Chapter IV: Part 4

The sound parts of America, of which I have spoken, must be sensible of these great truths and of their real interests. America is not in that state of desperate and contemptible rebellion which this country has been deluded to believe. It is not a wild and lawless banditti, who, having nothing to lose, might hope to snatch something from public convulsions. Many of their leaders and great men have a great stake in this great contest. The gentleman who conducts their armies, I am told, has an estate of four or five thousand pounds a year; and when I consider these things, I cannot but lament the inconsiderate violence of our penal acts, our declaration of treason and rebellion, with all the fatal effects of attainder and confiscation.

As to the disposition of foreign powers which is asserted [in the King’s speech] to be pacific and friendly, let us judge, my Lords, rather by their actions and the nature of things than by interested assertions. The uniform assistance supplied to America by France suggests a different conclusion. The most important interests of France in aggrandizing and enriching herself with what she most wants, supplies of every naval store from America, must inspire her with different sentiments. The extraordinary preparations of the House of Bourbon, by land and by sea, from Dunkirk to the Straits, equally ready and willing to overwhelm these defenceless islands, should rouse us to a sense of their real disposition and our own danger.[33] Not five thousand troops in England! hardly three thousand in Ireland! What can we oppose to the combined force of our enemies? Scarcely twenty ships of the line so fully or sufficiently manned, that any admiral’s reputation would permit him to take the command of. The river of Lisbon in the possession of our enemies! The seas swept by American privateers! Our Channel trade torn to pieces by them! In this complicated crisis of danger, weakness at home, and calamity abroad, terrified and insulted by the neighboring powers, unable to act in America, or acting only to be destroyed, where is the man with the forehead to promise or hope for success in such a situation, or from perseverence in the measures that have driven us to it? Who has the forehead to do so? Where is that man? I should be glad to see his face.

You can not _conciliate_ America by your present measures. You cannot _subdue_ her by your present or by any measures. What, then, can you do? You cannot conquer; you cannot gain; but you can _address_; you can lull the fears and anxieties of the moment into an ignorance of the danger that should produce them. But, my Lords, the time demands the language of truth. We must not now apply the flattering unction of servile compliance or blind complaisance. In a just and necessary war, to maintain the rights or honor of my country, I would strip the shirt from my back to support it. But in such a war as this, unjust in its principle, impracticable in its means, and ruinous in its consequences, I would not contribute a single effort nor a single shilling. I do not call for vengeance on the heads of those who have been guilty; I only recommend to them to make their retreat. Let them walk off; and let them make haste, or they may be assured that speedy and condign punishment will overtake them.

My Lords, I have submitted to you, with the freedom and truth which I think my duty, my sentiments on your present awful situation. I have laid before you the ruin of your power, the disgrace of your reputation, the pollution of your discipline, the contamination of your morals, the complication of calamities, foreign and domestic, that overwhelm your sinking country. Your dearest interests, your own liberties, the Constitution itself, totters to the foundation. All this disgraceful danger, this multitude of misery, is the monstrous offspring of this unnatural war. We have been deceived and deluded too long. Let us now stop short. This is the crisis—the only crisis of time and situation, to give us a possibility of escape from the fatal effects of our delusions. But if, in an obstinate and infatuated perseverance in folly, we slavishly echo the peremptory words this day presented to us, nothing can save this devoted country from complete and final ruin. We madly rush into multiplied miseries, and “confusion worse confounded.”

Is it possible, can it be believed, that ministers are yet blind to this impending destruction? I did hope, that instead of this false and empty vanity, this overweening pride, engendering high conceits and presumptuous imaginations, ministers would have humbled themselves in their errors, would have confessed and retracted them, and by an active, though a late, repentance, have endeavored to redeem them. But, my Lords, since they had neither sagacity to foresee, nor justice nor humanity to shun these oppressive calamities—since not even severe experience can make them feel, nor the imminent ruin of their country awaken them from their stupefaction, the guardian care of Parliament must interpose. I shall, therefore, my Lords, propose to you an amendment of the address to his Majesty, to be inserted immediately after the two first paragraphs of congratulation on the birth of a princess, to recommend an immediate cessation of hostilities, and the commencement of a treaty to restore peace and liberty to America, strength and happiness to England, security and permanent prosperity to both countries. This, my Lords, is yet in our power; and let not the wisdom and justice of your Lordships neglect the happy, and, perhaps, the only opportunity. By the establishment of irrevocable law, founded on mutual rights, and ascertained by treaty, these glorious enjoyments may be firmly perpetuated. And let me repeat to your Lordships, that the strong bias of America, at least of the wise and sounder parts of it, naturally inclines to this happy and constitutional reconnection with you. Notwithstanding the temporary intrigues with France, we may still be assured of their ancient and confirmed partiality to us. America and France cannot be congenial. There is something decisive and confirmed in the honest American, that will not assimilate to the futility and levity of Frenchmen.

