: (1) the descent of the people; (2) their
forms of government; (3) the religious principles of the North;
(4) the social institutions of the South; (5) the peculiarities of
their education, and (6) their remoteness from Great Britain.
He then sums up the first part, by showing that it is vain to
think either (1) of removing these causes, or (2) of regarding
them as criminal. Reaching the conclusion then, that conciliation
is the true policy, he proceeds to inquire what this concession
should be. Obviously it should relate to taxation,
since taxation is the cause of the contest. Referring to the
earlier history of Ireland, Durham, Chester, and Wales, he
shows that in every case, either an independent parliament
existed, or the territory was admitted to representation in the
English Parliament. He then points out that direct representation
of the colonies is impracticable, and he shows the evils
that would result from the adoption of Lord North’s scheme.
Finally, he reaches the conclusion that Americans ought to be
admitted to the privileges of Englishmen—the privilege of
contributing whatever they grant to the Crown through their
own legislature. To this end he presents six resolutions,
with a brief consideration of which he closes the speech.
This brief outline is perhaps enough to show that the
speech is remarkable for its logical order, and for its happy
grouping of historical facts. But so far from being a collection
of mere matters of fact, it is enriched from beginning to
end with thoughts and reflections from a brain teeming with
ideas on the science of government. It abounds with passages
that have always been greatly admired, and the train of
argument is not interrupted by the introduction of matter only
remotely relevant to the subject in hand. It may be said
therefore to have more of the author’s characteristic merits,
and fewer of his characteristic defects, than any other of his
speeches. Every careful student will probably agree with Sir
James Mackintosh in pronouncing it “the most faultless of
Mr. Burke’s productions.”
Mr. Speaker:
I hope, sir, that, notwithstanding the austerity
of the chair, your good nature will incline
you to some degree of indulgence toward human
frailty.37 You will not think it unnatural
that those who have an object depending, which
strongly engages their hopes and fears, should
be somewhat inclined to superstition. As I
came into the House full of anxiety about the
event of my motion, I found, to my infinite
surprise, that the grand penal bill, by which we
had passed sentence on the trade and sustenance
of America, is to be returned to us from
the other House.38 I do confess, I could not
help looking on this event as a fortunate omen.
I look upon it as a sort of providential favor,
by which we are put once more in possession
of our deliberative capacity, upon a business so
very questionable in its nature, so very uncertain
in its issue. By the return of this bill,
which seemed to have taken its flight forever,
we are, at this very instant, nearly as free to
choose a plan for our American government, as
we were on the first day of the session. If, sir,
we incline to the side of conciliation, we are
not at all embarrassed (unless we please to make
ourselves so) by any incongruous mixture of
coercion and restraint. We are therefore called
upon, as it were by a superior warning voice,
again to attend to America; to attend to the
whole of it together; and to review the subject
with an unusual degree of care and calmness.
Surely it is an awful subject, or there is none
so on this side of the grave. When I first had
the honor of a seat in this House, the affairs of
that continent pressed themselves upon us as
the most important and most delicate object of
parliamentary attention. My little share in
this great deliberation oppressed me. I found
myself a partaker in a very high trust; and
having no sort of reason to rely on the strength
of my natural abilities for the proper execution
of that trust, I was obliged to take more than
common pains to instruct myself in every thing
which relates to our colonies. I was not less
under the necessity of forming some fixed ideas
concerning the general policy of the British
empire. Something of this sort seemed to be
indispensable, in order, amid so vast a fluctuation
of passions and opinions, to concentre my
thoughts; to ballast my conduct; to preserve
me from being blown about by every wind of
fashionable doctrine. I really did not think it
safe or manly, to have fresh principles to seek
upon every fresh mail which should arrive from
America.
At that period I had the fortune to find myself
in perfect concurrence with a large majority
in this House.39 Bowing under that high authority,
and penetrated with the sharpness and
strength of that early impression, I have continued
ever since in my original sentiments
without the least deviation. Whether this be
owing to an obstinate perseverance in error,
or to a religious adherence to what appears
to me truth and reason, it is in your equity to
judge.
Sir, Parliament having an enlarged view of
objects, made, during this interval, more frequent
changes in their sentiment and their conduct
than could be justified in a particular
person upon the contracted scale of private information.
But though I do not hazard any
thing approaching to a censure on the motives
of former Parliaments to all those alterations,
one fact is undoubted—that under them the
state of America has been kept in continual
agitation. Everything administered as remedy
to the public complaint, if it did not produce,
was at least followed by, a heightening of the
distemper; until, by a variety of experiments,
that important country has been brought into
her present situation—a situation which I will
not miscall, which I dare not name, which I
scarcely know how to comprehend in the terms
of any description.
In this posture, sir, things stood at the beginning
of the session. About that time, a
worthy member of great parliamentary experience,
who, in the year 1766, filled the chair of
the American committee with much ability,
took me aside, and, lamenting the present aspect
of our politics, told me things were come
to such a pass that our former methods of proceeding
in the House would be no longer tolerated.
That the public tribunal (never too indulgent
to a long and unsuccessful opposition)
would now scrutinize our conduct with unusual
severity. That the very vicissitudes and shiftings
of ministerial measures, instead of convicting
their authors of inconstancy and want of system,
would be taken as an occasion of charging
us with a predetermined discontent, which
nothing could satisfy; while we accused every
measure of vigor as cruel, and every proposal
of lenity as weak and irresolute. The public,
he said, would not have patience to see us play
the game out with our adversaries: we must
produce our hand. It would be expected that
those who, for many years, had been active in
such affairs, should show that they had formed
some clear and decided idea of the principles of
colony government, and were capable of drawing
out something like a platform of the ground
which might be laid for future and permanent
tranquillity.
I felt the truth of what my honorable friend
represented, but I felt my situation too. His
application might have been made with far
greater propriety to many other gentlemen.
No man was, indeed, ever better disposed or
worse qualified for such an undertaking than
myself. Though I gave so far into his opinion
that I immediately threw my thoughts into a
sort of parliamentary form, I was by no means
equally ready to produce them. It generally
argues some degree of natural impotence of
mind, or some want of knowledge of the world,
to hazard plans of government, except from a
seat of authority.40 Propositions are made, not
only ineffectually, but somewhat disreputably,
when the minds of men are not properly disposed
for their reception; and, for my part, I
am not ambitious of ridicule—not absolutely
a candidate for disgrace.
Besides, sir, to speak the plain truth, I have
in general no very exalted opinion of the virtue
of paper government, nor of any politics in
which the plan is to be wholly separated from
the execution. But when I saw that anger and
violence prevailed every day more and more,
and that things were hastening toward an incurable
alienation of our colonies, I confess my
caution gave way. I felt this as one of those
few moments in which decorum yields to a
higher duty. Public calamity is a mighty leveller,
and there are occasions when any, even the
slightest, chance of doing good, must be laid
hold on, even by the most inconsiderable person.
To restore order and repose to an empire so
great and so distracted as ours, is merely in the
attempt an undertaking that would ennoble
the flights of the highest genius, and obtain
pardon for the efforts of the meanest understanding.
Struggling a good while with these
thoughts, by degrees I felt myself more firm.
I derived, at length, some confidence from
what in other circumstances usually produces
timidity. I grew less anxious, even from the
idea of my own insignificance. For, judging of
what you are by what you ought to be, I persuaded
myself that you would not reject a
reasonable proposition because it had nothing
but its reason to recommend it. On the other
hand, being totally destitute of all shadow of
influence, natural or adventitious, I was very
sure that if my proposition were futile or dangerous—if
it were weakly conceived or improperly
timed, there was nothing exterior to it of
power to awe, dazzle, or delude you. You will
see it just as it is, and you will treat it just as
it deserves.
The PROPOSITION is peace.41 Not peace
through the medium of war; not peace to be
hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and
endless negotiations; not peace to arise out of
universal discord, fomented from principle, in
all parts of the empire; not peace to depend on
the juridical determination of perplexing questions,
or the precise marking the shadowy boundaries
of a complex government. It is simple
peace, sought in its natural course and its ordinary
haunts. It is peace sought in the spirit of
peace, and laid in principles purely pacific. I
propose, by removing the ground of the difference,
and by restoring the former unsuspecting
confidence of the colonies in the mother country,42
to give permanent satisfaction to your people;
and, far from a scheme of ruling by discord, to
reconcile them to each other in the same act,
and by the bond of the very same interest,
which reconciles them to British government.
My idea is nothing more. Refined policy
ever has been the parent of confusion, and ever
will be so as long as the world endures. Plain
good intention, which is as easily discovered at
the first view as fraud is surely detected at last,
is (let me say) of no mean force in the government
of mankind. Genuine simplicity of heart
is a healing and cementing principle. My plan,
therefore, being formed upon the most simple
grounds imaginable, may disappoint some people
when they hear it. It has nothing to recommend
it to the pruriency of curious ears.
There is nothing at all new and captivating in
it. It has nothing of the splendor of the
project which has been lately laid upon your
table by the noble Lord in the blue ribbon.43
It does not propose to fill your lobby with
squabbling colony agents, who will require the
interposition of your mace at every instant to
keep the peace among them. It does not institute
a magnificent auction of finance, where
captivated provinces come to general ransom
by bidding against each other, until you knock
down the hammer, and determine a proportion
of payments beyond all the powers of algebra
to equalize and settle.
The plan which I shall presume to suggest
derives, however, one great advantage from the
proposition and registry of that noble Lord’s
project. The idea of conciliation is admissible.
First, the House, in accepting the resolution
moved by the noble Lord, has admitted, notwithstanding
the menacing front of our address,44
notwithstanding our heavy bill of pains
and penalties, that we do not think ourselves
precluded from all ideas of free grace and
bounty.
The House has gone farther; it has declared
conciliation admissible, previous to any submission
on the part of America. It has even shot
a good deal beyond that mark, and has admitted
that the complaints of our former mode
of exerting the right of taxation were not
wholly unfounded. That right, thus exerted,
is allowed to have had something reprehensible
in it, something unwise, or something grievous;
since, in the midst of our heat and resentment,
we, of ourselves, have proposed a capital alteration,
and, in order to get rid of what seemed
so very exceptionable, have instituted a mode
that is altogether new; one that is, indeed,
wholly alien from all the ancient methods and
forms of Parliament.
The principle of this proceeding is large
enough for my purpose. The means proposed
by the noble Lord for carrying his ideas into
execution, I think, indeed, are very indifferently
suited to the end; and this I shall endeavor to
show you before I sit down. But, for the present,
I take my ground on the admitted principle.
I mean to give peace. Peace implies reconciliation;
and, where there has been a material dispute,
reconciliation does in a manner always
imply concession on the one part or on the
other. In this state of things I make no difficulty
in affirming that the proposal ought to
originate from us. Great and acknowledged
force is not impaired, either in effect or in
opinion, by an unwillingness to exert itself.
The superior power may offer peace with honor
and with safety. Such an offer from such a
power will be attributed to magnanimity. But
the concessions of the weak are the concessions
of fear. When such a one is disarmed, he is
wholly at the mercy of his superior, and he loses
forever that time and those chances which, as
they happen to all men, are the strength and
resources of all inferior power.
The capital leading questions on which you
must this day decide, are these two: First,
whether you ought to concede; and, secondly,
what your concession ought to be.
On the first of these questions we have
gained, as I have just taken the liberty of observing
to you, some ground. But I am sensible
that a good deal more is still to be done.
Indeed, sir, to enable us to determine both on
the one and the other of these great questions
with a firm and precise judgment, I think it
may be necessary to consider distinctly.
The true nature and the peculiar circumstances
of the object which we have before us;
because, after all our struggle, whether we will
or not, we must govern America according to
that nature and to those circumstances, and
not according to our imaginations; not according
to abstract ideas of right; by no means
according to mere general theories of government,
the resort to which appears to me, in our
present situation, no better than arrant trifling.
I shall therefore endeavor, with your leave, to
lay before you some of the most material of
these circumstances in as full and as clear a
manner as I am able to state them.
(1) The first thing that we have to consider
with regard to the nature of the object, is the
number of people in the colonies. I have
taken for some years a good deal of pains on
that point. I can by no calculation justify
myself in placing the number below two millions
of inhabitants of our own European blood
and color, besides at least five hundred thousand
others, who form no inconsiderable part of
the strength and opulence of the whole. This,
sir, is, I believe, about the true number.
There is no occasion to exaggerate, where
plain truth is of so much weight and importance.
But whether I put the present numbers
too high or too low, is a matter of little
moment. Such is the strength with which
population shoots in that part of the world,
that, state the numbers as high as we will,
while the dispute continues, the exaggeration
ends. While we are discussing any given magnitude,
they are grown to it. While we spend
our time in deliberating on the mode of governing
two millions, we shall find we have
two millions more to manage. Your children
do not grow faster from infancy to manhood,
than they spread from families to communities,
and from villages to nations.45
I put this consideration of the present and
the growing numbers in the front of our deliberation;
because, sir, this consideration will
make it evident to a blunter discernment than
yours, that no partial, narrow, contracted,
pinched, occasional system will be at all suitable
to such an object. It will show you that
it is not to be considered as one of those
minima46 which are out of the eye and consideration
of the law; not a paltry excrescence of
the state; not a mean dependent, who may be
neglected with little damage, and provoked
with little danger. It will prove that some
degree of care and caution is required in the
handling such an object; it will show that you
ought not, in reason, to trifle with so large a
mass of the interests and feelings of the human
race. You could at no time do so without
guilt; and, be assured, you will not be able to
do it long with impunity.
But the population of this country, the great
and growing population, though a very important
consideration, will lose much of its weight,
if not combined with other circumstances.
