The Townshend Duties
•
After becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, on May 13, 1767 Charles
Townshend revealed his painless way of getting $ out of America;
saddled America with a full measure of external taxes (Townshend
duties)—remember, Townshend and others were under the impression
that external taxes were o.k. thanks to Franklin’s speech (actually,
most astute/educated officials knew better).
•
Americans would pay duties on the items they imported from England
(under the Navigation Acts they could import these items only from
England; glass, lead, paper, paints, tea)
•
Townshend also reorganized the customs service; duties would be
collected in America under the supervision of a separate Board of
Customs Commissioners located in Boston
•
To colonists, the duties provided more explicit evidence of a wideranging plot/conspiracy; because they had been passed despite all the
violence of the colonists’ reaction to the Stamp Act
Colonial Response to Townshend Duties
•
Colonial sentiment embodied in John Dickinson’s (Philadelphia) Letters
from a Farmer
•
Non importation of British goods until duties were repealed
•
Refuted Townshend’s justification for imposing duties; quoted the resolves
of the Stamp Act Congress (the problem was that a majority of the members
in Parliament along with other important officials never bothered to read
these petitions/resolutions):
“Here is no distinction made between internal and external taxes”
**Colonists saw all the Townshend Acts as measures designed to tax
them.
•
Denied Parliament’s right (authority) to levy duties for the purpose of
revenue.
Townshend duties contd.
•
The act creating the new Board of
Customs Commissioners was, to the
colonists, proof positive that Parliament
was prepared to destroy colonial
legislatures to make the point they had
the power to tax.
•
The measure enhanced the influence of the
customs administration, which had already
come under suspicion, by reinforcing their
significance/influence.
There had been, it was realized by the late
1760’s, a sudden expansion in the number of
posts in the colonial government…
Franklin explained:
“generally strangers to the provinces they
are sent to govern, have no estate, natural
connection, or relation there to give them
an affection for the country…they come
only to make money as fast as they can;
are sometimes men of vicious characters
and broken fortunes, sent by a minister
merely to get them out of the way”.
•
•
This increase in customs agents had begun as far back as the Seven Years
War:
Wartime Orders in Council demanded stricter enforcement of the
Navigation Laws
Sugar Act (1764) multiplied the customs personnel
American Board of Customs Commissioners (created in 1767) with
power to constitute as many under officers as they please”
All of these developments could be seen to have provided for an “almost
incredible number of inferior officers,” most of whom the colonists believed to
be “wretches…of such infamous characters that the merchants cannot possible
think their interest safe under their care”
Colonists’ attitude toward customs agents
• Colonists viewed the new Board of Customs
Commissioners as leeches because their
salaries would be paid from the very duties they
were sent to collect.
• Colonists described the Customs officials as “a
set of idle drones,” as well as “lazy, proud,
worthless pensioners and placemen”.
Colonists’ attitudes toward customs agents contd.
•
Edmund Morgan,“The Birth of the Republic: 1763-1789” (p.37):
“It was not that the colonists objected to a more efficient enforcement
of the Navigation Acts. In 1768, as we have seen, they were still ready
to admit Parliament’s right to regulate their trade for the benefit of the
mother country; and while they would scarcely welcome anyone who
interfered with smuggling, they would not deny that England had a
right to interfere. But the New Commission was not there simply to
enforce the old Navigation Acts. It was there to collect the revenue
which Townshend had promised Parliament from America. If the men
chosen for this purpose had been saints, they would still have been
unpopular in New England. Unfortunately the commissioners who
descended on Boston in November 1767 bore no resemblance to
saints. They were a rapacious band of bureaucrats who brought to
their task an irrepressible greed and a vindictive malice that could not
fail to aggravate the antagonism not only against themselves but also
against the Parliament that sent them”.
(1.) The crown and its ministers
Used the offering of these
Posts and offices to
Distract members of
Parliament while they
Slowly began to increase their
Power and influence.