My Lords, to encourage and confirm that innate inclination to this country, founded on every principle of affection, as well as consideration of interest; to restore that favorable disposition into a permanent and powerful reunion with this country; to revive the mutual strength of the empire; again to awe the House of Bourbon, instead of meanly truckling, as our present calamities compel us, to every insult of French caprice and Spanish punctilio; to re-establish our commerce; to reassert our rights and our honor; to confirm our interests, and renew our glories forever—a consummation most devoutly to be endeavored! and which, I trust, may yet arise from reconciliation with America—I have the honor of submitting to you the following amendment, which I move to be inserted after the two first paragraphs of the address:

“And that this House does most humbly advise and supplicate his Majesty to be pleased to cause the most speedy and effectual measures to be taken for restoring peace in America; and that no time may be lost in proposing an immediate opening of a treaty for the final settlement of the tranquillity of these invaluable provinces, by a removal of the unhappy causes of this ruinous civil war, and by a just and adequate security against the return of the like calamities in times to come. And this House desire to offer the most dutiful assurances to his Majesty, that they will, in due time, cheerfully co-operate with the magnanimity and tender goodness of his Majesty for the preservation of his people, by such explicit and most solemn declarations, and provisions of fundamental and irrevocable laws, as may be judged necessary for the ascertaining and fixing forever the respective rights of Great Britain and her colonies.”

[In the course of this debate, Lord Suffolk, secretary for the northern department, undertook to defend the employment of the Indians in the war. His Lordship contended that, besides its _policy_ and _necessity_, the measure was also allowable on _principle_; for that “it was perfectly justifiable to use all the means that _God and nature put into our hands_!”]

I am astonished [exclaimed Lord Chatham, as he rose], shocked! to hear such principles confessed—to hear them avowed in this House, or in this country; principles equally unconstitutional, inhuman, and unchristian!

My Lords, I did not intend to have encroached again upon your attention, but I cannot repress my indignation. I feel myself impelled by every duty. My Lords, we are called upon as members of this House, as men, as Christian men, to protest against such notions standing near the Throne, polluting the ear of Majesty. “That God and nature put into our hands!” I know not what ideas that Lord may entertain of God and nature, but I know that such abominable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife—to the cannibal savage, torturing, murdering, roasting, and eating—literally, my Lords, _eating_ the mangled victims of his barbarous battles! Such horrible notions shock every precept of religion, divine or natural, and every generous feeling of humanity. And, my Lords, they shock every sentiment of honor; they shock me as a lover of honorable war, and a detester of murderous barbarity.

These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers of the Gospel, and pious pastors of our Church—I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of their God. I appeal to the wisdom and the law of this learned bench, to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the Bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; upon the learned judges, to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honor of your Lordships, to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble Lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country.[34] In vain he led your victorious fleets against the boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended and established the honor, the liberties, the religion—the _Protestant religion_—of this country, against the arbitrary cruelties of popery and the Inquisition, if these more than popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are let loose among us—to turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connections, friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman and child, to send forth the infidel savage—against whom? against your Protestant brethren; to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name with these horrible hell-hounds of savage war—_hell-hounds, I say, of savage war!_ Spain armed herself with blood-hounds to extirpate the wretched natives of America, and we improve on the inhuman example even of Spanish cruelty; we turn loose these savage hell-hounds against our brethren and countrymen in America, of the same language, laws, liberties, and religion, endeared to us by every tie that should sanctify humanity.

My Lords, this awful subject, so important to our honor, our Constitution, and our religion, demands the most solemn and effectual inquiry. And I again call upon your Lordships, and the united powers of the State, to examine it thoroughly and decisively, and to stamp upon it an indelible stigma of the public abhorrence. And I again implore those holy prelates of our religion to do away these iniquities from among us. Let them perform a lustration; let them purify this House, and this country, from this sin.

My Lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles.

The warning voice was heard in vain. Chatham’s urgent anxiety was
not enough to carry his amendment. It was lost by a vote of 97 to
24. The address triumphed; Parliament adjourned; the members went
to their Christmas festivities; the treaty with France was framed
and ratified; and the chance of recovering the colonies was lost
forever. Chatham did not live till the end of the war, but as soon as
he learned that the treaty with France was signed, he knew that the
fatal result was inevitable.

LORD MANSFIELD.

The most formidable rival and opponent of Lord Chatham was William Murray, known in history as Lord Mansfield. In point of native talent it would not be easy to determine which had the advantage; but it is generally conceded that Mansfield’s mind was the more carefully trained, and that his memory was the more fully enriched with the stores of knowledge. He was preëminently a lawyer and a lover of the classics; but Lord Campbell speaks of his familiarity with modern history as “astounding and even _appalling_, for it produces a painful consciousness of inferiority, and creates remorse for time misspent.” His career is one of the most extraordinary examples in English history of an unquestioning acceptance of the stern conditions of the highest success.

Mansfield’s education was characterized by a phenominal devotion to some of the severer kinds of intellectual drudgery. Though he was fourth son of Lord Stormont and brother of Lord Dunbar, the Secretary of the Pretender, he seems from the first to have been fully conscious that he must rely for distinction upon his own efforts alone. When he was but fourteen he had become so familiar with the Latin language that he wrote and spoke it “with accuracy and ease,” and in after-life he declared that there was not one of the orations of Cicero which he had not, while at Oxford, written into English, and after an interval, according to the best of his ability, re-translated into Latin. Leaving Oxford at the age of twenty-two he was entered as a student of law at Lincoln’s Inn in 1727. Lord Campbell says of him: “When he was admitted to the bar in 1730, he had made himself acquainted not only with the international law, but with the codes of all the most civilized nations, ancient and modern; he was an elegant classical scholar; he was thoroughly imbued with the literature of his own country; he had profoundly studied our mixed constitution; he had a sincere desire to be of service to his country; and he was animated by a noble aspiration after honorable fame.”

The family of Murray was one of those Scotch families upon whom a peerage was bestowed by James I. It is not very singular therefore that Lord Stormont, the representative of the family, in the eighteenth century, should, like his predecessors, remain true to the Stuarts and the Pretender. William, the fourth son, grew up in the traditional political beliefs of his ancestors. While Pitt, therefore, was a Whig, Murray was a High Tory. In manner they were as different as in politics. Pitt was ardent and imperious, Murray was cool and circumspect. Pitt strove to overwhelm, but Murray strove to convince. Though Pitt was the great master of declamatory invective, Murray was vastly his superior in all the qualities that go to make up a great debater. The immediate influence of Pitt’s speeches was far more overwhelming, but the qualities of Murray’s argument were more persuasive and more permanent in their influence. Pitt entered the House of Commons in 1735 at twenty-six; Murray in 1742 at thirty-seven. During fourteen years therefore, before 1756 they were each the great exponents of the political parties to which they respectively belonged. Murray entered the House of Lords as Chief Justice and with the title of Baron Mansfield in the same year in which Pitt began his great career as Prime Minister. The power of Pitt was in the House of Commons, while that of Murray was in the House of Lords. Pitt’s influence was over the masses, whose devotion was such that “they hugged his footmen and even kissed his horses.” Murray’s power was over the more thoughtful few who in the end directed public opinion and moulded public action.

