with solemn arguments for England's unlimited supremacy. They persuaded one another and the house that the charters which kings had granted were, by the unbroken opinions of lawyers, from 1689, subordinate to the good-will of the houses of parliament; that parliament, for a stronger reason, had power to tax, — a power which it had been proposed to exert in 1713, while Harley was at the head of the treasury, and again at the opening of the seven years' war. 1766. Feb. It was further contended that representation was not the basis of the authority of parliament, and did not exist; that the kingdom and colonies were one empire; that the colonies enjoyed the opportunity of taxing themselves, as an indulgence; that the exemption from taxation, when conceded to the counties palatine, Chester, Durham, and Lancaster, or Wales, or Ireland, or the clergy, was exceptional; that duties and impositions, taxes and subsidies, were all one; and, as kingdom and colonies were one body, parliament had the right to bind the colonies by taxes and impositions, alike internal and external, in all cases whatso ever. So the watches of the long winter's night wore away; and at about four o'clock in the morning, when the question was called, less than ten voices, some said five or four, some said but three, spoke out in the minority; "and the resolution passed for England's right to do what the treasury pleased with three millions of freemen in America." The Americans were henceforward excisable and taxable at the mercy of parliament. Grenville stood acquitted and sustained, the rightfulness of his policy was affirmed; and he was judged to have proceeded in conformity with the constitution. Thus did Edmund Burke and the Rockingham ministry on that night lead Mansfield, Northington, and the gentlemen of the long robe to found the new tory party of England, and recover legality for its position, stealing it away from the party that hitherto, under the revolution, had possessed it exclusively. It was decided, as a question of law, that irresponsible taxation was not a tyranny, but a vested right; that parliament held legislative power, not as a representa tive body, but in absolute trust. It had grown to be a fact that the house of commons was no longer responsible to the people; and this night it was held to be the law that it never had been, and was not, responsible; that the doctrine of representation was not in the bill of rights. The tory party, with George III. at its head, accepted from Burke and Rockingham the creed which Grenville claimed to be the whigism of the Revolution of 1688, and Mansfield the British constitution of his times. 1766. Feb. In England, it was all over with the middle age. There was to be no more zeal for legitimacy at home, no more union of the Catholic Church and the sceptre. The new toryism was the child of modern civilization. It carried its pedigree no further back than the Revolution of 1688, and was but a coalition of the king and the aristocracy upon the basis of the established law. By law, the house of Hanover held the throne; by law, the English church was established, with a prayer-book and a creed as authorized by parliament, and with such bishops as the crown. gave leave to choose; by law, the Catholics and dissenters were disfranchised, and none but conformers to the worship of the legal church could hold office or sit in the legislature; by law, the house of commons was lifted above responsibility to the people; by law, the colonies were "bound" to be taxed at mercy. The tory party took the law as it stood, and set itself against reform. Henceforward its leaders and lights were to be found not among the gallant descendants of ancient houses, not among the representatives of medieval traditions. It was a new party,' of which the leaders and expounders were to be new men. The moneyed interest, so firmly opposed to the legitimacy and aristocracy of the middle age, was to become its ally. Mansfield was its impersonation, and would transmit it, through Thurlow, to Eldon and the Boston-born Copley. It is the office of law to decide questions of possession. Woe hangs over the land where the absolute principles of private right are applied to questions of public law; and the effort is made to bar the progress of the undying race by the despotic rules which ascertain the property of evanes 1766. cent mortals. Humanity smiled at the parchment chains which the lawyers threw around her, even though those chains were protected by a coalition of the army, the navy, the halls of justice, a corrupt parliament, and the crown. The new tory party created a new opposition. The nonelectors of Great Britain were to become as little content with virtual representation as the colonists. Already the press of London gave to the world a very sensible production, showing the equity and practicability of a more equal representation throughout the whole British dominions; and also a scheme for a general parliament, to which every part of them should send one member for every twenty thousand of its inhabitants. Feb. THE REPEAL OF 1766. Feb. CHAPTER XXIII. THE STAMP ACT. ROCKINGHAM'S ADMIN- FEBRUARY, 1766. THE Sons of Liberty, acting spontaneously, were steadily advancing towards an organization, which should embrace the continent. In February, those in Boston, and in many towns in Massachusetts, acceded to the association of Connecticut and New York, and joined in urging a continental union. They of Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, pledged themselves to the same measures. In Connecticut, the patriots of Norwich welcomed the plan; and a convention of almost all the towns of Litchfield county resolved that the stamp act was unconstitutional, null, and void, and that business of all kinds should go on as usual. The hum of domestic industry was heard more and more: young women would get together, and merrily and emulously drive the spinning-wheel from sunrise till dark; and every day the humor spread for being clad in homespun. Cheered by the zeal of New England, the Sons of Liberty of New York sent circular letters as far as South Carolina, inviting to the formation of a permanent continental union. But the summons was not waited for. The people of South Carolina grew more and more hearty against the stamp act. "We are a very weak province," reasoned Christopher Gadsden, "yet a rich growing one, and of as much importance to Great Britain as any upon the continent; and a great part of our weakness, though at the same time 'tis part of our riches, consists in having such a number of slaves amongst us; and we find in our case, according to the general perceptible workings of Providence, where the crime most 1766. Feb. commonly, though slowly, yet surely, draws down a similar and suitable punishment, that slavery begets slavery. Jamaica and our West India Islands demonstrate this observation, which I hope will not be our case now, whatever might have been the consequence, had the fatal attempt been delayed a few years longer, when we had drunk deeper of the Circean draught, and the measures of our iniquities were filled up. I am persuaded, with God's blessing, we shall not fall, nor disgrace our sister colonies at this time." The associated freeholders and inhabitants of several of the counties of North Carolina mutually plighted their faith and honor that they would, at any risk whatever, and whenever called upon, unite, and truly and faithfully assist each other to the best of their power in preventing entirely the operation of the stamp act. In the Ancient Dominion, men pledged themselves to one another for the same purpose, with equal ardor; and, in case an attempt should be made to arrest an associate, they bound themselves, at the utmost risk of their lives and fortunes, to restore such associate to liberty. The magistrates composing the court for Northampton unanimously decided that the stamp act did not bind the inhabitants of Virginia, and that no penalties would be incurred by those who should transact business as before. The great lawyer Edmund Pendleton, of Caroline county, gave the opinion that "the stamp act was void for want of constitutional authority in parliament to pass it." On Tuesday, the fourth of February, the party of Bedford and the old ministry of Grenville coalesced with the friends of prerogative in the house of lords to exercise over the colonies the power which it had just been resolved that parliament rightfully possessed. The ministry desired to recommend to them to compensate the sufferers by the American riots. The new tory party, by a vote of sixtythree to sixty, changed the recommendation into a parliamentary requisition. The next morning, Rockingham and Grafton, much irritated, went to court and proposed the removal from office |