Furthermore, Parliament was
Being corrupted through its
Obsession with extravagance
(i.e. all they seemed to care about
Was winning favor and being rewarded)
How royal
patronage enabled
the crown/ministry
to usurp the
supposed
independent
powers of the
Parliament
(2.) Since the crown and its
Ministers had appointive
Powers, they controlled
Who filled these new
Positions; this power was
Used to enhance their
influence over members
Of Parliament to increase
Their power at the expense
Of Parliament
(3.) In order to gain influence
ith the crown and to win its
favor (and thus to be
rewarded with these position
along with the salaries and pensions
that went with them, members of
Parliament and other officials in
government had to demonstrate
their loyalty to the crown—through
compliance/support of its initiatives..
Colonists’ attitudes toward customs agents contd.
•
These customs agents and officeholders were viewed as instruments of power,
manipulated by the crown to serve its will because it was in the best interest of
those who had those pensions or who held those offices only at will of the
crown to concur in all the crown’s measures
Colonists believed that the customs agents were parasitic officeholders,
thoroughly corrupted by their obligations to those who had appointed them;
officeholders who would strive to “distinguish themselves by their zeal in
defending and promoting measures which they knew beyond all question to be
destructive to the just rights and true interests of their country.” From the point
of view of the colonists, the customs agents were nothing more than
officeholders who sought to “serve the ambitious purposes of great men at
home,” that is, “the crown and the ministry.”
•
Any wise and prudent customs official would realize how crucial it was to
please the powerful and how dangerous it would be to provoke them—that
compliance/submissive behavior would obtain a favorable attention.
The Usual method for tax collection
•
Tax collectors/customs agents were
susceptible to a more lucrative kind of
graft:
Violations of the Sugar Act were
punishable by seizure of the offending
vessel and its cargo
Both the vessel and the cargo would be
sold with the proceeds divided into thirds:
1/3 to English treasury
1/3 to colonial governor
1/3 to customs officer responsible
for seizure
To an enterprising officer bent on
amassing a fortune, the prospect of
making as many seizures as possible was
inviting.
Usual method used by tax collectors contd.
(3.) Split the proceeds from the sale(s) of the seized
vessels/cargo and get rich.
(1.) Follow a lax procedure for a period in which few, if any,
seizures took place (i.e. customs agents looked the other way
when colonial merchants smuggled contraband).
(2.) Shift suddenly to a strict procedure and start seizing colonial vessels involved in
smuggling which would be a lot since the previous lax procedure(s) allowed those
merchants to get away with smuggling.
This was perceived as a racket to the colonists
Usual method used by tax collectors contd.
This practice involved little risk for the collection officers
for example, the Sugar Act (a Navigation Act) provided that they were to be free from any damage suits for
mistaken seizure as long as they could show “probable cause”
Since these cases would be tried in Admiralty courts w/o juries, civil suits brought by colonial merchants were
usually thrown out; besides, such suits were often very costly to the one bringing them
Furthermore, these officials were afforded protection by British troops stationed in America
These racketeers were hated by the colonists, merchants, traders
Writs of assistance
• Similar to John Doe search warrants;
colonial houses, offices, shops, ships, etc.
were exposed to ransacking/ravaging/
plundering by customs officials, or
“wretches whom no prudent man would
venture to employ even as menial
servants”. With the authority granted by
these writs of assistance, customs officials
broke open boxes, trunks, chests, etc. in
the name of searching for contraband.
These racketeers were hated by the colonists, merchants, traders.
These customs officers also posed a political/constitutional danger.
James Wilson:
“the crown will take advantage of every opportunity of extending its prerogative in opposition to the
privileges of the people, [and] that it is the interest of those who have pensions or offices at will from the
crown to concur in all its measures”.
These “baneful harpies” were instruments of power/prerogative who would/could upset the balance of the
British constitution by extending “ministerial influence as much beyond its former bounds as the late war did
the British dominions”.
In the end, this extension of executive patronage, based on a limitless support of government through
colonial taxation, was viewed as very dangerous.
There existed in the colonies both resentment and fear of the extension of patronage offices (i.e. plural
office holding).
Changes to the judiciary (1760’s)
•
By the mid 1760’s, the independence
of the judiciary (crucial to the balance
of the Constitution) was being
threatened
–
–
–
December 1761: Orders were sent
out from the King in Council to all
colonies permanently forbidding the
issuance of judges’ commissions
anywhere on any tenure but that of
the pleasure of the crown.