The commerce of your colonies is out of all
proportion beyond the numbers of the people.
This ground of their commerce, indeed, has
been trod some days ago, and with great
ability, by a distinguished person at your bar.47
This gentleman, after thirty-five years—it is so
long since he appeared at the same place to
plead for the commerce of Great Britain—has
come again before you to plead the same
cause, without any other effect of time, than
that, to the fire of imagination and extent
of erudition which even then marked him as
one of the first literary characters of his age,
he has added a consummate knowledge in the
commercial interest of his country, formed by a
long course of enlightened and discriminating
experience.
Sir, I should be inexcusable in coming after
such a person with any detail, if a great part of
the members who now fill the House had not
the misfortune to be absent when he appeared
at your bar. Besides, sir, I propose to take the
matter at periods of time somewhat different
from his. There is, if I mistake not, a point of
view, from whence, if you will look at this subject,
it is impossible that it should not make an
impression upon you.
I have in my hand two accounts: one a
comparative state of the export trade of
England to its colonies as it stood in the year
1704, and as it stood in the year 1772; the
other a state of the export trade of this country
to its colonies alone, as it stood in 1772, compared
with the whole trade of England to
all parts of the world, the colonies included,
in the year 1704. They are from good vouchers;
the latter period from the accounts on
your table, the earlier from an original manuscript
of Davenant, who first established the
inspector general’s office, which has been
ever since his time so abundant a source of
parliamentary information.48
The export trade to the colonies consists
of three great branches: the African, which,
terminating almost wholly in the colonies, must
be put to the account of their commerce; the
West Indian, and the North American. All
these are so interwoven, that the attempt to
separate them would tear to pieces the contexture
of the whole, and, if not entirely destroy,
would very much depreciate the value of all the
parts. I therefore consider these three denominations
to be, what in effect they are, one
trade.
The trade to the colonies, taken on the export
side, at the beginning of this century, that is, in
the year 1704, stood thus:
| Exports to North America and the West Indies |
£483,265 |
| To Africa |
86,665 |
| |
£569,930 |
In the year 1772, which I take as a middle
year between the highest and lowest of those
lately laid on your table, the account was as
follows:
| To North America and the West Indies |
£4,791,734 |
| To Africa |
866,398 |
| To which, if you add the export trade from Scotland, which had in 1704 no existence |
364,000 |
| |
£6,022,132 |
From five hundred and odd thousand, it has
grown to six millions. It has increased no
less than twelve-fold. This is the state of the
colony trade, as compared with itself at these
two periods, within this century; and this is
matter for meditation. But this is not all.
Examine my second account. See how the export
trade to the colonies alone in 1772 stood
in the other point of view, that is, as compared
to the whole trade of England in 1704.
| The whole export trade of England, including that to the colonies, in 1704 |
£6,509,000 |
| Exported to the colonies alone, in 1772 |
6,024,000 |
| Difference |
£485,000 |
The trade with America alone is now within
less than £500,000 of being equal to what this
great commercial nation, England, carried on at
the beginning of this century with the whole
world! If I had taken the largest year of those
on your table, it would rather have exceeded.
But, it will be said, is not this American trade
an unnatural protuberance, that has drawn the
juices from the rest of the body? The reverse.
It is the very food that has nourished every other
part into its present magnitude. Our general
trade has been greatly augmented, and augmented
more or less in almost every part to which
it ever extended, but with this material difference,
that of the six millions which in the beginning
of the century constituted the whole
mass of our export commerce, the colony trade
was but one twelfth part; it is now (as a part
of sixteen millions) considerably more than a
third of the whole. This is the relative proportion
of the importance of the colonies of these
two periods; and all reasoning concerning our
mode of treating them must have this proportion
as its basis, or it is a reasoning weak, rotten,
and sophistical.49
Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to
hurry over this great consideration. It is good
for us to be here. We stand where we have an
immense view of what is, and what is past.
Clouds, indeed, and darkness, rest upon the future.
Let us, however, before we descend from
this noble eminence, reflect that this growth of
our national prosperity has happened within the
short period of the life of man. It has happened
within sixty-eight years. There are those alive
whose memory might touch the two extremities.
For instance, my Lord Bathurst might remember
all the stages of the progress. He was in
1704 of an age at least to be made to comprehend
such things. He was then old enough “acta
parentum jam legere et quæ sit poterit cognoscere
virtus.”50 Suppose, sir, that the angel of this
auspicious youth, foreseeing the many virtues
which made him one of the most amiable, as he
is one of the most fortunate men of his age, had
opened to him in vision, that when, in the fourth
generation, the third prince of the House of
Brunswick had sat twelve years on the throne
of that nation, which, by the happy issue of
moderate and healing councils, was to be made
Great Britain, he should see his son, Lord
Chancellor of England, turn back the current of
hereditary dignity to its fountain, and raise him
to a higher rank of peerage, while he enriched the
family with a new one. If, amid these bright
and happy scenes of domestic honor and prosperity,
that angel should have drawn up the
curtain, and unfolded the rising glories of his
country, and while he was gazing with admiration
on the then commercial grandeur of England,
the genius should point out to him a little
speck, scarce visible in the mass of the national
interest, a small seminal principle rather than a
formed body, and should tell him: “Young man,
there is America—which at this day serves for
little more than to amuse you with stories of
savage men and uncouth manners; yet shall, before
you taste death, show itself equal to the
whole of that commerce which now attracts the
envy of the world. Whatever England has been
growing to by a progressive increase of improvement,
brought in by varieties of people, by succession
of civilizing conquests and civilizing
settlements in a series of seventeen hundred
years, you shall see as much added to her by
America in the course of a single life!” If
this state of his country had been foretold to
him, would it not require all the sanguine
credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of
enthusiasm, to make him believe it? Fortunate
man, he has lived to see it! Fortunate indeed,
if he lived to see nothing to vary the prospect
and cloud the setting of his day!
Excuse me, sir, if, turning from such thoughts,
I resume this comparative view once more.
You have seen it on a large scale; look at it
on a small one. I will point out to your attention
a particular instance of it in the single
province of Pennsylvania. In the year 1704
that province called for £11,459 value of
your commodities, native and foreign. This
was the whole. What did it demand in 1772?
Why nearly fifty times as much; for in that
year the export to Pennsylvania was £507,909,
nearly equal to the export to all the colonies
together in the first period.
I choose, sir, to enter into these minute and
particular details, because generalities, which,
in all other cases are apt to heighten and raise
the subject, have here a tendency to sink it.
When we speak of the commerce with our
colonies, fiction lags after truth; invention is
unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.
So far, sir, as to the importance of the object
in the view of its commerce, as concerned in
the exports from England. If I were to detail
the imports, I could show how many enjoyments
they procure, which deceive the burden
of life; how many materials which invigorate
the springs of national industry, and extend
and animate every part of our foreign and
domestic commerce. This would be a curious
subject indeed; but I must prescribe bounds to
myself in a matter so vast and various.
(3) I pass, therefore, to the colonies in
another point of view—their agriculture. This
they have prosecuted with such a spirit, that,
besides feeding plentifully their own growing
multitude, their annual export of grain, comprehending
rice, has, some years ago, exceeded
a million in value. Of their last harvest I am
persuaded they will export much more. At
the beginning of the century, some of these
colonies imported corn from the mother country.
For some time past the old world has
been fed from the new. The scarcity which
you have felt would have been a desolating
famine, if this child of your old age, with a true
filial piety, with a Roman charity, had not put
the full breast of its youthful exuberance to
the mouth of its exhausted parent.51
As to the wealth which the colonies have
drawn from the sea by their fisheries, you had
all that matter fully opened at your bar. You
surely thought those acquisitions of value, for
they seemed even to excite your envy; and yet,
the spirit by which that enterprising employment
has been exercised, ought rather, in my
opinion, to have raised your esteem and admiration.
And pray, sir, what in the world is equal
to it? Pass by the other parts, and look at the
manner in which the people of New England
have of late carried on the whale fishery.
While we follow them among the tumbling
mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating
into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson’s
Bay and Davis’ Straits—while we are looking
for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that
they have pierced into the opposite region of
polar cold—that they are at the antipodes, and
engaged under the frozen Serpent of the south.
Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and
romantic an object for the grasp of national
ambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the
progress of their victorious industry. Nor is
the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them
than the accumulated winter of both the poles.
We know that while some of them draw the
line, and strike the harpoon on the coast of
Africa, others run the longitude, and pursue
their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil.
No sea but what is vexed by their fisheries.
No climate that is not witness to their toils.
Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the
activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm
sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this
most perilous mode of hardy industry to the
extent to which it has been pushed by this
recent people—a people who are still, as it
were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened
into the bone of manhood. When I contemplate
these things—when I know that the
colonies in general owe little or nothing to any
care of ours, and that they are not squeezed
into this happy form by the constraints of
watchful and suspicious government, but that,
through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous
nature has been suffered to take her own way
to perfection—when I reflect upon these effects—when
I see how profitable they have been to
us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and
all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances
melt, and die away within me. My
rigor relents. I pardon something to the spirit
of liberty.52
I am sensible, sir, that all which I have asserted
in my detail is admitted in the gross;
but that quite a different conclusion is drawn
from it. America, gentlemen say, is a noble
object. It is an object well worth fighting for.
Certainly it is, if fighting a people be the best
way of gaining them. Gentlemen in this respect
will be led to their choice of means by
their complexions and their habits. Those
who understand the military art will, of course,
have some predilection for it. Those who wield
the thunder of the State may have more confidence
in the efficacy of arms. But I confess,
possibly for want of this knowledge, my opinion
is much more in favor of prudent management
than of force; considering force not as an odious,
but a feeble, instrument for preserving a
people so numerous, so active, so growing, so
spirited as this, in a profitable and subordinate
connection with us.
First, sir, permit me to observe, that the use
of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue
for a moment, but it does not remove the necessity
of subduing again; and a nation is not
governed which is perpetually to be conquered.
My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror
is not always the effect of force; and an armament
is not a victory. If you do not succeed,
you are without resource; for, conciliation failing,
force remains; but, force failing, no farther
hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority
are sometimes bought by kindness, but
they can never be begged as alms by an impoverished
and defeated violence.
A farther objection to force is, that you impair
the object by your very endeavors to preserve
it. The thing you fought for is not the
thing which you recover; but depreciated,
sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest.
Nothing less will content me than whole
America. I do not choose to consume its
strength along with our own, because in all
parts it is the British strength that I consume.
I do not choose to be caught by a foreign
enemy at the end of this exhausting conflict,
and still less in the midst of it. I may escape;
but I can make no insurance against such an
event. Let me add, that I do not choose
wholly to break the American spirit, because it
is the spirit that has made the country.
Lastly, we have no sort of experience in favor
of force as an instrument in the rule of our colonies.
Their growth and their utility have been
owing to methods altogether different. Our
ancient indulgence has been said to be pursued
to a fault. It may be so; but we know, if feeling
is evidence, that our fault was more tolerable
than our attempt to mend it; and our sin
far more salutary than our penitence.
These, sir, are my reasons for not entertaining
that high opinion of untried force, by which
many gentlemen, for whose sentiments in other
particulars I have great respect, seem to be so
greatly captivated.
But there is still behind a third consideration
concerning this object, which serves to determine
my opinion on the sort of policy which ought
to be pursued in the management of America,
even more than its population and its commerce—I
mean its temper and character. In this
character of the Americans a love of freedom
is the predominating feature, which marks and
distinguishes the whole; and, as an ardent is
always a jealous affection, your colonies become
suspicious, restive, and untractable, whenever
they see the least attempt to wrest from them
by force, or shuffle from them by chicane, what
they think the only advantage worth living for.
This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the
English colonies, probably, than in any other
people of the earth, and this from a variety of
powerful causes, which, to understand the true
temper of their minds, and the direction which
this spirit takes, it will not be amiss to lay open
somewhat more largely.
First, the people of the colonies are descendants
of Englishmen. England, sir, is a nation
which still, I hope, respects, and formerly
adored her freedom. The colonists emigrated
from you when this part of your character was
most predominant53; and they took this bias
and direction the moment they parted from
your hands. They are, therefore, not only devoted
to liberty, but to liberty according to English
ideas and on English principles. Abstract
liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to
be found. Liberty inheres in some sensible
object; and every nation has formed to itself
some favorite point which, by way of eminence,
becomes the criterion of their happiness. It
happened you know, sir, that the great contests
for freedom in this country were, from the
earliest times chiefly upon the question of taxing.
Most of the contests in the ancient commonwealths
turned primarily on the right of
election of magistrates, or on the balance among
the several orders of the State. The question
of money was not with them so immediate.
But in England it was otherwise. On this point
of taxes the ablest pens and most eloquent
tongues have been exercised; the greatest
spirits have acted and suffered. In order to
give the fullest satisfaction concerning the importance
of this point, it was not only necessary
for those who in argument defended the excellence
of the English Constitution, to insist on
this privilege of granting money as a dry point
of fact, and to prove that the right had been
acknowledged in ancient parchments and blind
usages to reside in a certain body called the
House of Commons. They went much farther:
they attempted to prove (and they succeeded)
that in theory it ought to be so, from the particular
nature of a House of Commons, as an
immediate representative of the people, whether
the old records had delivered this oracle or not.
They took infinite pains to inculcate, as a
fundamental principle, that, in all monarchies,
the people must, in effect, themselves, mediately
or immediately, possess the power of granting
their own money, or no shadow of liberty could
subsist. The colonies draw from you, as with
their life-blood, those ideas and principles.
Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and attached
on this specific point of taxing. Liberty
might be safe or might be endangered
in twenty other particulars, without their being
much pleased or alarmed. Here they felt its
pulse, and, as they found that beat, they
thought themselves sick or sound. I do not
say whether they were right or wrong in applying
your general arguments to their own case.
It is not easy, indeed, to make a monopoly of
theorems and corollaries. The fact is, that
they did thus apply those general arguments;
and your mode of governing them, whether
through lenity or indolence, through wisdom or
mistake, confirmed them in the imagination
that they, as well as you, had an interest in
these common principles.
They were further confirmed in these pleasing
errors by the form of their provincial legislative
assemblies. Their governments are popular
in a high degree; some are merely popular;
in all, the popular representative is the most
weighty;54 and this share of the people in their
ordinary government never fails to inspire them
with lofty sentiments, and with a strong aversion
from whatever tends to deprive them of
their chief importance.
If any thing were wanting to this necessary
operation of the form of government, religion
would have given it a complete effect. Religion,
always a principle of energy, in this new
people is no way worn out or impaired; and
their mode of professing it is also one main
cause of this free spirit. The people are Protestants;
and of that kind which is the most
averse to all implicit submission of mind and
opinion. This is a persuasion not only favorable
to liberty, but built upon it. I do not
think, sir, that the reason of this averseness in
the dissenting churches from all that looks like
absolute government, is so much to be sought
in their religious tenets as in their history.
Everyone knows that the Roman Catholic religion
is at least coeval with most of the governments
where it prevails; that it has generally
gone hand in hand with them; and received
great favor and every kind of support
from authority. The Church of England, too,
was formed from her cradle under the nursing
care of regular government. But the dissenting
interests have sprung up in direct opposition
to all the ordinary powers of the world,
and could justify that opposition only on a
strong claim to natural liberty. Their very
existence depended on the powerful and unremitted
assertion of that claim. All Protestantism,
even the most cold and passive, is a
kind of dissent. But the religion most prevalent
in our northern colonies is a refinement
on the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence
of dissent; and the Protestantism of the
Protestant religion. This religion, under a variety
of denominations, agreeing in nothing but
in the communion of the spirit of liberty, is
predominant in most of the northern provinces;
where the Church of England, notwithstanding
its legal rights, is in reality no more than a sort
of private sect, not composing, most probably,
the tenth of the people. The colonists left
England when this spirit was high, and in the
emigrants was the highest of all; and even that
stream of foreigners, which has been constantly
flowing into these colonies, has, for the greatest
part, been composed of dissenters from the establishments
of their several countries, and
have brought with them a temper and character
far from alien to that of the people with whom
they mixed.
Sir, I can perceive by their manner that some
gentlemen object to the latitude of this description,
because in the southern colonies the
Church of England forms a large body, and has
a regular establishment. It is certainly true.
There is, however, a circumstance attending
these colonies, which, in my opinion, fully counterbalances
this difference, and makes the spirit
of liberty still more high and haughty than in
those to the northward. It is that in Virginia
and the Carolinas they have a vast multitude
of slaves. Where this is the case in any part
of the world, those who are free are by far the
most proud and jealous of their freedom. Freedom
is to them not only an enjoyment, but a
kind of rank and privilege. Not seeing there
that freedom, as in countries where it is a common
blessing, and as broad and general as the
air, may be united with much abject toil, with
great misery, with all the exterior of servitude,
liberty looks, among them, like something that
is more noble and liberal. I do not mean, sir,
to commend the superior morality of this sentiment,
which has at least as much pride as virtue
in it; but I cannot alter the nature of man.
The fact is so; and these people of the southern
colonies are much more strongly, and with
a higher and more stubborn spirit, attached to
liberty than those to the northward. Such were
all the ancient commonwealths; such were our
Gothic ancestors; such, in our days, were the
Poles, and such will be all masters of slaves, who
are not slaves themselves. In such a people the
haughtiness of domination combines with the
spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible.
Permit me, sir, to add another circumstance
in our colonies, which contributes no mean part
toward the growth and effect of this untractable
spirit—I mean their education. In no country
perhaps in the world is the law so general a
study. The profession itself is numerous and
powerful; and in most provinces it takes the
lead. The greater number of the deputies sent
to Congress were lawyers. But all who read,
and most do read, endeavor to obtain some
smattering in that science. I have been told
by an eminent bookseller, that in no branch of
his business, after tracts of popular devotion,
were so many books as those on the law exported
to the Plantations. The colonists have
now fallen into the way of printing them for
their own use. I hear that they have sold nearly
as many of Blackstone’s Commentaries in
America as in England. General Gage marks
out this disposition very particularly in a letter
on your table. He states that all the people
in his government are lawyers, or smatterers in
law; and that in Boston they have been enabled,
by successful chicane,55 wholly to evade
many parts of one of your capital penal constitutions.
The smartness of debate will say that
this knowledge ought to teach them more clearly
the rights of legislature, their obligations to
obedience, and the penalties of rebellion. All
this is mighty well. But my honorable and
learned friend [the Attorney-General, afterward
Lord Thurlow] on the floor, who condescends to
mark what I say for animadversion, will disdain
that ground. He has heard, as well as I, that
when great honors and great emoluments do
not win over this knowledge to the service of
the State, it is a formidable adversary to government.
If the spirit be not tamed and broken
by these happy methods, it is stubborn and
litigious. Abeunt studia in mores. This study
renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous,
prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of resources.
In other countries, the people, more
simple and of a less mercurial cast, judge of
an ill principle in government only by an actual
grievance. Here they anticipate the evil, and
judge of the pressure of the grievance by the
badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment
at a distance; and snuff the approach
of tyranny in every tainted breeze.
The last cause of this disobedient spirit in
the colonies is hardly less powerful than the
rest, as it is not merely moral, but laid deep in
the natural constitution of things. Three thousand
miles of ocean lie between you and them.
No contrivance can prevent the effect of this
distance in weakening government. Seas roll
and months pass between the order and the execution;
and the want of a speedy explanation
of a single point is enough to defeat the whole
system. You have, indeed, “winged ministers”
of vengeance, who carry your bolts in their
pouches to the remotest verge of the sea.56 But
there a power steps in that limits the arrogance
of raging passion and furious elements, and
says: “So far shalt thou go, and no farther.”
Who are you, that should fret and rage, and
bite the chains of nature? Nothing worse happens
to you than does to all nations who have
extensive empire; and it happens in all the
forms into which empire can be thrown. In
large bodies the circulation of power must be
less vigorous at the extremities. Nature has
said it. The Turk cannot govern Egypt, and
Arabia, and Koordistan as he governs Thrace;
nor has he the same dominion in Crimea and
Algiers which he has at Broosa and Smyrna.
Despotism itself is obliged to truck and huckster.
The Sultan gets such obedience as he
can. He governs with a loose rein, that he may
govern at all; and the whole of the force and
vigor of his authority in his centre is derived
from a prudent relaxation in all his borders.
Spain, in her provinces, is, perhaps, not so well
obeyed as you are in yours. She complies too;
she submits; she watches times. This is the
immutable condition, the eternal law, of extensive
and detached empire.
Then, sir, from these six capital sources of
descent, of form of government, of religion in
the northern provinces, of manners in the southern,
of education, of the remoteness of situation
from the first mover of government—from all
these causes a fierce spirit of liberty has grown
up. It has grown with the growth of the
people in your colonies, and increased with the
increase of their wealth; a spirit that, unhappily
meeting with an exercise of power in
England, which, however lawful, is not reconcilable
to any ideas of liberty, much less with
theirs, has kindled this flame, that is ready to
consume us.
I do not mean to commend either the spirit
in this excess, or the moral causes which produce
it. Perhaps a more smooth and accommodating
spirit of freedom in them would be
more acceptable to us. Perhaps ideas of liberty
might be desired, more reconcilable with
an arbitrary and boundless authority. Perhaps
we might wish the colonists to be persuaded
that their liberty is more secure when held in
trust for them by us, as guardians during a perpetual
minority, than with any part of it in
their own hands. But the question is not
whether their spirit deserves praise or blame.
What, in the name of God, shall we do with it?
You have before you the object, such as it
is, with all its glories, with all its imperfections
on its head. You see the magnitude, the importance,
the temper, the habits, the disorders.
By all these considerations we are strongly
urged to determine something concerning it.
We are called upon to fix some rule and line
for our future conduct, which may give a little
stability to our politics, and prevent the return
of such unhappy deliberations as the present.
Every such return will bring the matter before
us in a still more untractable form. For, what
astonishing and incredible things have we not
seen already? What monsters have not been
generated from this unnatural contention?
While every principle of authority and resistance
has been pushed upon both sides, as
far as it would go, there is nothing so solid
and certain, either in reasoning or in practice,
that it has not been shaken. Until very lately,
all authority in America seemed to be nothing
but an emanation from yours. Even the popular
part of the colony constitution derived all
its activity, and its first vital movement, from
the pleasure of the Crown. We thought, sir,
that the utmost which the discontented colonists
could do, was to disturb authority. We
never dreamed they could of themselves supply
it, knowing in general what an operose business
it is to establish a government absolutely new.
But having, for our purposes in this contention,
resolved that none but an obedient assembly
should sit, the humors of the people there, finding
all passage through the legal channel
stopped, with great violence broke out another
way. Some provinces have tried their experiment,
as we have tried ours; and theirs has
succeeded. They have formed a government
sufficient for its purposes, without the bustle of
a revolution, or the troublesome formality of
an election. Evident necessity and tacit consent
have done the business in an instant. So
well they have done it, that Lord Dunmore (the
account is among the fragments on your table)
tells you, that the new institution is infinitely
better obeyed than the ancient government
ever was in its most fortunate periods. Obedience
is what makes government, and not the
names by which it is called; not the name
of governor, as formerly, or committee, as at
present. This new government has originated
directly from the people, and was not transmitted
through any of the ordinary artificial
media of a positive constitution. It was not a
manufacture ready formed, and transmitted to
them in that condition from England. The
evil arising from hence is this: that the colonists
having once found the possibility of enjoying
the advantages of order in the midst of
a struggle for liberty, such struggles will not
henceforward seem so terrible to the settled
and sober part of mankind as they had appeared
before the trial.
Pursuing the same plan of punishing by the
denial of the exercise of government to still
greater lengths, we wholly abrogated the ancient
government of Massachusetts. We were
confident that the first feeling, if not the very
prospect of anarchy, would instantly enforce
a complete submission. The experiment was
tried. A new, strange, unexpected face of
things appeared. Anarchy is found tolerable.
A vast province has now subsisted, and subsisted
in a considerable degree of health and vigor,
for near a twelvemonth, without governor,
without public council, without judges, without
executive magistrates. How long it will continue
in this state, or what may arise out of
this unheard-of situation, how can the wisest of
us conjecture? Our late experience has taught
us, that many of those fundamental principles,
formerly believed infallible, are either not of the
importance they were imagined to be, or that
we have not at all adverted to some other far
more important and far more powerful principles,
which entirely overrule those we had considered
as omnipotent. I am much against any
farther experiments, which tend to put to the
proof any more of these allowed opinions,
which contribute so much to the public tranquillity.
In effect, we suffer as much at home
by this loosening of all ties, and this concussion
of all established opinions, as we do abroad.
For, in order to prove that the Americans have
no right to their liberties, we are every day endeavoring
to subvert the maxims which preserve
the whole spirit of our own. To prove
that the Americans ought not to be free, we are
obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself;
and we never seem to gain a paltry advantage
over them in debate, without attacking
some of those principles, or deriding some of
those feelings, for which our ancestors have
shed their blood.
But, sir, in wishing to put an end to pernicious
experiments, I do not mean to preclude
the fullest inquiry. Far from it. Far from deciding
on a sudden or partial view, I would patiently
go round and round the subject, and survey
it minutely in every possible aspect. Sir, if
I were capable of engaging you to an equal attention,
I would state that, as far as I am capable
of discerning, there are but three ways of proceeding
relative to this stubborn spirit which
prevails in your colonies and disturbs your government.
These are, to change that spirit, as
inconvenient, by removing the causes; to prosecute
it as criminal; or to comply with it as necessary.
I would not be guilty of an imperfect
enumeration. I can think of but these three.
Another has, indeed, been started—that of
giving up the colonies; but it met so slight a
reception, that I do not think myself obliged
to dwell a great while upon it. It is nothing
but a little sally of anger, like the frowardness
of peevish children, who, when they cannot
get all they would have, are resolved to take
nothing.
The first of these plans, to change the spirit,
as inconvenient, by removing the causes, I
think is the most like a systematic proceeding.
It is radical in its principle, but it is attended
with great difficulties, some of them little short,
as I conceive, of impossibilities. This will
appear by examining into the plans which have
been proposed.
As the growing population of the colonies is
evidently one cause of their resistance, it was
last session mentioned in both Houses by men of
weight, and received, not without applause, that,
in order to check this evil, it would be proper for
the Crown to make no farther grants of land.
But to this scheme there are two objections.
The first, that there is already so much unsettled
land in private hands as to afford room for an
immense future population, although the Crown
not only withheld its grants, but annihilated
its soil. If this be the case, then the only effect
of this avarice of desolation, this hoarding of a
royal wilderness, would be to raise the value of
the possessions in the hands of the great private
monopolists without any adequate check to the
growing and alarming mischief of population.
But if you stopped your grants, what would
be the consequence? The people would occupy
without grants. They have already so occupied
in many places. You cannot station garrisons
in every part of these deserts. If you
drive the people from one place, they will carry
on their annual tillage, and remove with their
flocks and herds to another. Many of the
people in the back settlements are already little
attached to particular situations. Already they
have topped the Apalachian Mountains.57
From thence they behold before them an immense
plain, one vast, rich, level meadow—a
square of five hundred miles. Over this they
would wander without a possibility of restraint.