The character of Murray, like that of his great rival, was not only above reproach, but was remarkable for its stern rejection of every thing that tried to turn him aside from his great purpose. When the Duchess of Marlborough strove to put him under obligations by sending him a retainer of a thousand guineas, he returned nine hundred and ninety-five, with the remark that a retaining fee was never more nor less than five guineas. When Newcastle offered him a pension of £6,000 a year, if he would remain in the House of Commons, instead of taking the Bench, he put the offer aside without a moment’s hesitation, saying: “What merit have I, that you should lay on this country, for which so little is done with spirit, the additional burden of £6,000 a year?” He was Lord Chief Justice for nearly thirty-two years. Though he probably did more to strengthen the cause of the mother country against the colonies than any other one man, yet his great services have been no less generously acknowledged in America than in England. It was Mr. Justice Story who said: “England and America, and the civilized world, lie under the deepest obligations to him. Wherever commerce shall extend its social influences; wherever justice shall be administered by enlightened and liberal rules; wherever contracts shall be expounded upon the eternal principles of right and wrong; wherever moral delicacy and judicial refinement shall be infused into the municipal code, at once to persuade men to be honest and to keep them so; wherever the intercourse of mankind shall aim at something more elevated than that grovelling spirit of barter, in which meanness, and avarice, and fraud strive for the mastery over ignorance, credulity, and folly, the name of Lord Mansfield will be held in reverence by the good and the wise, by the honest merchant, the enlightened lawyer, the just statesman, and the conscientious judge. The proudest monument of his fame is in the volumes of Burrow, and Cowper, and Douglas, which we may fondly hope will endure as long as the language in which they are written shall continue to instruct mankind. His judgments should not be merely referred to and read on the spur of particular occasions, but should be studied as models of juridical reasoning and eloquence.”

When the matter of repealing the Stamp Act came before Parliament, the question turned, as we have already observed, chiefly on the subject of the clause declaring the _right_ of Parliament to levy the tax. While Chatham arrayed all his powers against the right, Mansfield was its most strenuous supporter. His speech on the subject is of great importance to the American student, because it is by far the most able and plausible ever delivered in support of the British policy. It is avowedly directed to the question of right, not at all to the question of expediency. Lord Campbell, although inclined to the doctrines of the Whigs, refers to the speech as one of arguments to which he “has never been able to find an answer.” The position of Mansfield undoubtedly had a very great influence in determining and strengthening the policy of the King and of the ministry. The speech was corrected for the press by the orator’s own hand, and may be regarded as authentic.

LORD MANSFIELD.

ON THE RIGHT OF ENGLAND TO TAX AMERICA. HOUSE OF LORDS, FEBRUARY 3, 1766.

The discussion, of which the speech of Pitt already given, formed a
part, came up on the adoption of the motion declaring the right of
England to tax America,—a motion accompanying the bill repealing the
Stamp Act. The motion was strenuously opposed, not only by Pitt in
the House of Commons, but also by Lord Camden in the House of Lords.
Camden said: “In my opinion, my Lords, the legislature have no right
to make this law. The sovereign authority, the omnipotence of the
legislature is a favorite doctrine; but there are some things which
you cannot do. You cannot take away a man’s property, without making
him a compensation. You have no right to condemn a man by bill of
attainder without hearing him. But, though Parliament cannot take
away a man’s property, yet every subject must make contributions, and
this he consents to do by his representative. Notwithstanding the
King, Lords, and Commons could in ancient times tax other people,
they could not tax the clergy.” Lord Camden then went on to show at
length, that the counties palatine of Wales and of Berwick, were
never taxed till they were represented in Parliament. The same was
true, he said, of Ireland; and the same doctrines should prevail in
regard to America. It was in answer to Lord Camden that the following
speech of Lord Mansfield was made.

MY LORDS:

I shall speak to the question strictly as a matter of right; for it is a proposition in its nature so perfectly distinct from the expediency of the tax, that it must necessarily be taken separate, if there is any true logic in the world; but of the expediency or inexpediency I will say nothing. It will be time enough to speak upon that subject when it comes to be a question.

I shall also speak to the distinctions which have been taken, without any real difference, as to the nature of the tax; and I shall point out, lastly, the necessity there will be of exerting the force of the superior authority of government, if opposed by the subordinate part of it.

I am extremely sorry that the question has ever become necessary to be agitated, and that there should be a decision upon it. No one in this House will live long enough to see an end put to the mischief which will be the result of the doctrine which has been inculcated; but the arrow is shot and the wound already given. I shall certainly avoid personal reflections. No one has had more cast upon him than myself; but I never was biased by any consideration of applause from without, in the discharge of my public duty; and, in giving my sentiments according to what I thought law, I have relied upon my own consciousness. It is with great pleasure I have heard the noble Lord who moved the resolution express himself in so manly and sensible a way, when he recommended a dispassionate debate, while, at the same time, he urged the necessity of the House coming to such a resolution, with great dignity and propriety of argument.