Whereas life tenure was an effective
check on executive power b/c it helped
to ensure the independence of the
judiciary, judicial tenure “at the will of
the crown” would mean the bench
would be occupied by men who
depended upon the smiles of the crown
for their daily bread and the possibility
of having an independent judiciary
as an effective check upon executive
power would be lost.
Furthermore, this condition was also
perceived as a threat to liberty since
the court existed in large part to define
and protect the rights of Englishmen
(including colonists).
Why did the Parliamentary statute of 1701 which guaranteed judges in England life tenure in their posts deny
that same guarantee to the colonies?
Properly trained lawyers were scarce in the colonies
Life appointments would prevent the replacement of ill-qualified judges by their betters when they
appeared
Judicial salaries being provided for by temporary legislative appropriations, the removal of all
executive control from the judiciary, it was feared, would result in the hopeless subordination of the
courts to popular influences.
The whole issue exploded in the early 1760’s:
1759: The PA Assembly declared that the judges of that province would thereafter hold their offices by the
same permanence of tenure that had been guaranteed English after the Glorious Revolution; but the law had
been disallowed by the crown (opposition).
1750: In NY, the judges of the Supreme Court, by a political maneuver, had managed to secure their
appointments for life
1760: George II died; requiring the re-issuance of all crown commissions; an unpopular and politically
weak lieutenant governor, determined to prevent his enemies from controlling the courts, refused to recommission the judges on life tenure
December, 1761: orders were sent out from the King in Council to all the colonies, permanently
forbidding the issuance of judges’ commissions anywhere on any tenure but that of the pleasure of the
crown (affected NJ, NC, Mass).
Everywhere there was bitterness at the decree and fear of its implications, for everywhere it was known that
judicial tenure “at the will of the crown” was “dangerous to the liberty and property of the subject,” and that if the
bench were occupied by “men who depended upon the smiles of the crown for their daily bread,” the possibility
of having and independent judiciary as an effective check upon executive power would be wholly lost
Lords North (left) and Hillsborough
•
•
September 1767: Townshend
succeeded by Lord North as new
Chancellor of the Exchequer
January 1768: Crown created
new office: Secretariat of State
(for the colonies only); First
Secretariat of State was Lord
Hillsborough (ex offico president
of Board of Trade)
– Both North and Hillsborough were
committed to preserving the
supremacy of Parliament and they
were convinced that colonists
were aimed at total independence
– This conviction motivated them in
coming years and by acting on it
they eventually made it come true
The situation in Boston (Massachusetts colonial seat of government)
(3.) Massachusetts governor instructed
to dissolve assembly; assembly,
defiant, contd. as a de facto assembly
Hillsborough determined to
make an example in Boston;
he shipped 2 regiments of British
regulars to Boston (Sept. 1768);
with 2 more regiments soon to follow.
(1.) February 1768: Massachusetts
Assembly sent circular
letter to other colonies
denying Parliaments
right to tax America
(open challenge to England).
(2.) Hillsborough’s ordered
Massachusetts Assembly
to rescind letter
& other colonial assemblies
to treat it “with the contempt It
deserves” Rather, Massachusetts
Assembly voted 92-17 to refuse to
rescind it & other colonial assemblies
formally approved it.
Troops in Boston (1768)
•
The two regiments of regular infantry with artillery disembarked in Boston on October 1,
1768
•
For many months the harassed Governor Bernard had sought some legal means or excuse
for summoning military help in his vain efforts to maintain if not an effective administration
then at least order in the face of Stamp Act riots, circular letters, tumultuous town
meetings, and assaults on customs officials
•
Colonists were perplexed; they felt threatened by the presence of British troops
Necessity?