They would change their manners with the habits
of their life; would soon forget a government
by which they were disowned; would become
hordes of English Tartars; and, pouring down
upon your unfortified frontiers a fierce and irresistible
cavalry, become masters of your governors
and your counsellors, your collectors and
controllers, and of all the slaves that adhered to
them. Such would, and, in no long time,
must be the effect of attempting to forbid as a
crime, and to suppress as an evil, the command
and blessing of Providence, “Increase and
multiply.” Such would be the happy result of
an endeavor to keep as a lair of wild beasts
that earth which God by an express charter
has given to the children of men. Far different,
and surely much wiser, has been our policy
hitherto. Hitherto we have invited our people,
by every kind of bounty, to fixed establishments.
We have invited the husbandman to
look to authority for his title. We have taught
him piously to believe in the mysterious virtue
of wax and parchment. We have thrown each
tract of land, as it was peopled, into districts,
that the ruling power should never be wholly
out of sight. We have settled all we could,
and we have carefully attended every settlement
with government.
Adhering, sir, as I do, to this policy, as well
as for the reasons I have just given, I think this
new project of hedging in population to be
neither prudent nor practicable.
To impoverish the colonies in general, and
in particular to arrest the noble course of their
marine enterprises, would be a more easy task.
I freely confess it. We have shown a disposition
to a system of this kind; a disposition even
to continue the restraint after the offence, looking
on ourselves as rivals to our colonies, and
persuaded that of course we must gain all that
they shall lose. Much mischief we may
certainly do. The power inadequate to all
other things is often more than sufficient for
this. I do not look on the direct and immediate
power of the colonies to resist our violence
as very formidable. In this, however, I may
be mistaken. But when I consider that we
have colonies for no purpose but to be serviceable
to us, it seems to my poor understanding
a little preposterous to make them unserviceable
in order to keep them obedient. It is, in
truth, nothing more than the old, and, as I
thought, exploded problem of tyranny, which
proposes to beggar its subject into submission.
But, remember, when you have completed your
system of impoverishment, that nature still proceeds
in her ordinary course; that discontent
will increase with misery; and that there are
critical moments in the fortunes of all states,
when they who are too weak to contribute to
your prosperity may be strong enough to complete
your ruin. “Spoliatis arma supersunt.”
The temper and character which prevail in
our colonies are, I am afraid, unalterable by any
human art. We cannot, I fear, falsify the pedigree
of this fierce people, and persuade them
that they are not sprung from a nation in whose
veins the blood of freedom circulates. The language
in which they would hear you tell them
this tale would detect the imposition. Your
speech would betray you. An Englishman is
the unfittest person on earth to argue another
Englishman into slavery.
I think it is nearly as little in our power to
change their republican religion as their free
descent; or to substitute the Roman Catholic
as a penalty, or the Church of England as an
improvement. The mode of inquisition and
dragooning is going out of fashion in the old
world, and I should not confide much to their
efficacy in the new. The education of the
Americans is also on the same unalterable bottom
with their religion. You cannot persuade
them to burn their books of curious science; to
banish their lawyers from their courts of law;
or to quench the lights of their assemblies, by
refusing to choose those persons who are best
read in their privileges. It would be no less
impracticable to think of wholly annihilating
the popular assemblies in which these lawyers
sit. The army, by which we must govern in
their place, would be far more chargeable to us;
not quite so effectual; and perhaps, in the end,
full as difficult to be kept in obedience.
With regard to the high aristocratic spirit of
Virginia and the southern colonies, it has been
proposed, I know, to reduce it, by declaring a
general enfranchisement of their slaves. This
project has had its advocates and panegyrists,
yet I never could argue myself into an opinion
of it. Slaves are often much attached to their
masters. A general wild offer of liberty would
not always be accepted. History furnishes few
instances of it. It is sometimes as hard to persuade
slaves to be free as it is to compel freemen
to be slaves; and in this auspicious scheme
we should have both these pleasing tasks on
our hands at once. But when we talk of enfranchisement,
do we not perceive that the
American master may enfranchise too, and arm
servile hands in defence of freedom? A measure
to which other people have had recourse
more than once, and not without success, in a
desperate situation of their affairs.
Slaves as these unfortunate black people are,
and dull as all men are from slavery, must they
not a little suspect the offer of freedom from
that very nation which has sold them to their
present masters? From that nation, one of
whose causes of quarrel with those masters is
their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman
traffic? An offer of freedom from England
would come rather oddly, shipped to them in
an African vessel, which is refused an entry into
the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo
of three hundred Angola negroes. It would be
curious to see the Guinea captain attempt at
the same instant to publish his proclamation of
liberty and to advertise the sale of slaves.
But let us suppose all these moral difficulties
got over. The ocean remains. You cannot
pump this dry; and as long as it continues in
its present bed, so long all the causes which
weaken authority by distance will continue.
“Ye gods! annihilate but space and time,
And make two lovers happy!”
was a pious and passionate prayer, but just as
reasonable as many of these serious wishes of
very grave and solemn politicians.
If, then, sir, it seems almost desperate to
think of any alterative course for changing the
moral causes (and not quite easy to remove the
natural) which produce the prejudices irreconcilable
to the late exercise of our authority, but
that the spirit infallibly will continue, and, continuing,
will produce such effects as now embarrass
us, the second mode under consideration
is to prosecute that spirit in its overt acts as
criminal.
At this proposition I must pause a moment.
The thing seems a great deal too big for my
ideas of jurisprudence. It should seem, to my
way of conceiving such matters, that there is a
very wide difference in reason and policy
between the mode of proceeding on the
irregular conduct of scattered individuals, or
even of bands of men, who disturb order within
the state, and the civil dissensions which may,
from time to time, on great questions, agitate
the several communities which compose a great
empire. It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic
to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal
justice so this great public contest. I do not
know the method of drawing up an indictment
against a whole people. I cannot insult and
ridicule the feelings of millions of my fellow-creatures,
as Sir Edward Coke insulted one excellent
individual at the bar.58 I am not ripe to
pass sentence on the gravest public bodies, intrusted
with magistracies of great authority
and dignity, and charged with the safety of
their fellow-citizens, upon the very same title
that I am. I really think that, for wise men,
this is not judicious; for sober men, not decent;
for minds tinctured with humanity,
not mild and merciful.
Perhaps, sir, I am mistaken in my idea of
an empire, as distinguished from a single state
or kingdom. But my idea of it is this; that an
empire is the aggregate of many states, under
one common head, whether this head be a
monarch or a presiding republic. It does,
in such constitutions, frequently happen (and
nothing but the dismal, cold, dead uniformity
of servitude can prevent its happening) that
the subordinate parts have many local privileges
and immunities. Between these privileges
and the supreme common authority, the
line may be extremely nice. Of course, disputes—often,
too, very bitter disputes, and
much ill blood, will arise. But, though every
privilege is an exemption, in the case, from the
ordinary exercise of the supreme authority, it
is no denial of it. The claim of a privilege
seems rather, ex vi termini, to imply a superior
power; for to talk of the privileges of a state
or of a person who has no superior, is hardly
any better than speaking nonsense. Now, in
such unfortunate quarrels among the component
parts of a great political union of communities,
I can scarcely conceive any thing more
completely imprudent than for the head of the
empire to insist that, if any privilege is pleaded
against his will or his acts, that his whole authority
is denied; instantly to proclaim rebellion,
to beat to arms, and to put the offending provinces
under the ban. Will not this, sir, very
soon teach the provinces to make no distinctions
on their part? Will it not teach them
that the government against which a claim of
liberty is tantamount to high treason, is a government
to which submission is equivalent to
slavery? It may not always be quite convenient
to impress dependent communities
with such an idea.
We are, indeed, in all disputes with the colonies,
by the necessity of things, the judge. It
is true sir; but I confess that the character of
judge in my own cause is a thing that frightens
me. Instead of filling me with pride, I am exceedingly
humbled by it. I cannot proceed
with a stern, assured, judicial confidence, until
I find myself in something more like a judicial
character. I must have these hesitations as
long as I am compelled to recollect that, in my
little reading upon such contests as these, the
sense of mankind has at least as often decided
against the superior as the subordinate power.
Sir, let me add, too, that the opinion of my having
some abstract right in my favor would not
put me much at my ease in passing sentence, unless
I could be sure that there were no rights
which in their exercise under certain circumstances,
were not the most odious of all wrongs,
and the most vexatious of all injustice. Sir,
these considerations have great weight with
me, when I find things so circumstanced that I
see the same party at once a civil litigant
against me in point of right and a culprit before
me; while I sit as criminal judge on acts
of his whose moral quality is to be decided on
upon the merits of that very litigation. Men
are every now and then put, by the complexity
of human affairs, into strange situations; but
justice is the same, let the judge be in what
situation he will.
There is, sir, also a circumstance which convinces
me that this mode of criminal proceeding
is not, at least in the present stage of our
contest, altogether expedient, which is nothing
less than the conduct of those very persons
who have seemed to adopt that mode, by lately
declaring a rebellion in Massachusetts Bay, as
they had formerly addressed to have traitors
brought hither, under an act of Henry the
Eighth, for trial. For, though rebellion is declared,
it is not proceeded against as such; nor
have any steps been taken toward the apprehension
or conviction of any individual offender,
either on our late or our former address; but
modes of public coercion have been adopted,
and such as have much more resemblance to a
sort of qualified hostility toward an independent
power than the punishment of rebellious subjects.
All this seems rather inconsistent; but
it shows how difficult it is to apply these juridical
ideas to our present case.
In this situation, let us seriously and coolly
ponder. What is it we have got by all our
menaces, which have been many and ferocious?
What advantage have we derived from the
penal laws we have passed, and which, for the
time, have been severe and numerous? What
advances have we made toward our object by
the sending of a force which, by land and sea,
is no contemptible strength? Has the disorder
abated? Nothing less. When I see things in
this situation, after such confident hopes, bold
promises, and active exertions, I cannot, for
my life, avoid a suspicion that the plan itself is
not correctly right.
If, then, the removal of the causes of this
spirit of American liberty be, for the greater
part, or rather entirely, impracticable; if the
ideas of criminal process be inapplicable, or, if
applicable, are in the highest degree inexpedient,
what way yet remains? No way is
open but the third and last—to comply with
the American spirit as necessary, or, if you
please, to submit to it as a necessary evil.
If we adopt this mode, if we mean to conciliate
and concede, let us see, of what nature the
concessions ought to be. To ascertain the nature
of our concession, we must look at their complaint.
The colonies complain that they have
not the characteristic mark and seal of British
freedom. They complain that they are taxed
in Parliament in which they are not represented.
If you mean to satisfy them at all,
you must satisfy them with regard to this complaint.
If you mean to please any people, you
must give them the boon which they ask; not
what you may think better for them, but of a
kind totally different. Such an act may be a
wise regulation, but it is no concession, whereas
our present theme is the mode of giving satisfaction.
Sir, I think you must perceive that I am
resolved this day to have nothing at all to do
with the question of the right of taxation.
Some gentlemen startle, but it is true. I put
it totally out of the question. It is less than
nothing in my consideration. I do not, indeed,
wonder, nor will you, sir, that gentlemen of
profound learning are fond of displaying it on
this profound subject. But my consideration
is narrow, confined, and wholly limited to the
policy of the question. I do not examine
whether the giving away a man’s money be a
power excepted and reserved out of the general
trust of government, and how far all mankind,
in all forms of polity, are entitled to an exercise
of that right by the charter of nature; or
whether, on the contrary, a right of taxation is
necessarily involved in the general principle of
legislation, and inseparable from the ordinary
supreme power. These are deep questions,
where great names militate against each other;
where reason is perplexed; and an appeal to
authorities only thickens the confusion; for
high and reverend authorities lift up their heads
on both sides, and there is no sure footing in
the middle. The point is
That Serbonian bog
Betwixt Damieta and Mount Cassius old,
Where armies whole have sunk.59
I do not intend to be overwhelmed in this bog,
though in such respectable company. The
question with me is, not whether you have a
right to render your people miserable, but
whether it is not your interest to make them
happy. It is not what a lawyer tells me I may
do, but what humanity, reason, and justice tell
me I ought to do. Is a politic act the worse for
being a generous one? Is no concession
proper but that which is made from your want
of right to keep what you grant? Or does it
lessen the grace or dignity of relaxing in the
exercise of an odious claim, because you have
your evidence-room full of titles, and your
magazines stuffed with arms to enforce them?
What signify all those titles and all those arms?
Of what avail are they, when the reason of the
thing tells me that the assertion of my title is
the loss of my suit, and that I could do nothing
but wound myself by the use of my own
weapons?60
Such is steadfastly my opinion of the absolute
necessity of keeping up the concord of this
empire by a unity of spirit, though in a diversity
of operations, that, if I were sure the
colonists had, at their leaving this country,
sealed a regular compact of servitude; that
they had solemnly abjured all the rights of
citizens; that they had made a vow to renounce
all ideas of liberty for them and their posterity
to all generations, yet I should hold myself
obliged to conform to the temper I found universally
prevalent in my own day, and to govern
two millions of men, impatient of servitude, on
the principles of freedom. I am not determining
a point of law. I am restoring tranquillity,
and the general character and situation of a
people must determine what sort of government
is fitted for them. That point nothing
else can or ought to determine.