I shall endeavor to clear away from the question, all that mass of dissertation and learning displayed in arguments which have been fetched from speculative men who have written upon the subject of government, or from ancient records, as being little to the purpose. I shall insist that these records are no proofs of our present Constitution. A noble Lord has taken up his argument from the settlement of the Constitution at the revolution; I shall take up my argument from the Constitution as it now is. The Constitution of this country has been always in a moving state, either gaining or losing something and with respect to the modes of taxation, when we get beyond the reign of Edward the First, or of King John, we are all in doubt and obscurity. The history of those times is full of uncertainties. In regard to the writs upon record, they were issued some of them according to law, and some not according to law; and such [_i. e._, of the latter kind] were those concerning ship-money, to call assemblies to tax themselves, or to compel benevolences. Other taxes were raised from escuage, fees for knights’ service, and by other means arising out of the feudal system. Benevolences are contrary to law; and it is well known how people resisted the demands of the Crown in the case of ship-money, and were persecuted by the Court; and if any set of men were to meet now to lend the King money, it would be contrary to law, and a breach of the rights of Parliament.

I shall now answer the noble Lord particularly upon the cases he has quoted. With respect to the Marches of Wales, who were the borderers, privileged for assisting the King in his war against the Welsh in the mountains, their enjoying this privilege of taxing themselves was but of a short duration, and during the life of Edward the First, till the Prince of Wales came to be the King; and then they were annexed to the Crown, and became subject to taxes like the rest of the dominions of England; and from thence came the custom, though unnecessary, of naming Wales and the town of Monmouth in all proclamations and in acts of Parliament. Henry the Eighth was the first who issued writs for it to return two members to Parliament. The Crown exercised this right _ad libitum_, from whence arises the inequality of representation in our Constitution at this day. Henry VIII. issued a writ to Calais to send one burgess to Parliament. One of the counties palatine [I think he said Durham] was taxed fifty years to subsidies, before it sent members to Parliament. The clergy were at no time unrepresented in Parliament. When they taxed themselves, it was done with the concurrence and consent of Parliament, who permitted them to tax themselves upon their petition, the Convocation sitting at the same time with the Parliament. They had, too, their representatives always sitting in this House, bishops and abbots; and, in the other House, they were at no time without a right of voting singly for the election of members; so that the argument fetched from the case of the clergy is not an argument of any force, because they were at no time unrepresented here.

The reasoning about the colonies of Great Britain, drawn from the colonies of antiquity, is a mere useless display of learning; for the colonies of the Tyrians in Africa, and of the Greeks in Asia, were totally different from our system. No nation before ourselves formed any regular system of colonization, but the Romans; and their system was a military one, and of garrisons placed in the principal towns of the conquered provinces. The States of Holland were not colonies of Spain; they were States dependent upon the house of Austria in a feudal dependence. Nothing could be more different from our colonies than that flock of men, as they have been called, who came from the North and poured into Europe. Those emigrants renounced all laws, all protection, all connection with their mother countries. They chose their leaders, and marched under their banners to seek their fortunes and establish new kingdoms upon the ruins of the Roman empire.

But our colonies, on the contrary, emigrated under the sanction of the Crown and Parliament. They were modelled gradually into their present forms, respectively, by charters, grants, and statutes; but they were never separated from the mother country, or so emancipated as to become _sui juris_. There are several sorts of colonies in British America. The charter colonies, the proprietary governments, and the King’s colonies. The first colonies were the charter colonies, such as the Virginia Company; and these companies had among their directors members of the privy council and of both houses of Parliament; they were under the authority of the privy council, and had agents resident here, responsible for their proceedings. So much were they considered as belonging to the Crown, and not to the King personally (for there is a great difference, though few people attend to it), that when the two Houses, in the time of Charles the First, were going to pass a bill concerning the colonies, a message was sent to them by the King that they were the King’s colonies, and that the bill was unnecessary, for that the privy council would take order about them; and the bill never had the royal assent. The Commonwealth Parliament, as soon as it was settled, were very early jealous of the colonies separating themselves from them; and passed a resolution or act (and it is a question whether it is not in force now) to declare and establish the authority of England over its colonies.