They hadn’t been necessary up until now (before, the colonists fended for
themselves)
The greatest threat (French in Canada) had been defeated
Some Americans thought England was sending the army to keep them quiet while
extracting their liberties (to dampen the enthusiasm of would-be rebels)
Such armies, to the colonists, were merely gangs of restless mercenaries,
responsible only to the whims of rulers who paid them, capable of destroying all
right, law, and liberty
Josiah Quincy wrote:
Since power “in proportion to its extent is ever prone to wantonness and since in the last
analysis ‘the supreme power is ever possessed by those who have arms in their hands,
and are discipline to use them,’ the absolute danger to liberty lay in the absolute
supremacy of ‘a veteran army’ [a permanent professional force maintained by the
administration and supplied out of the public exchequer]—inmaking ‘the civil subordinate
to the military’”
Jefferson (1774):
“instead of subjecting the military to the civil powers, the colonists fears were not simply of
armies, but of standing armies”
Trenchard’s “An Argument, Shewing that a Standing Army Is Inconsistent with a Free
Government (1697):
“unhappy nations have lost that ‘unhappy nations have lost that precious jewel
liberty…[because] their necessities or indiscretion have permitted a standing army to be
kept amongst them”
The Presence of troops in Boston
The arrival of troops in Boston (October 1, 1768) increased
rather than decreased the governor’s troubles:
To Bostonians, the presence of troops in a “peaceful” town had
such portentous meaning that resistance instantly stiffened.
It wasn’t so much the physical threat of troops that affected
the attitudes of the Bostonians; it was the bearing their arrival
had on the likely tendency of events.
True, British regulars had been introduced into the colonies on a
permanent basis at the end of the Seven Years’ War, but it had then
been argued that troops were needed to police the newly acquired
territories, and that they were not, in any case, to be regularly
garrisoned in peaceful populous towns; no such defense could be
made of the troops sent to Boston in 1768.
One contemporary figure, Andrew Eliot, wrote from Boston to one of his
correspondents, Thomas Hollis (September 1768):
•
“To have a standing army! Good God! What can be worse to a people who
have tasted the sweets of liberty! Things are come to an unhappy crisis;
there will never be that harmony between Great Britain and her colonies
that there hath been; all confidence is at an end; and the moment there is
any blood shed all affection will cease”.
– Eliot was convinced that if the English government “had not had their hands full
at home they would have crushed the colonies”. As it was, England’s most
recent actions tended only “to hasten that independency which at present the
warmest among us deprecate….I fear for the nation,….”
– Eliot observed a year after the troops had first appeared: “they coolly woo away
the soldiers and drag offending officers before the courts….things cannot long
remain in the state they are now in; they are hastening to a crisis. What will be
the event, God knows.”
Bostonians declared their opposition to the presence of troops at a town meeting
(September 13, 1768)
•
“The raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with the
consent of Parliament, is against the law,” [It is] the indefeasible right of [British] subjects to be
consulted and to give their free consent in person or by representatives of their own free election
to the raising and keeping a standing army among them; and the inhabitants of this town, being
free subjects, have the same right derived from nature and confirmed by the British constitution as
well as the said royal charter; and therefore the raising or keeping a standing army without their
consent in person or by representatives of their own free election would be an infringement of their
natural, constitutional, and charter rights; and the employing such army for the enforcing of laws
made without the consent of the people, in person or by their representatives would be a
grievance.”
•
September 22, 1768: To effect a united position throughout the entire Massachusetts Bay Colony,
Bostonians called a convention; the delegates at the convention merely commended the actions
already taken by the colonial assembly and restated their opposition to the presence of a standing
army.
•
Upon learning of the unauthorized Massachusetts convention, members of Parliament
suggested/directed the king to make an inquisition at Boston for treason and suggested the trials
be held before a special commission (violation of right to trial by jury); Parliament discovered a
legal justification for violating this right in an act passed during the reign of Henry VIII (16th
century)
• English reaction:
• Colonial reaction to Stamp Act sufficient
proof troops were needed; ostensibly, the
troops were needed to protect royal
officials and to maintain law and order .
• Native American uprisings evidence troops
were needed.
Colonial reaction to presence of British troops
•
Fear and hatred became edged with contempt and Bostonians found many
ways to harass the troops:
–
–
–
–
Troops were prosecuted by city magistrates for every trifling offense
Troops met by people on the streets with contempt
Children pelted them with snowballs and other objects
Epithets (negative adjectives)
– Still, by restraining their anger insofar as offering no open affront demonstrations
to the troops, Bostonians were able to win universal support/sympathy
throughout the colonies while presenting English officials with a dilemma; the
embarrassing calm and lack of lawlessness made it seemingly apparent the
troops were not needed.