My idea, therefore, without considering
whether we yield as matter of right, or grant
as matter of favor, is to admit the people of our
colonies into an interest in the Constitution, and,
by recording that admission in the journals of
Parliament, to give them as strong an assurance
as the nature of the thing will admit, that
we mean forever to adhere to that solemn declaration
of systematic indulgence.
Some years ago, the repeal of a revenue act,
upon its understood principle, might have
served to show that we intended an unconditional
abatement of the exercise of a taxing
power. Such a measure was then sufficient to
remove all suspicion, and to give perfect
content. But unfortunate events, since that
time, may make something farther necessary,
and not more necessary for the satisfaction of
the colonies, than for the dignity and consistency
of our own future proceedings.
I have taken a very incorrect measure of the
disposition of the House, if this proposal in itself
would be received with dislike. I think,
sir, we have few American financiers. But our
misfortune is, we are too acute; we are too exquisite
in our conjectures of the future, for men
oppressed with such great and present evils.
The more moderate among the opposers of
parliamentary concessions freely confess that
they hope no good from taxation, but they apprehend
the colonists have farther views, and, if
this point were conceded, they would instantly
attack the Trade Laws. These gentlemen are
convinced that this was the intention from the
beginning, and the quarrel of the Americans
with taxation was no more than a cloak and
cover to this design. Such has been the language
even of a gentleman [Mr. Rice] of real
moderation, and of a natural temper well adjusted
to fair and equal government. I am,
however, sir, not a little surprised at this kind
of discourse, whenever I hear it; and I am the
more surprised, on account of the arguments
which I constantly find in company with it, and
which are often urged from the same mouths
and on the same day.
For instance, when we allege that it is against
reason to tax a people under so many restraints
in trade as the Americans, the noble lord in
the blue ribbon shall tell you that the restraints
on trade are futile and useless; of no advantage
to us, and of no burden to those on whom
they are imposed; that the trade of America is
not secured by the acts of navigation, but by
the natural and irresistible advantage of a commercial
preference.
Such is the merit of the trade laws in this
posture of the debate. But when strong internal
circumstances are urged against the
taxes; when the scheme is dissected; when
experience and the nature of things are brought
to prove, and do prove, the utter impossibility
of obtaining an effective revenue from the
colonies; when these things are pressed, or
rather press themselves, so as to drive the advocates
of colony taxes to a clear admission of
the futility of the scheme; then, sir, the sleeping
trade laws revive from their trance, and this
useless taxation is to be kept sacred, not for its
own sake, but as a counterguard and security
of the laws of trade.
Then, sir, you keep up revenue laws which
are mischievous, in order to preserve trade laws
that are useless. Such is the wisdom of our
plan in both its members. They are separately
given up as of no value, and yet one is always
to be defended for the sake of the other. But I
cannot agree with the noble lord, nor with
the pamphlet from whence he seems to have
borrowed these ideas, concerning the inutility
of the trade laws61; for, without idolizing them,
I am sure they are still, in many ways, of great
use to us; and in former times, they have been
of the greatest. They do confine, and they do
greatly narrow the market for the Americans;
but my perfect conviction of this does not help
me in the least to discern how the revenue laws
form any security whatsoever to the commercial
regulations, or that these commercial
regulations are the true ground of the quarrel,
or that the giving way in any one instance of
authority is to lose all that may remain unconceded.
One fact is clear and indisputable. The public
and avowed origin of this quarrel was on
taxation. This quarrel has, indeed, brought on
new disputes on new questions, but certainly
the least bitter, and the fewest of all, on the
trade laws. To judge which of the two be the
real radical cause of quarrel, we have to see
whether the commercial dispute did, in order
of time, precede the dispute on taxation. There
is not a shadow of evidence for it. Next, to
enable us to judge whether at this moment a
dislike to the trade laws be the real cause of
quarrel, it is absolutely necessary to put the
taxes out of the question by a repeal. See how
the Americans act in this position, and then
you will be able to discern correctly what is the
true object of the controversy, or whether any
controversy at all will remain. Unless you
consent to remove this cause of difference, it is
impossible, with decency, to assert that the dispute
is not upon what it is avowed to be. And
I would, sir, recommend to your serious consideration,
whether it be prudent to form a rule for
punishing people, not on their own acts, but on
your conjectures. Surely it is preposterous at
the very best. It is not justifying your anger
by their misconduct, but it is converting your
ill will into their delinquency.
But the colonies will go farther. Alas! alas!
when will this speculating against fact and reason
end? What will quiet these panic fears
which we entertain of the hostile effect of a
conciliatory conduct? Is it true that no case
can exist in which it is proper for the sovereign
to accede to the desires of his discontented subjects?
Is there any thing peculiar in this case
to make a rule for itself? Is all authority of
course lost, when it is not pushed to the extreme?
Is it a certain maxim, that the fewer
causes of dissatisfaction are left by government
the more the subject will be inclined to resist
and rebel?
All these objections being, in fact, no more
than suspicions, conjectures, divinations, formed
in defiance of fact and experience, they did not,
sir, discourage me from entertaining the idea of
a conciliatory concession, founded on the principles
which I have just stated.
In forming a plan for this purpose, I endeavored
to put myself in that frame of mind which
was the most natural and the most reasonable,
and which was certainly the most probable
means of securing me from all error. I set out
with a perfect distrust of my own abilities; a
total renunciation of every speculation of my
own; and with a profound reverence for the
wisdom of our ancestors, who have left us the
inheritance of so happy a constitution and so
flourishing an empire, and, what is a thousand
times more valuable, the treasury of the maxims
and principles which formed the one and obtained
the other.
During the reigns of the Kings of Spain of the
Austrian family, whenever they were at a loss
in the Spanish councils, it was common for their
statesmen to say, that they ought to consult
the genius of Philip the Second. The genius
of Philip the Second might mislead them; and
the issue of their affairs showed that they had
not chosen the most perfect standard. But,
sir, I am sure that I shall not be misled, when,
in a case of constitutional difficulty, I consult
the genius of the English Constitution. Consulting
at that oracle (it was with all due humility
and piety), I found four capital examples
in a similar case before me: those of Ireland,
Wales, Chester, and Durham.
Ireland, before the English conquest, though
never governed by a despotic power, had no
Parliament. How far the English Parliament
itself was at that time modelled according to the
present form, is disputed among antiquarians.
But we have all the reason in the world to be
assured, that a form of Parliament, such as
England then enjoyed, she instantly communicated
to Ireland; and we are equally sure that
almost every successive improvement in constitutional
liberty, as fast as it was made here,
was transmitted thither. The feudal baronage
and the feudal knighthood, the roots of our
primitive constitution, were early transplanted
into that soil, and grew and flourished there.
Magna Charta, if it did not give us originally
the House of Commons, gave us, at least, a
House of Commons of weight and consequence.
But your ancestors did not churlishly sit down
alone to the feast of Magna Charta. Ireland
was made immediately a partaker. This benefit
of English laws and liberties, I confess, was
not at first extended to all Ireland. Mark the
consequence. English authority and English
liberty had exactly the same boundaries. Your
standard could never be advanced an inch before
your privileges.62 Sir John Davis shows
beyond a doubt, that the refusal of a general
communication of these rights was the true
cause why Ireland was five hundred years in
subduing; and after the vain projects of a military
government, attempted in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, it was soon discovered that
nothing could make that country English, in
civility and allegiance, but your laws and your
forms of legislature.63 It was not English arms,
but the English Constitution, that conquered
Ireland. From that time, Ireland has ever had
a general Parliament, as she had before a partial
Parliament. You changed the people; you
altered the religion; but you never touched the
form or the vital substance of free government
in that kingdom. You deposed kings; you
restored them; you altered the succession to
theirs, as well as to your own crown: but you
never altered their Constitution; the principle
of which was respected by usurpation; restored
with the restoration of monarchy, and established,
I trust, forever, by the glorious revolution.
This has made Ireland the great and
flourishing kingdom that it is; and from a disgrace
and a burden intolerable to this nation,
has rendered her a principal part of our strength
and ornament. This country cannot be said
to have ever formally taxed her. The irregular
things done in the confusion of mighty troubles,
and on the hinge of great revolutions, even if
all were done that is said to have been done,
form no example. If they have any effect in
argument, they make an exception to prove the
rule. None of your own liberties could stand
a moment if the casual deviations from them,
at such times, were suffered to be used as proofs
of their nullity. By the lucrative amount of
such casual breaches in the Constitution, judge
what the stated and fixed rule of supply has
been in that kingdom. Your Irish pensioners
would starve, if they had no other fund to live
on than taxes granted by English authority.
Turn your eyes to those popular grants from
whence all your great supplies are come, and
learn to respect that only source of public
wealth in the British empire.
My next example is Wales. This country
was said to be reduced by Henry the Third.
It was said more truly to be so by Edward the
First.64 But though then conquered, it was not
looked upon as any part of the realm of England.
Its old Constitution, whatever that might
have been, was destroyed, and no good one
was substituted in its place. The care of that
tract was put into the hands of Lords Marchers—a
form of government of a very singular
kind; a strange heterogeneous monster, something
between hostility and government; perhaps
it has a sort of resemblance, according
to the modes of those times, to that of commander-in-chief
at present, to whom all civil
power is granted as secondary. The manners
of the Welsh nation followed the genius of
the government. The people were ferocious,
restive, savage, and uncultivated; sometimes
composed, never pacified. Wales, within itself,
was in perpetual disorder; and it kept the frontier
of England in perpetual alarm. Benefits
from it to the State there were none. Wales
was only known to England by incursion and
invasion.
Sir, during that state of things, Parliament
was not idle. They attempted to subdue the
fierce spirit of the Welsh by all sorts of rigorous
laws. They prohibited by statute the
sending all sorts of arms into Wales, as you
prohibit by proclamation (with something more
of doubt on the legality) the sending arms to
America. They disarmed the Welsh by statute,
as you attempted (but still with more question
on the legality) to disarm New England by an
instruction. They made an act to drag offenders
from Wales into England for trial, as you
have done (but with more hardship) with regard
to America. By another act, where one
of the parties was an Englishman, they ordained
that his trial should be always by English.
They made acts to restrain trade, as you do;
and they prevented the Welsh from the use of
fairs and markets, as you do the Americans
from fisheries and foreign ports. In short,
when the statute-book was not quite so much
swelled as it is now, you find no less than fifteen
acts of penal regulation on the subject of
Wales.65
Here we rub our hands—a fine body of precedents
for the authority of Parliament and the
use of it—I admit it fully; and pray add likewise
to these precedents, that all the while
Wales rid this kingdom like an incubus; that it
was an unprofitable and oppressive burden;
and that an Englishman travelling in that country
could not go six yards from the highroad
without being murdered.
The march of the human mind is slow. Sir,
it was not until after two hundred years discovered
that, by an eternal law, Providence had decreed
vexation to violence, and poverty to rapine.
Your ancestors did, however, at length
open their eyes to the ill husbandry of injustice.
They found that the tyranny of a free people
could of all tyrannies the least be endured, and
that laws made against a whole nation were not
the most effectual methods for securing its
obedience. Accordingly, in the twenty-seventh
year of Henry VIII., the course was entirely
altered. With a preamble stating the entire
and perfect rights of the Crown of England, it
gave to the Welsh all the rights and privileges
of English subjects. A political order was established;
the military power gave way to the
civil; the marches were turned into counties.
But that a nation should have a right to English
liberties, and yet no share at all in the fundamental
security of these liberties, the grant
of their own property, seemed a thing so incongruous,
that, eight years after, that is, in the
thirty-fifth of that reign, a complete and not
ill-proportioned representation by counties and
boroughs was bestowed upon Wales by act of
Parliament. From that moment, as by a charm,
the tumults subsided; obedience was restored;
peace, order, and civilization followed in the
train of liberty. When the day-star of the
English Constitution had arisen in their hearts,
all was harmony within and without.
Simul alba nautis
Stella refulsit,
Defluit saxis agitatus humor:
Concidunt venti, fugiuntque nubes;
Et minax (quod sic voluere) ponto
Unda recumbit.66
The very same year the county palatine of
Chester received the same relief from its oppressions
and the same remedy to its disorders.
Before this time Chester was little less distempered
than Wales. The inhabitants, without
rights themselves, were the fittest to destroy
the rights of others; and from thence Richard
II. drew the standing army of archers with
which for a time he oppressed England. The
people of Chester applied to Parliament in a
petition penned as I shall read to you:
“To the King our sovereign lord, in most humble wise
shown unto your excellent Majesty, the inhabitants of your
Grace’s county palatine of Chester; that where the said county
palatine of Chester is and hath been always hitherto exempt, excluded
and separated out and from your high court of Parliament,
to have any knights and burgesses within the said court;
by reason whereof the said inhabitants have hitherto sustained
manifold disherisons, losses, and damages, as well in their
lands, goods, and bodies, as in the good, civil, and politic governance
and maintenance of the Commonwealth of their said
country. (2) And, forasmuch as the said inhabitants have
always hitherto been bound by the acts and statutes made and
ordained by your said highness and your most noble progenitors,
by authority of the said court, as far forth as other counties,
cities, and boroughs have been, that have had their knights and
burgesses within your said court of Parliament, and yet have
had neither knight nor burgess there for the said county palatine;
the said inhabitants, for lack thereof, have been oftentimes
touched and grieved with acts and statutes made within
the said court, as well derogatory unto the most ancient jurisdictions,
liberties, and privileges of your said county palatine,
as prejudicial unto the Commonwealth, quietness, rest, and
peace of your Grace’s most bounden subjects inhabiting within
the same.”
What did Parliament with this audacious address?