But if there was no express law, or reason founded upon any necessary inference from an express law, yet the usage alone would be sufficient to support that authority; for, have not the colonies submitted ever since their first establishment to the jurisdiction of the mother country? In all questions of property, the appeals from the colonies have been to the privy council here; and such causes have been determined, not by the law of the colonies, but by the law of England. A very little while ago, there was an appeal on a question of limitation in a devise of land with remainders; and, notwithstanding the intention of the testator appeared very clear, yet the case was determined contrary to it, and that the land should pass according to the law of England. The colonies have been obliged to recur very frequently to the jurisdiction here, to settle the disputes among their own governments. I well remember several references on this head, when the late Lord Hardwicke was attorney general, and Sir Clement Wearg solicitor general. New Hampshire and Connecticut were in blood about their differences; Virginia and Maryland were in arms against each other. This shows the necessity of one superior decisive jurisdiction, to which all subordinate jurisdictions may recur. Nothing, my Lords, could be more fatal to the peace of the colonies at any time, than the Parliament giving up its authority over them; for in such a case, there must be an entire dissolution of government. Considering how the colonies are composed, it is easy to foresee there would be no end of feuds and factions among the several separate governments, when once there shall be no one government here or there of sufficient force or authority to decide their mutual differences; and, government being dissolved, nothing remains but that the colonies must either change their Constitution, and take some new form of government, or fall under some foreign power. At present the several forms of their Constitution are very various, having been produced, as all governments have been originally, by accident and circumstances. The forms of government in every colony were adopted, from time to time, according to the size of the colony; and so have been extended again, from time to time, as the numbers of their inhabitants and their commercial connections outgrew the first model. In some colonies, at first there was only a governor assisted by two or three counsel; then more were added; afterward courts of justice were erected; then assemblies were created. Some things were done by instructions from the secretaries of state; other things were done by order of the King and council; and other things by commissions under the great seal. It is observable, that in consequence of these establishments from time to time, and of the dependency of these governments upon the supreme Legislature at home, the lenity of each government in the colonies has been extreme toward the subject; and a great inducement has been created for people to come and settle in them. But, if all those governments which are now independent of each other, should become independent of the mother country, I am afraid that the inhabitants of the colonies are very little aware of the consequences. They would feel in that case very soon the hand of power more heavy upon them in their own governments, than they have yet done, or have ever imagined.

The Constitutions of the different colonies are thus made up of different principles. They must remain dependent, from the necessity of things, and their relations to the jurisdiction of the mother country; or they must be totally dismembered from it, and form a league of union among themselves against it, which could not be effected without great violences. No one ever thought the contrary till the trumpet of sedition was blown. Acts of Parliament have been made, not only without a doubt of their legality, but with universal applause, the great object of which has been ultimately to fix the trade of the colonies, so as to centre in the bosom of that country from whence they took their original. The Navigation Act shut up their intercourse with foreign countries.[35] Their ports have been made subject to customs and regulations which have cramped and diminished their trade. And duties have been laid, affecting the very inmost parts of their commerce, and, among others, that of the post; yet all these have been submitted to peaceably, and no one ever thought till now of this doctrine, that the colonies are not to be taxed, regulated, or bound by Parliament. A few particular merchants were then, as now, displeased at restrictions which did not permit them to make the greatest possible advantages of their commerce in their own private and peculiar branches. But, though these few merchants might think themselves losers in articles which they had no right to gain, as being prejudicial to the general and national system, yet I must observe that the colonies, upon the whole, were benefited by these laws. For these restrictive laws, founded upon principles of the most solid policy, flung a great weight of naval force into the hands of the mother country, which was to protect its colonies. Without a union with her, the colonies must have been entirely weak and defenceless, but they thus became relatively great, subordinately, and in proportion as the mother country advanced in superiority over the rest of the maritime powers in Europe, to which both mutually contributed, and of which both have reaped a benefit, equal to the natural and just relation in which they both stand reciprocally, of dependency on one side, and protection on the other.