– Result: Summer 1769 the British home government ordered two of the four
regiments in Boston back to Halifax; this decision led many Bostonians/colonists
to conclude the remaining regiments weren’t in Boston to preserve law and order
but to cow Bostonians into submission and to quell any potential resistance
directed toward unpopular British actions/policies (such as the Townshend Acts).
The Boston Massacre
•
•
•
•
•
March 5, 1770: a boy who was hurling
insults was hit on the ear by a British
soldier with the butt of his rifle. The
boy screamed and a crowd
assembled.
The crowd grew when church bells
rang a false fire alarm.
The crowd harassed the British
soldiers by hurling insults, ice chunks
and other objects at them, daring them
to fire.
The crowd was under the false
assumption the soldiers had no such
authority to fire upon the crowd.
One of the nine soldiers was knocked
to the ground and eight of them fired
into the crowd.
The Boston Massacre
• The casualties
17 year old boy named Maverick
A ropewalker named Sam Gray
A mulatto named Crispus Atticus
(central figure)
A sailor named James Caldwell
An Irishman named Patrick Carr
Reactions to the “Massacre”
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
After the event, the troops withdrew from the city to Castle William in the
harbor.
Customs commissioners remained behind unabashed and unchastened.
Several Navy warships sent to America
Any doubts that the troops in Boston constituted a standing army and that it
was the purpose of a standing army to terrify a populace into compliance
with tyrannical wills were silenced by that event
Eliot to Hollis: “[the Boston Massacre] serves to show the impossibility of
our living in peace with a standing army.”
A famous pamphlet which narrated of the massacre was written by James
Bowdoin and others for the Boston Town Meeting; the narrative stressed
the deliberateness of the shooting and the clarity of the design that lay
behind the lurid event.
The acquittal of the indicted soldiers did not alter the conviction that the
massacre was the logical work of a standing army; there was suspicion of
judicial irregularities.
The Trial
• The eight soldiers (William Wemms,
William M’Cauley, Matthew Killroy, Hugh
Montgomery, James Hartegan, Hugh
White, William Warren, and John Carroll)
had difficulty securing counsel, but were
told by Robert Auchmatz and Josiah
Quincy, Jr. that they would take their case
if John Adams would join.
Letter exchange between Josiah Quincy, Jr. and his father, Josiah Quincy
Braintree, March 22, 1770
My Dear Son,
I am under great affliction, at hearing the bitterest reproaches [criticisms] uttered against you, for having become an
advocate [attorney] for those criminals who are charged with the murder of their fellow citizens. Good God! Is it
possible? I will not believe it…
I must own [admit] to you, it has filled the bosom of your aged and infirm parent with anxiety and distress, lest it
should not only prove true, but destructive of your reputation and interest and I repeat, I will not believe it, unless it
be confirmed by your own mouth, or under your own hand.
Your anxious and distressed parent.
Josiah Quincy
Boston, March 26, 1770
Honoured Sir,
I have little leisure, and less inclination either to know, or to take notice, of those ignorant slanderers, who have
dared to utter their “bitter reproaches” in your hearing against me, for having become an advocate for criminals
charged with murder…
Let such be told, Sir, that these criminals charged with murder, are not yet legally proved guilty, and therefore,
however criminal, are entitled by the laws of God and man, to all legal counsel and aid; that my duty as a lawyer
strengthened the obligation…
I never harboured the expectation, nor any great desire, that all men should speak well of me…
There are honest men in all sects—I wish their approbation [praise]—there are wicked bigots in all parties,--I abhor
[hate] them.
I am truly and affectionately, your son,
Josiah Quincy Jun.
The Trial
•
Adams was strongly opposed to British military presence in the city but he believed
the soldiers were entitled to counsel—he had a sense of fairness.
•
Although Adams put his own public standing on the line, his own ties to the Sons of
Liberty and other patriots through his cousin, Samuel Adams, probably gave him
more freedom to represent the soldiers than if he had been a Tory sympathizer.