Reject it as a libel? Treat it as an
affront to government? Spurn it as a derogation
from the rights of legislature? Did they
toss it over the table? Did they burn it by
the hands of the common hangman? They
took the petition of grievance, all rugged as it
was, without softening or temperament, unpurged
of the original bitterness and indignation
of complaint; they made it the very preamble
to their act of redress, and consecrated
its principle to all ages in the sanctuary of legislation.
Here is my third example. It was attended
with the success of the two former. Chester,
civilized as well as Wales, has demonstrated
that freedom, and not servitude, is the cure of
anarchy, as religion, and not atheism, is the
true remedy for superstition. Sir, this pattern
of Chester was followed in the reign of Charles
II. with regard to the county palatine of Durham,
which is my fourth example. This county
had long lain out of the pale of free legislation.
So scrupulously was the example of Chester followed,
that the style of the preamble is nearly
the same with that of the Chester act; and
without affecting the abstract extent of the
authority of Parliament, it recognizes the equity
of not suffering any considerable district in
which the British subjects may act as a body
to be taxed without their own voice in the
grant.
Now, if the doctrines of policy contained in
these preambles, and the force of these examples
in the acts of Parliament, avail anything,
what can be said against applying them with
regard to America? Are not the people of
America as much Englishmen as the Welsh?
The preamble of the act of Henry VIII. says,
the Welsh speak a language no way resembling
that of his Majesty’s English subjects. Are the
Americans not as numerous? If we may trust
the learned and accurate Judge Barrington’s
account of North Wales, and take that as a
standard to measure the rest, there is no comparison.
The people cannot amount to above
200,000; not a tenth part of the number in the
colonies. Is America in rebellion? Wales was
hardly ever free from it. Have you attempted
to govern America by penal statutes? You
made fifteen for Wales. But your legislative
authority is perfect with regard to America.
Was it less perfect in Wales, Chester, and Durham!
But America is virtually represented.
What! does the electric force of virtual representation
more easily pass over the Atlantic
than pervade Wales, which lies in your neighborhood;
or than Chester and Durham, surrounded
by abundance of representation that is
actual and palpable? But, sir, your ancestors
thought this sort of virtual representation, however
ample, to be totally insufficient for the
freedom of the inhabitants of territories that
are so near, and comparatively so inconsiderable.
How, then, can I think it sufficient for those
which are infinitely greater and infinitely more
remote?
You will now, sir, perhaps imagine that I am
on the point of proposing to you a scheme for
representation of the colonies in Parliament.
Perhaps I might be inclined to entertain some
such thought, but a great flood stops me in my
course. Opposuit natura. I cannot remove
the eternal barriers of the creation. The thing
in that mode I do not know to be possible. As
I meddle with no theory, I do not absolutely
assert the impracticability of such a representation;
but I do not see my way to it; and those
who have been more confident have not been
more successful. However, the arm of public
benevolence is not shortened, and there are
often several means to the same end. What
nature has disjoined in one way wisdom may
unite in another. When we cannot give the
benefit as we would wish, let us not refuse it
altogether. If we cannot give the principal,
let us find a substitute. But how? Where?
What substitute?
Fortunately I am not obliged for the ways
and means of this substitute to tax my own
unproductive invention. I am not even obliged
to go to the rich treasury of the fertile framers
of imaginary commonwealths; not to the Republic
of Plato, not to the Utopia of More, not
to the Oceana of Harrington. It is before me.
It is at my feet.
And the dull swain
Treads daily on it with his clouted shoon.67
I only wish you to recognize, for the theory, the
ancient constitutional policy of this kingdom
with regard to representation, as that policy has
been declared in acts of Parliament; and, as to
the practice, to return to that mode which a uniform
experience has marked out to you as best,
and in which you walked with security, advantage,
and honor, until the year 1763.
My resolutions, therefore, mean to establish
the equity and justice of a taxation of America,
by grant and not by imposition. To mark the
legal competency of the colony assemblies for
the support of their government in peace, and
for public aids in time of war. To acknowledge
that this legal competency has had a dutiful
and beneficial exercise; and that experience
has shown the benefit of their grants, and the
futility of parliamentary taxation as a method of
supply.
These solid truths compose six fundamental
propositions. There are three more resolutions
corollary to these. If you admit the first set,
you can hardly reject the others. But if you
admit the first, I shall be far from solicitous
whether you accept or refuse the last. I think
these six massive pillars will be of strength
sufficient to support the temple of British concord.
I have no more doubt than I entertain
of my existence, that, if you admitted these,
you would command an immediate peace; and,
with but tolerable future management, a lasting
obedience in America. I am not arrogant in
this confident assurance. The propositions are
all mere matters of fact; and if they are such
facts as draw irresistible conclusions even in the
stating, this is the power of truth, and not any
management of mine.
Sir, I shall open the whole plan to you
together, with such observations on the motions
as may tend to illustrate them where they may
want explanation. The first is a resolution:
“That the colonies and plantations of Great Britain in
North America, consisting of fourteen separate governments,
and containing two millions and upward of free inhabitants,
have not had the liberty and privilege of electing and sending
any knights and burgesses or others to represent them in the
high court of Parliament.”
This is a plain matter of fact, necessary to be
laid down, and (excepting the description) it is
laid down in the language of the Constitution:
it is taken nearly verbatim from acts of Parliament.
The second is like unto the first:
“That the said colonies and plantations have been liable
to and bounden by several subsidies, payments, rates, and taxes,
given and granted by Parliament, though the said colonies and
plantations have not their knights and burgesses in the said
high court of Parliament, of their own election, to represent
the condition of their country; by lack whereof they have
been oftentimes touched and grieved by subsidies given,
granted, and assented to, in said court, in a manner prejudicial
to the commonwealth, quietness, rest, and peace of the subjects
inhabiting within the same.”
Is this description too hot or too cold, too
strong or too weak? Does it arrogate too
much to the supreme Legislature? Does it
lean too much to the claims of the people? If
it runs into any of these errors, the fault is not
mine. It is the language of your own ancient
acts of Parliament.
Nec meus hic sermo est sed quæ præcipit Ofellus
Rusticus, abnormis sapiens.68
It is the genuine produce of the ancient, rustic,
manly, home-bred sense of this country. I did
not dare to rub off a particle of the venerable
rust that rather adorns and preserves, than destroys
the metal. It would be a profanation to
touch with a tool the stones which construct
the sacred altar of peace.69 I would not violate
with modern polish the ingenuous and noble
roughness of these truly constitutional materials.
Above all things, I was resolved not to be guilty
of tampering, the odious vice of restless and unstable
minds. I put my foot in the tracks of our
forefathers, where I can neither wander nor
stumble. Determining to fix articles of peace,
I was resolved not to be wise beyond what was
written; I was resolved to use nothing else than
the form of sound words, to let others abound
in their own sense, and carefully to abstain
from all expressions of my own. What the law
has said, I say. In all things else I am silent.
I have no organ but for her words. This, if it
be not ingenious, I am sure, is safe.
There are, indeed, words expressive of grievance
in this second resolution, which those who
are resolved always to be in the right will deny
to contain matter of fact, as applied to the present
case, although Parliament thought them true
with regard to the counties of Chester and Durham.
They will deny that the Americans were
ever “touched and grieved” with the taxes. If
they considered nothing in taxes but their weight
as pecuniary impositions, there might be some
pretence for this denial. But men may be sorely
touched and deeply grieved in their privileges as
well as in their purses. Men may lose little in
property by the act which takes away all their
freedom. When a man is robbed of a trifle on
the highway, it is not the twopence lost that constitutes
the capital outrage. This is not confined
to privileges. Even ancient indulgences
withdrawn, without offence on the part of those
who enjoy such favors, operate as grievances.
But were the Americans then not touched and
grieved by the taxes, in some measure merely
as taxes? If so, why were they almost all either
wholly repealed or exceedingly reduced? Were
they not touched and grieved, even by the regulating
duties of the sixth of George II.? Else
why were the duties first reduced to one third
in 1764, and afterward to a third of that third
in the year 1766? Were they not touched and
grieved by the Stamp Act? I shall say they
were, until that tax is revived. Were they not
touched and grieved by the duties of 1767, which
were likewise repealed, and which Lord Hillsborough
tells you, for the ministry, were laid contrary
to the true principle of commerce? Is not
the assurance given by that noble person to the
colonies of a resolution to lay no more taxes on
them, an admission that taxes would touch and
grieve them? Is not the resolution of the noble
lord in the blue ribbon, now standing on your
journals, the strongest of all proofs that Parliamentary
subsidies really touched and grieved
them? Else why all these changes, modifications,
repeals, assurances, and resolutions?
The next proposition is:
“That, from the distance of the said colonies, and from
other circumstances, no method hath hitherto been devised for
procuring a representation in Parliament for the said colonies.”
This is an assertion of a fact. I go no farther
on the paper; though in my private judgment, a
useful representation is impossible; I am sure
it is not desired by them, nor ought it, perhaps,
by us, but I abstain from opinions.
The fourth resolution is:
“That each of the said colonies hath within itself a body
chosen in part or in the whole, by the freemen, freeholders,
or other free inhabitance thereof, commonly called the General
Assembly, or General Court, with powers legally to raise, levy,
and assess, according to the several usages of such colonies,
duties and taxes toward the defraying all sorts of public services.”
This competence in the colony assemblies is
certain. It is proved by the whole tenor of their
acts of supply in all the assemblies, in which the
constant style of granting is, “an aid to his Majesty”;
and acts granting to the Crown have regularly
for near a century passed the public offices
without dispute. Those who have been pleased
paradoxically to deny this right, holding that
none but the British Parliament can grant to the
Crown, are wished to look to what is done, not
only in the colonies, but in Ireland, in one uniform,
unbroken tenor every session.70
Sir, I am surprised that this doctrine should
come from some of the law servants of the
Crown. I say that if the Crown could be responsible,
his Majesty—but certainly the ministers,
and even these law officers themselves,
through whose hands the acts pass biennially
in Ireland, or annually the colonies, are in a
habitual course of committing impeachable
offences. What habitual offenders have been all
presidents of the council, all secretaries of state,
all first lords of trade, all attorneys, and all solicitors-general!
However, they are safe, as no
one impeaches them; and there is no ground
of charge against them, except in their own
unfounded theories.
The fifth resolution is also a resolution of
fact:
“That the said General Assemblies, General Courts, or
other bodies legally qualified as aforesaid, have at sundry
times freely granted several large subsidies and public aids for
his Majesty’s service, according to their abilities, when required
thereto by letter from one of his Majesty’s principal
secretaries of State. And that their right to grant the same,
and their cheerfulness and sufficiency in the said grants, have
been at sundry times acknowledged by Parliament.”
To say nothing of their great expenses in the
Indian wars; and not to take their exertion in
foreign ones, so high as the supplies in the year
1695, not to go back to their public contributions
in the year 1710, I shall begin to travel
only where the journals give me light; resolving
to deal in nothing but fact authenticated
by parliamentary record, and to build myself
wholly on that solid basis.
On the 4th of April, 1748, a committee of
this House came to the following resolution:
“Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that it
is just and reasonable that the several provinces and colonies of
Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode
Island, be reimbursed the expenses they have been at in taking
and securing to the Crown of Great Britain the Island of Cape
Breton and its dependencies.”
These expenses were immense for such colonies.
They were above £200,000 sterling;
money first raised and advanced on their public
credit.
On the 28th of January, 1756, a message from
the King came to us to this effect:
“His Majesty being sensible of the zeal and vigor with
which his faithful subjects of certain colonies in North America
have exerted themselves in defence of his Majesty’s just
rights and possessions, recommends it to this House to take
the same into their consideration, and to enable his Majesty to
give them such assistance as may be a proper reward and encouragement.”
On the 3d of February, 1756, the House came
to a suitable resolution, expressed in words
nearly the same as those of the message; but
with the farther addition, that the money then
voted was an encouragement to the colonies to
exert themselves with vigor. It will not be
necessary to go through all the testimonies
which your own records have given to the truth
of my resolutions. I will only refer you to the
places in the journals: Vol. xxvii., 16th and
19th May, 1757; vol. xxviii., June 1st, 1758—April
26th and 30th, 1759—March 26th and
31st, and April 28th, 1760—January 9th and
20th, 1761; vol. xxix., January 22d and 26th,
1762—March 14th and 17th, 1763.
Sir, here is the repeated acknowledgment of
Parliament, that the colonies not only gave, but
gave to satiety. This nation has formally acknowledged
two things: first, that the colonies
had gone beyond their abilities, Parliament having
thought it necessary to reimburse them; secondly,
that they had acted legally and laudably in
their grants of money, and their maintenance of
troops, since the compensation is expressly given
as reward and encouragement. Reward is not
bestowed for acts that are unlawful; and encouragement
is not held out to things that deserve
reprehension. My resolution, therefore,
does nothing more than collect into one proposition
what is scattered through your journals.
I give you nothing but your own, and you cannot
refuse in the gross what you have so often
acknowledged in detail. The admission of this,
which will be so honorable to them and to you,
will, indeed, be mortal to all the miserable
stories by which the passions of the misguided
people have been engaged in an unhappy system.
The people heard, indeed, from the beginning
of these disputes, one thing continually
dinned in their ears, that reason and justice demanded
that the Americans, who paid no taxes,
should be compelled to contribute. How did
that fact of their paying nothing stand when
the taxing system began? When Mr. Grenville
began to form his system of American
revenue, he stated in this House that the colonies
were then in debt two million six hundred
thousand pounds sterling money, and was
of opinion they would discharge that debt in
four years. On this state, those untaxed people
were actually subject to the payment of taxes
to the amount of six hundred and fifty thousand
a year. In fact, however, Mr. Grenville was
mistaken. The funds given for sinking the
debt did not prove quite so ample as both the
colonies and he expected. The calculation was
too sanguine: the reduction was not completed
till some years after, and at different times in
different colonies. However, the taxes after
the war continued too great to bear any addition,
with prudence or propriety; and when
the burdens imposed in consequence of former
requisitions were discharged, our tone became
too high to resort again to requisition. No
colony, since that time, ever has had any requisition
whatsoever made to it.
