DELAY IN ENFORCING THE STAMP ACT. by the still more grievous, because unprovoked and unkind, attack on their trade, their commerce, and their freedom, by that sovereign power to which they had a right to look for favour and protection. The last and most formidable blow was, indeed, withheld for the present. The excise scheme having obtained the sanction of Parliament, the minister was content to postpone carrying it into effect until the ensuing year, in order that the Colonial Assemblies might have an opportunity of considering his proposition, and if it should prove objectionable, of suggesting some equivalent form of taxation. 183 Ch. 5. 1764 ting conduct executive. It may be doubted whether any scheme of finance, Procrastinaor any capital measure of policy could be carried, of the even in England, after having been subjected to the ventilation of public opinion for a year. Certainly such a course of proceeding would be ill calculated at any time to strengthen the hands of administration. The tone and tendency of public opinion in a free country can, for the most part, be ascertained by ordinary observation; and with the peculiar means of information which government possesses, it is in a condition to mould its policy. In a country where the utmost degree of freedom obtains, there must still be a ruling power whose duty it is to give a practical exposition of its policy. A government which invites the people to suggest measures, deserts its proper functions, and creates disorder in the commonwealth. Had this tax, novel as it was, been imposed 184 Ch. 5. 1764 Theory of taxation. opinion. ORIGIN OF CUSTOMS' DUTIES. in the ordinary course, without formally consulting the assemblies, or had the experiment been tried at a more convenient season, it is not improbable that the colonies would have quietly submitted. It has been usual to represent the Americans as driven to revolt from British rule by the attempt to impose taxation upon them, contrary to the theory and practice of the constitution, which permit the people to be taxed only by their representatives. But the position of the people of Great Britain and that of the colonists widely differed in Lord Coke's this respect. Lord Coke has demonstrated that customs' duties originated in England with a grant of Parliament early in the reign of Edward the First, and that monarch afterwards expressly renounced the right of imposing these taxes without the sanction of Parliament. The illegal exaction of tonnage and poundage by Charles the First were charged as capital offences against the fundamental laws of the realm. But in the charters granted to Virginia and the first New England settlement of Massachusetts' bay, while the rights of the emigrants to the privileges of natural-born subjects were conceded in the fullest terms, a temporary exemption from taxation, both external and internal, was alone granted. Even the Long Parliament, though in the warmest sympathy with the Puritan adventurers of New England, took care to reserve the same right of sovereignty, by granting these h 2 Institute, p. 58, 59. i 25 Edward I. c. 7. RUINOUS EFFECTS OF THE STAMP ACT. colonists exemption from export and import duties 185 Ch. 5. 1764 the colonists. act was but the consummation of a perverse and intolerable policy. Their coasts blockaded with a Despair of British fleet armed with the authority of the Custom-house, more formidable than letters of marque -their only profitable trade entirely stopped-their country threatened with an utter drain of specie; -all this, surely, was enough to stir the spirit of k Vote of the House of Commons, 1642. Robertson's History of America, book 9, passim. m See Addenda B, p. 194. 186 Ch. 5. 1764 PASSIVE RESISTANCE. men, whose English ancestors had abandoned the land of their fathers, and sought a home in the unknown deserts of a new world, rather than endure the loss of their civil and religious liberties. And all this had been done long before the stamp act arrived in America. That act found the colonies already in a state of passive resistance. They were prepared to retaliate upon England her selfish policy, by abstaining from the use of her manufactures, and taking measures to supply their place by native industry. Had Grenville indulged them in their lucrative trade with the Spanish settlements; could he have abstained from meddling with their monetary system; and been content that the money raised and intended to be applied to their military defence, should be disbursed in the colony, instead of being paid in specie into the British exchequer, he might easily have imposed his stamp duty, or an equivalent, with no more danger of opposition than had attended another inland duty, that of the post-office, which had met with a ready acquies cence. It is easy, in point of fact, to discriminate between a port and an inland duty; but the English constitution, which was appealed to, recognised no such distinction in regard of the right of the people to be taxed only by their representatives. great democratic principle, as it exists in the British constitution, is compromised by an admission of the right of the government to levy any The GRENVILLE'S MISCONCEPTION. tax whatsoever. Yet the American patriot admits the validity of a customs' duty, and attempts to distinguish such a tax, by shewing that it is paid by the consumer. It is plain, however, that the incidence of a tax is a purely economical question, quite separate from that of the right to impose it; but the reason assigned by this intelligent and wellinformed advocate of the colonies shews, that the real character of their opposition did not arise from regard to a political punctilio, but from a sense of oppression and practical injustice. 187 Ch. 5. 1764 Grenville's It is perhaps hardly necessary to acquit the Innocence of minister of any wanton purpose of insult or oppres- intentions. sion in thus dealing with the Colonies. The most grievous injury which he inflicted on them, the suppression of their contraband trade, was merely part of a system which he had established for the enforcement of the revenue laws indiscriminately throughout the empire; and his precise understanding, founded by the statute book, could see no difference between a smuggler at Liverpool and a smuggler at New York. It was just that America should bear a proportion of the charges necessary for her protection and security; but this claim, which had never been disputed, must be asserted as a right, because the Imperial Government had sovereign authority over its dependencies. The minister, said 'he could not understand the difference between external and internal taxes. n See Addenda C, p. 194. |