•
The continued esteem in which Adams was held demonstrated by his election as
Boston’s representative to the state legislature even after he accepted the case and
during the time when Samuel Adams was using the massacre for continuing agitation
of the patriot cause.
The Trial
• Total of 3 trials held:
– One for Captain Thomas Preston who although unarmed had been in
charge of the soldiers and who was alleged by some to have given an
order to fire.
– One for the eight soldiers who had fired into the crowd.
– One for Tory sympathizers alleged to have fired at the crowd from the
windows of the Customs House.
– Samuel Quincy and Robert Treat Paine prosecuted the case brought on
behalf of the king
– Knowing that passions needed some time to cool, Adams succeeded in
postponing the first trial until October 25; after a 6 day trial, Preston was
acquitted.
– The second trial (of the other 8 soldiers) set for November 27; it was a
dramatic 10 day trial.
Adams’s role in the second trial
• He selected a jury of men outside Boston
• He argued it was better for a guilty man to go
free than for an innocent one to be punished
• He demonstrated the soldiers were justified in
trying to save their own lives in the face of
multiple assaults from a mob
• He avoided testimony that would have identified
individual mob ringleaders (like Samuel Adams)
The Verdict
• NOT GUILTY FOR SIX
• THE OTHER TWO WERE CONVICTED
FOR MANSLAUGHTER
• After Adams requested that the two
soldiers who were found guilty receive “the
benefit of clergy” [a legal term for a
reduced sentence] they were branded on
their thumbs and released
The third trial (for the Tories)
• Followed the second trial by a week; was
quickly over as the witnesses were
discredited and the jury gave an acquittal
without even adjourning for conference.
The acquittal of the indicted soldiers did
not alter the conviction that the
massacre was the logical work of a
standing army; there was suspicion of
judicial irregularities.
Boston Town Meeting to its Assembly Representatives (1770):
A series of occurrences, many recent events…afford great reason to
believe that a deep laid and desperate plan of imperial despotism has
been laid, and partly executed, for the extinction of all civil liberty…The
august and once revered fortress of English freedom—the admirable
work of ages—the BRITISH CONSTITUTION seems fast tottering into fatal
and inevitable ruin. The dreadful catastrophe threatens universal havoc,
and presents an awful warning to hazard all if, peradventure, we in these
distant confines of the earth may prevent being totally overwhelmed and
buried under the ruins of our most established rights
• ***Upon learning of Parliamentary inquisition into
Massachusetts convention, the VA House of Burgesses drafted
a new set of resolutions/resolves:
•
Reasserted their exclusive authority to levy taxes on their
constituents
•
Exposed violation of right in subjecting Americans to
Parliamentary statute Henry VIII
• VA Governor Botetourt immediately dissolved the assembly which,
like Massachusetts Assembly, contd. to operate
•
De facto (in fact/by circumstance) to British
•
De jure (by law) to colonists
• VA House of Burgesses drafted a non-importation agreement
• VA resolves sent to other colonial assemblies which adopted similar
resolutions (summer 1769)
• After the proposal to hang a few Bostonians, the ministry and the
members of Parliament began to think of tempering authority with
wisdom for two year period there was a détente of sorts:
• Decision to repeal all Townshend duties except one on tea (March
1770 repealed)
•
$ brought in was trifling
•
Taxes disadvantageous to both England/colonies
• Decision to retain tax on tea meant to show that the decision to
repeal other taxes wasn’t because Parliament was retreating in face
of American resistance
• Hillsborough notified colonies no new taxes for purpose of
generating revenue would be proposed
• Parliament would no longer perceive Massachusetts Assembly as
de facto
• Withdrawal of troops from Boston
Townshend Duties repealed
• Results of new British actions:
• Revival of old good feelings
• Retarded development of new questions about
Parliamentary authority
• Non-importation agreements began to crack
• Raises the question: were the colonists sincere in their
declarations of principle or were thy merely trying to get
out of paying taxes they ought to have paid?
• (i.e. Were the principles which the colonists proclaimed
merely designed to further their own economic
interests?)