We see the sense of the Crown, and the
sense of Parliament, on the productive nature
of a revenue by grant. Now search the same
journals for the produce of the revenue by imposition.
Where is it? Let us know the volume
and the page. What is the gross, what is the
net produce? To what service is it applied?
How have you appropriated its surplus? What,
can none of the many skilful index-makers that
we are now employing, find any trace of it?
Well, let them and that rest together. But,
are the journals, which say nothing of the revenue,
as silent on the discontent? Oh, no! a
child may find it. It is the melancholy burden
and blot of every page.
I think, then, I am, from those journals,
justified in the sixth and last resolution,
which is:
“That it hath been found by experience that the manner of
granting the said supplies and aids, by the said general assemblies,
hath been more agreeable to the said colonies, and more
beneficial and conducive to the public service, than the mode
of giving and granting aids in Parliament, to be raised and
paid in the said colonies.”
This makes the whole of the fundamental
part of the plan. The conclusion is irresistible.
You cannot say that you were driven by
any necessity to an exercise of the utmost
rights of legislature. You cannot assert that
you took on yourselves the task of imposing
colony taxes, from the want of another legal
body, that is competent to the purpose of supplying
the exigencies of the State without
wounding the prejudices of the people. Neither
is it true that the body so qualified, and having
that competence, had neglected the duty.
The question now on all this accumulated
matter, is—whether you will choose to abide by
a profitable experience, or a mischievous theory;
whether you choose to build on imagination or
fact; whether you prefer enjoyment or hope;
satisfaction in your subjects or discontent?
If these propositions are accepted, every
thing which has been made to enforce a contrary
system must, I take it for granted, fall
along with it. On that ground I have drawn
the following resolution, which, when it comes
to be moved, will naturally be divided in a
proper manner:
“That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the
seventh year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled An
Act for granting certain duties in the British colonies and plantations
in America; for allowing a drawback of the duties of
customs upon the exportation from this kingdom of coffee and
cocoa-nuts of the produce of the said colonies or plantations;
for discontinuing the drawbacks payable on China earthenware
exported to America, and for more effectually preventing
the clandestine running of goods in the said colonies and
plantations; and that it may be proper to repeal an act, made
in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled,
An Act to discontinue, in such manner, and for such
time as are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging,
lading, or shipping, of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the
town and within the harbor of Boston, in the province of
Massachusetts Bay, in North America; and that it may be
proper to repeal an act, made in the fourteenth year of the
reign of his present Majesty, entitled, An Act for the impartial
administration of justice in the cases of persons questioned
for any acts done by them in the execution of the law, or for
the suppression of riots and tumults in the province of Massachusetts
Bay, in New England; and that it may be proper to
repeal an act, made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his
present Majesty, entitled, An Act for the better regulating the
government of the province of Massachusetts Bay, in New
England; and also, that it may be proper to explain and
amend an act, made in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of
King Henry the Eighth, entitled, An Act for the trial of treasons
committed out of the King’s dominions.”
I wish, sir, to repeal the Boston Port Bill, because
(independently of the dangerous precedent
of suspending the rights of the subject
during the King’s pleasure) it was passed, as I
apprehend, with less regularity, and on more
partial principles, than it ought. The corporation
of Boston was not heard before it was condemned.
Other towns, full as guilty as she was,
have not had their ports blocked up. Even the
restraining bill of the present session does not
go to the length of the Boston Port Act. The
same ideas of prudence which induced you not
to extend equal punishment to equal guilt,
even when you were punishing, induce me, who
mean not to chastise, but to reconcile, to be satisfied
with the punishment already partially inflicted.
Ideas of prudence, and accommodation to
circumstances, prevent you from taking away
the charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island,
as you have taken away that of Massachusetts
Colony, though the Crown has far less power
in the two former provinces than it enjoyed in
the latter; and though the abuses have been full
as great and as flagrant in the exempted as in the
punished. The same reasons of prudence and
accommodation have weight with me in restoring
the charter of Massachusetts Bay. Besides,
sir, the act which changes the charter of Massachusetts
is in many particulars so exceptionable,
that if I did not wish absolutely to repeal, I
would by all means desire to alter it, as several
of its provisions tend to the subversion of all
public and private justice. Such, among others,
is the power in the Governor to change the
Sheriff at his pleasure, and to make a new returning
officer for every special cause. It is
shameful to behold such a regulation standing
among English laws.
The act for bringing persons accused of committing
murder under the orders of government
to England for trial, is but temporary. That
act has calculated the probable duration of our
quarrel with the colonies, and is accommodated
to that supposed duration. I would hasten the
happy moment of reconciliation, and therefore
must, on my principle, get rid of that most
justly obnoxious act.
The act of Henry the Eighth, for the trial of
treasons, I do not mean to take away, but to
confine it to its proper bounds and original intention;
to make it expressly for trial of
treasons (and the greatest treasons may be
committed) in places where the jurisdiction of
the Crown does not extend.
Having guarded the privileges of local legislature,
I would next secure to the colonies
a fair and unbiased judicature; for which purpose,
sir, I propose the following resolution:
“That, from the time when the General Assembly or General
Court of any colony or plantation in North America, shall
have appointed by act of assembly, duly confirmed, a settled
salary to the offices of the Chief Justice and other judges
of the Superior Court, it may be proper that the said Chief
Justice and other judges of the Superior Courts of such colony,
shall hold his and their office and offices during their good
behavior, and shall not be removed therefrom, but when the
said removal shall be adjudged by his Majesty in council,
upon a hearing on complaint from the General Assembly,
or on a complaint from the Governor, or Council, or the
House of Representatives severally, of the colony in which
the said Chief Justice and other judges have exercised the
said offices.”
The next resolution relates to the Courts of
Admiralty. It is this:
“That it may be proper to regulate the Courts of Admiralty,
or Vice Admiralty, authorized by the 15th chapter of the 4th
of George the Third, in such a manner as to make the same
more commodious to those who sue, or are sued, in the said
courts, and to provide for the more decent maintenance of the
judges in the same.”
These courts I do not wish to take away.
They are in themselves proper establishments.
This court is one of the capital securities of the
Act of Navigation. The extent of its jurisdiction,
indeed, has been increased; but this is
altogether as proper, and is, indeed, on many
accounts, more eligible, where new powers were
wanted, than a court absolutely new. But
courts incommodiously situated, in effect, deny
justice; and a court, partaking in the fruits of
its own condemnation, is a robber. The Congress
complain, and complain justly, of this
grievance.
These are the three consequential propositions.
I have thought of two or three more, but they
come rather too near detail, and to the province
of executive government, which I wish Parliament
always to superintend, never to assume.
If the first six are granted, congruity will carry
the latter three. If not, the things that remain
unrepealed will be, I hope, rather unseemly encumbrances
on the building, than very materially
detrimental to its strength and stability.
Here, sir, I should close, but that I plainly
perceive some objections remain, which I
ought, if possible, to remove. The first will be,
that, in resorting to the doctrine of our ancestors,
as contained in the preamble to the
Chester act, I prove too much; that the grievance
from a want of representation stated in
that preamble, goes to the whole of legislation
as well as to taxation. And that the colonies,
grounding themselves upon that doctrine,
will apply it to all parts of legislative authority.
To this objection, with all possible deference
and humility, and wishing as little as any man
living to impair the smallest particle of our supreme
authority, I answer, that the words are the
words of Parliament, and not mine; and that all
false and inconclusive inferences drawn from
them are not mine, for I heartily disclaim any
such inference. I have chosen the words of an
act of Parliament, which Mr. Grenville, surely a
tolerably zealous and very judicious advocate for
the sovereignty of Parliament, formerly moved
to have read at your table, in confirmation of
his tenets. It is true that Lord Chatham considered
these preambles as declaring strongly in
favor of his opinions. He was a no less powerful
advocate for the privileges of the Americans.
Ought I not from hence to presume that these
preambles are as favorable as possible to both,
when properly understood; favorable both to the
rights of Parliament, and to the privilege of the
dependencies of this crown? But, sir, the object
of grievance in my resolution I have not
taken from the Chester, but from the Durham
act, which confines the hardship of want of representation
to the case of subsidies, and which,
therefore, falls in exactly with the case of the
colonies. But whether the unrepresented counties
were de jure or de facto bound, the preambles
do not accurately distinguish; nor indeed
was it necessary; for, whether de jure or de facto,
the Legislature thought the exercise of the
power of taxing, as of right, or as of fact without
right, equally a grievance, and equally oppressive.
I do not know that the colonies have, in any
general way or in any cool hour, gone much beyond
the demand of immunity in relation to
taxes. It is not fair to judge of the temper or
dispositions of any man, or any set of men, when
they are composed and at rest, from their conduct
or their expressions in a state of disturbance
and irritation. It is, besides, a very
great mistake to imagine that mankind follow
up practically any speculative principle, either
of government or freedom, as far as it will go in
argument and logical illation. We Englishmen
stop very short of the principles upon which we
support any given part of our Constitution, or
even the whole of it together. I could easily, if
I had not already tired you, give you very
striking and convincing instances of it. This is
nothing but what is natural and proper. All
government, indeed every human benefit and
enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act,
is founded on compromise and barter.71 We
balance inconveniences; we give and take; we
remit some rights that we may enjoy others;
and we choose rather to be happy citizens than
subtle disputants. As we must give away some
natural liberty to enjoy civil advantages, so we
must sacrifice some civil liberties for the advantages
to be derived from the communion and
fellowship of a great empire. But, in all fair
dealings, the thing bought must bear some proportion
to the purchase paid. None will barter
away “the immediate jewel of his soul.”72
Though a great house is apt to make slaves
haughty, yet it is purchasing a part of the artificial
importance of a great empire too dear to
pay for it all essential rights and all the intrinsic
dignity of human nature. None of us who
would not risk his life rather than fall under a
government purely arbitrary. But, although
there are some among us who think our Constitution
wants many improvements to make it a
complete system of liberty, perhaps none who
are of that opinion would think it right to
aim at such improvement by disturbing his
country, and risking every thing that is dear to
him. In every arduous enterprise we consider
what we are to lose as well as what we are to
gain; and the more and better stake of liberty
every people possess, the less they will hazard
in a vain attempt to make it more. These are
the cords of man.73 Man acts from adequate
motive relative to his interest, and not on
metaphysical speculations. Aristotle, the great
master of reasoning, cautions us, and with
great weight and propriety, against this species
of delusive geometrical accuracy in moral arguments
as the most fallacious of all sophistry.74
The Americans will have no interest contrary
to the grandeur and glory of England, when
they are not oppressed by the weight of it; and
they will rather be inclined to respect the acts
of a superintending Legislature, when they see
them the acts of that power which is itself the
security, not the rival, of their secondary importance.
In this assurance my mind most
perfectly acquiesces, and I confess I feel not
the least alarm from the discontents which are
to arise from putting people at their ease; nor
do I apprehend the destruction of this empire
from giving, by an act of free grace and indulgence,
to two millions of my fellow-citizens,
some share of those rights upon which I have
always been taught to value myself.
It is said, indeed, that this power of granting,
vested in American assemblies, would dissolve
the unity of the empire, which was preserved
entire, although Wales, and Chester, and Durham
were added to it. Truly, Mr. Speaker, I
do not know what this unity means, nor has it
ever been heard of, that I know, in the constitutional
policy of this country. The very idea
of subordination of parts excludes this notion
of simple and undivided unity. England is the
head, but she is not the head and the members
too. Ireland has ever had from the beginning
a separate, but not an independent
Legislature, which, far from distracting, promoted
the union of the whole. Every thing
was sweetly and harmoniously disposed through
both islands for the conservation of English
dominion and the communication of English
liberties. I do not see that the same principles
might not be carried into twenty islands, and
with the same good effect. This is my model
with regard to America, as far as the internal
circumstances of the two countries are the
same. I know no other unity of this empire
than I can draw from its example during these
periods, when it seemed to my poor understanding
more united than it is now, or than it
is likely to be by the present methods.
But since I speak of these methods, I recollect,
Mr. Speaker, almost too late, that I
promised, before I finished, to say something
of the proposition of the noble Lord [Lord
North] on the floor, which has been so lately
received, and stands on your journals. I must
be deeply concerned whenever it is my misfortune
to continue a difference with the majority
of this House. But as the reasons for
that difference are my apology for thus troubling
you, suffer me to state them in a very few
words. I shall compress them into as small a
body as I possibly can, having already debated
that matter at large when the question was before
the committee.
First, then I cannot admit that proposition
of a ransom by auction, because it is a mere
project. It is a thing new; unheard of; supported
by no experience; justified by no analogy;
without example of our ancestors, or root
in the Constitution. It is neither regular parliamentary
taxation nor colony grant. “Experimentum
in corpore vili”75 is a good rule,
which will ever make me adverse to any trial
of experiments on what is certainly the most
valuable of all subjects, the peace of this empire.
Secondly, it is an experiment which must be
fatal, in the end, to our Constitution. For
what is it but a scheme for taxing the colonies
in the ante-chamber of the noble Lord and his
successors? To settle the quotas and proportions
in this House is clearly impossible. You,
sir, may flatter yourself you shall sit a state
auctioneer with your hammer in your hand,
and knock down to each colony as it bids. But
to settle (on the plan laid down by the noble
Lord) the true proportional payment for four
or five-and-twenty governments according to
the absolute and the relative wealth of each, and
according to the British proportion of wealth
and burden, is a wild and chimerical notion.
This new taxation must therefore come in by
the back door of the Constitution. Each quota
must be brought to this House ready formed;
you can neither add nor alter. You must
register it. You can do nothing farther. For
on what grounds can you deliberate, either before
or after the proposition. You cannot
hear the counsel for all these provinces, quarrelling
each on its own quantity of payment,
and its proportion to others. If you should
attempt it, the committee of provincial ways
and means, or by whatever other name it will
delight to be called, must swallow up all the
time of Parliament.
Thirdly, it does not give satisfaction to the
complaint of the colonies. They complain
that they are taxed without their consent; you
answer, that you will fix the sum at which
they shall be taxed. That is, you give them
the very grievance for the remedy. You tell
them indeed, that you will leave the mode to
themselves. I really beg pardon. It gives me
pain to mention it; but you must be sensible
that you will not perform this part of the contract.
For, suppose the colonies were to lay
the duties which furnished their contingent
upon the importation of your manufactures?
you know you would never suffer such a tax to
be laid. You know, too, that you would not
suffer many other modes of taxation; so that
when you come to explain yourself, it will be
found that you will neither leave to themselves
the quantum nor the mode, nor, indeed, any
thing. The whole is delusion from one end to
the other.
Fourthly, this method of ransom by auction,
unless it be universally accepted, will plunge
you into great and inextricable difficulties. In
what year of our Lord are the proportions of
payments to be settled, to say nothing of the
impossibility, that colony agents should have
general powers of taxing the colonies at their
discretion? Consider, I implore you, that the
communication by special messages, and orders
between these agents and their constituents on
each variation of the case, when the parties
come to contend together, and to dispute on
their relative proportions, will be a matter of
delay, perplexity, and confusion that never can
have an end.
If all the colonies do not appear at the outcry,
what is the condition of those assemblies,
who offer, by themselves or their agents, to tax
themselves up to your ideas of their proportion?
The refractory colonies who refuse all
composition will remain taxed only to your old
impositions, which, however grievous in principle,
are trifling as to production. The obedient
colonies in this scheme are heavily taxed; the
refractory remain unburdened. What will you
do? Will you lay new and heavier taxes by
Parliament on the disobedient? Pray consider
in what way you can do it. You are perfectly
convinced that in the way of taxing you can do
nothing but at the ports. Now suppose it is
Virginia that refuses to appear at your auction,
while Maryland and North Carolina bid handsomely
for their ransom, and are taxed to your
quota. How will you put these colonies on a
par? Will you tax the tobacco of Virginia? If
you do, you give its death wound to your English
revenue at home, and to one of the very greatest
articles of your own foreign trade. If you
tax the import of that rebellious colony, what
do you tax but your own manufactures, or the
goods of some other obedient and already well-taxed
colony? Who has said one word on this
labyrinth of detail, which bewilders you more
and more as you enter into it? Who has presented,
who can present you with a clew to
lead you out of it? I think, sir, it is impossible
that you should not recollect that the
colony bounds are so implicated in one another
(you know it by your on experiments in the
bill for prohibiting the New England fishery)
that you can lay no possible restraints on almost
any of them which may not be presently
eluded, if you do not confound the innocent
with the guilty, and burden those whom, upon
every principle, you ought to exonerate. He
must be grossly ignorant of America who thinks
that, without falling into this confusion of all
rules of equity and policy, you can restrain
any single colony, especially Virginia and Maryland,
the central and most important of them
all.
Let it also be considered, that either in the
present confusion you settle a permanent contingent
which will and must be trifling, and then
you have no effectual revenue; or, you change
the quota at every exigency, and then on every
new repartition you will have a new quarrel.
Reflect, besides, that when you have fixed a
quota for every colony, you have not provided
for prompt and punctual payment. Suppose
one, two, five, ten years arrears. You cannot
issue a Treasury Extent76 against the failing
colony. You must make new Boston Port bills,
new restraining laws, new acts for dragging men
to England for trial. You must send out new
fleets, new armies. All is to begin again. From
this day forward the empire is never to know
an hour’s tranquillity. An intestine fire will be
kept alive in the bowels of the colonies, which
one time or another must consume this whole
Empire. I allow, indeed, that the Empire of
Germany raises her revenue and her troops by
quotas and contingents; but the revenue of the
Empire, and the army of the Empire, is the
worst revenue and the worst army in the world.
Instead of a standing revenue, you will therefore
have a perpetual quarrel. Indeed, the noble
Lord who proposed this project of a ransom by
auction, seemed himself to be of that opinion.
His project was rather designed for breaking
the union of the colonies than for establishing
a revenue. He confessed that he apprehended
that his proposal would not be to their taste.
I say this scheme of disunion seems to be at
the bottom of the project; for I will not suspect
that the noble Lord meant nothing but
merely to delude the nation by an airy phantom
which he never intended to realize. But,
whatever his views may be, as I propose the
peace and union of the colonies as the very
foundation of my plan, it cannot accord with
one whose foundation is perpetual discord.
Compare the two. This I offer to give you
is plain and simple. The other, full of perplexed
and intricate mazes. This is mild; that, harsh.
This is found by experience effectual for its
purposes; the other is a new project. This is
universal; the other, calculated for certain colonies
only. This is immediate in its conciliatory
operation; the other, remote, contingent,
full of hazard. Mine is what becomes the dignity
of a ruling people; gratuitous, unconditional,
and not held out as matter of bargain
and sale. I have done my duty in proposing it
to you. I have indeed tired you by a long discourse;
but this is the misfortune of those to
whose influence nothing will be conceded, and
who must win every inch of their ground by
argument. You have heard me with goodness.
May you decide with wisdom! For my part, I
feel my mind greatly disburdened by what I
have done to-day. I have been the less fearful
of trying your patience, because on this subject
I mean to spare it altogether in future. I have
this comfort, that in every stage of the American
affairs, I have steadily opposed the measures
that have produced the confusion, and may
bring on the destruction of this Empire. I now
go so far as to risk a proposal of my own. If I
cannot give peace to my country, I give it to
my conscience.
But what, says the financier, is peace to us
without money? Your plan gives us no revenue.
No! But it does—for it secures to the
subject the power of REFUSAL—the first of
all revenues. Experience is a cheat, and fact a
liar, if this power in the subject of proportioning
his grant, or of not granting at all, has not
been found the richest mine of revenue ever
discovered by the skill or by the fortune of
man. It does not indeed vote you £152,750
11s. 2¾d., nor any other paltry limited sum, but
it gives the strong box itself, the fund, the bank,
from whence only revenues can arise among
a people sensible of freedom: Posita luditur
arca.77
Cannot you in England; cannot you at this
time of day; cannot you—a House of Commons—trust
to the principle which has raised
so mighty a revenue, and accumulated a debt
of near one hundred and forty millions in this
country? Is this principle to be true in England
and false everywhere else? Is it not true
in Ireland? Has it not hitherto been true in
the colonies? Why should you presume, that
in any country, a body duly constituted for any
functions will neglect to perform its duty, and
abdicate its trust? Such a presumption would
go against all government in all modes. But,
in truth, this dread of penury of supply, from a
free assembly, has no foundation in nature. For
first observe, that, besides the desire, which all
men have naturally, of supporting the honor of
their own government, that sense of dignity,
and that security of property, which ever attends
freedom, has a tendency to increase the
stock of the free community. Most may be
taken where most is accumulated. And what
is the soil or climate where experience has not
uniformly proved that the voluntary flow of
heaped-up plenty, bursting from the weight of
its own rich luxuriance, has ever run with a
more copious stream of revenue, than could be
squeezed from the dry husks of oppressed indigence,
by the straining of all the politic machinery
in the world.
Next, we know that parties must ever exist
in a free country. We know, too, that the
emulations of such parties, their contradictions,
their reciprocal necessities, their hopes and
their fears, must send them all in their turns to
him that holds the balance of the state. The
parties are the gamesters, but Government
keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in
the end. When this game is played, I really
think it is more to be feared that the people
will be exhausted, than that Government will
not be supplied; whereas, whatever is got
by acts of absolute power, ill obeyed, because
odious, or by contracts ill kept, because constrained,
will be narrow, feeble, uncertain, and
precarious.
“Ease would retract
Vows made in pain, as violent and void.”78
I, for one, protest against compounding our
demands. I declare against compounding, for a
poor limited sum, the immense ever-growing,
eternal debt which is due to generous government
from protected freedom. And so may I
speed in the great object I propose to you, as I
think it would not only be an act of injustice,
but would be the worst economy in the world,
to compel the colonies to a sum certain, either
in the way of ransom or in the way of compulsory
compact.
But to clear up my ideas on this subject; a
revenue from America transmitted hither—do
not delude yourselves—you never can receive it—no,
not a shilling. We have experienced
that from remote countries it is not to be expected.
If, when you attempted to extract
revenue from Bengal, you were obliged to return
in loan what you had taken in imposition,
what can you expect from North America? for
certainly, if ever there was a country qualified
to produce wealth, it is India; or an institution
fit for the transmission, it is the East India
Company. America has none of these aptitudes.
If America gives you taxable objects
on which you lay your duties here, and gives
you, at the same time, a surplus by a foreign
sale of her commodities to pay the duties on
these objects which you tax at home, she has
performed her part to the British revenue. But
with regard to her own internal establishments,
she may, I doubt not she will, contribute in
moderation; I say in moderation, for she ought
not to be permitted to exhaust herself. She
ought to be reserved to a war, the weight of
which, with the enemies that we are most likely
to have, must be considerable in her quarter of
the globe. There she may serve you, and serve
you essentially.
For that service, for all service, whether of
revenue, trade or empire, my trust is in her
interest in the British Constitution. My hold
of the colonies is in the close affection which
grows from common names, from kindred
blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection.
These are ties which, though light as
air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies
always keep the idea of their civil rights
associated with your government; they will
cling and grapple to you, and no force under
heaven will be of power to tear them from their
allegiance. But let it be once understood that
your government may be one thing, and their
privileges another; that these two things may
exist without any mutual relation; the cement
is gone; the cohesion is loosened; and every
thing hastens to decay and dissolution. As
long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign
authority of this country as the sanctuary
of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our
common faith, wherever the chosen race and
sons of England worship Freedom, they will
turn their faces toward you. The more they
multiply, the more friends you will have. The
more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect
will be their obedience. Slavery they can have
anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every
soil. They may have it from Spain; they may
have it from Prussia; but, until you become
lost to all feeling of your true interest and your
natural dignity, freedom they can have from
none but you. This is the commodity of price,
of which you have the monopoly. This is the
true Act of Navigation, which binds to you the
commerce of the colonies, and through them
secures to you the wealth of the world. Deny
them this participation of freedom, and you
break that sole bond which originally made,
and must still preserve, the unity of the empire.
Do not entertain so weak an imagination as
that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits
and your sufferances, your cockets and
your clearances, are what form the great securities
of your commerce. Do not dream that
your letters of office, and your instructions, and
your suspending clauses, are the things that
hold together the great contexture of this
mysterious whole. These things do not make
your government. Dead instruments, passive
tools as they are, it is the spirit of the English
communion that gives all their life and efficacy
to them. It is the spirit of the English Constitution,
which, infused through the mighty
mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies
every part of the empire, even down to the
minutest member.79
Is it not the same virtue which does every
thing for us here in England?
Do you imagine then, that it is the Land
Tax80 which raises your revenue? that it is the
annual vote in the Committee of Supply, which
gives you your army? or that it is the Mutiny
Bill,81 which inspires it with bravery and discipline?
No! surely no! It is the love of the
people; it is their attachment to their Government,
from the sense of the deep stake they
have in such a glorious institution, which gives
you your army and your navy, and infuses into
both that liberal obedience, without which your
army would be a base rabble, and your navy
nothing but rotten timber.
All this, I know well enough, will sound wild
and chimerical to the profane herd of those
vulgar and mechanical politicians, who have no
place among us; a sort of people who think
that nothing exists but what is gross and material,
and who, therefore, far from being qualified
to be directors of the great movement of empire,
are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine.
But to men truly initiated and rightly
taught, these ruling and master principles,
which, in the opinion of such men as I have
mentioned, have no substantial existence, are
in truth every thing and all in all. Magnanimity
in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom;
and a great empire and little minds go
ill together. If we are conscious of our situation,
and glow with zeal to fill our place as becomes
our station and ourselves, we ought to
auspicate all our public proceeding on America
with the old warning of the church, sursum corda!82
We ought to elevate our minds to the
greatness of that trust to which the order of
Providence has called us. By adverting to the
dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have
turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire,
and have made the most extensive and
the only honorable conquests, not by destroying
but by promoting, the wealth, the number, the
happiness of the human race. Let us get an
American revenue as we have got an American
empire. English privileges have made it all
that it is; English privileges alone will make
it all it can be.
In full confidence of this unalterable truth,
I now, quod felix faustumque sit,83 lay the
first stone in the temple of peace; and I move
you,
That the colonies and plantations of Great
Britain in North America, consisting of fourteen
separate governments, and containing two millions
and upward of free inhabitants, have
not had the liberty and privilege of electing
and sending any knights and burgesses, or
others, to represent them in the high court of
Parliament.
On the first resolution offered by Mr. Burke the votes in favor
of it were only 78 while those against it were 270. The other
resolutions were not put to vote. This may be regarded as the
final answer of the House of Commons to all attempts to save
the colonies except by force. The policy of war was thus
adopted, with what result the world very well knows.