There can be no doubt, my Lords, but that the inhabitants of the colonies are as much represented in Parliament, as the greatest part of the people of England are represented; among nine millions of whom there are eight which have no votes in electing members of Parliament. Every objection, therefore, to the dependency of the colonies upon Parliament, which arises to it upon the ground of representation, goes to the whole present Constitution of Great Britain; and I suppose it is not meant to new-model _that_ too. People may form speculative ideas of perfection, and indulge their own fancies or those of other men. Every man in this country has his particular notion of liberty; but perfection never did, and never can exist in any human institution. To what purpose, then, are arguments drawn from a distinction, in which there is no real difference—of a virtual and actual representation? A member of Parliament, chosen for any borough, represents not only the constituents and inhabitants of that particular place, but he represents the inhabitants of every other borough in Great Britain. He represents the city of London, and all the other commons of this land, and the inhabitants of all the colonies and dominions of Great Britain; and is, in duty and conscience, bound to take care of their interests.

I have mentioned the customs and the post tax. This leads me to answer another distinction, as false as the above; the distinction of internal and external taxes. The noble Lord who quoted so much law, and denied upon those grounds the right of the Parliament of Great Britain to lay internal taxes upon the colonies, allowed at the same time that restrictions upon trade, and duties upon the ports, were legal. But I cannot see a real difference in this distinction; for I hold it to be true, that a tax laid in any place is like a pebble falling into and making a circle in a lake, till one circle produces and gives motion to another, and the whole circumference is agitated from the centre. For nothing can be more clear than that a tax of ten or twenty per cent. laid upon tobacco, either in the ports of Virginia or London, is a duty laid upon the inland plantations of Virginia, a hundred miles from the sea, wheresoever the tobacco grows.

I do not deny but that a tax may be laid injudiciously and injuriously, and that people in such a case may have a right to complain. But the nature of the tax is not now the question; whenever it comes to be one, I am for lenity. I would have no blood drawn. There is, I am satisfied, no occasion for any to be drawn. A little time and experience of the inconveniences and miseries of anarchy, may bring people to their senses.

With respect to what has been said or written upon this subject, I differ from the noble Lord, who spoke of Mr. Otis and his book with contempt, though he maintained the same doctrine in some points, while in others he carried it farther than Otis himself, who allows everywhere the supremacy of the Crown over the colonies.[36] No man, on such a subject, is contemptible. Otis is a man of consequence among the people there. They have chosen him for one of their deputies at the Congress and general meeting from the respective governments. It was said, the man is mad. What then? One madman often makes many. Masaniello was mad. Nobody doubts it; yet, for all that, he overturned the government of Naples. Madness is catching in all popular assemblies and upon all popular matters. The book is full of wildness. I never read it till a few days ago, for I seldom look into such things. I never was actually acquainted with the contents of the Stamp Act, till I sent for it on purpose to read it before the debate was expected. With respect to authorities in _another House_, I know nothing of them. I believe that I have not been in that House more than once since I had the honor to be called up to this; and, if I did know any thing that passed in the other House, I could not, and would not, mention it as an authority here. I ought not to mention any such authority. I should think it beneath my own and your Lordship’s dignity to speak of it.

I am far from bearing any ill will to the Americans; they are a very good people, and I have long known them. I began life with them, and owe much to them, having been much concerned in the plantation causes before the privy council; and so I became a good deal acquainted with American affairs and people. I dare say, their heat will soon be over, when they come to feel a little the consequences of their opposition to the Legislature. Anarchy always cures itself; but the ferment will continue so much the longer, while hot-headed men there find that there are persons of weight and character to support and justify them here.

Indeed, if the disturbances should continue for a great length of time, force must be the consequence, an application adequate to the mischief, and arising out of the necessity of the case; for force is only the difference between a superior and subordinate jurisdiction. In the former, the whole force of the Legislature resides collectively, and when it ceases to reside, the whole connection is dissolved. It will, indeed, be to very little purpose that we sit here enacting laws, and making resolutions, if the inferior will not obey them, or if we neither can nor dare enforce them; for then, and then, I say, of necessity, the matter comes to the sword. If the offspring are grown too big and too resolute to obey the parent, you must try which is the strongest, and exert all the powers of the mother country to decide the contest.

I am satisfied, notwithstanding, that time and a wise and steady conduct may prevent those extremities which would be fatal to both. I remember well when it was the violent humor of the times to decry standing armies and garrisons as dangerous, and incompatible with the liberty of the subject. Nothing would do but a regular militia. The militia are embodied; they march; and no sooner was the militia law thus put into execution, but it was then said to be an intolerable burden upon the subject, and that it would fall, sooner or later, into the hands of the Crown. That was the language, and many counties petitioned against it. This may be the case with the colonies. In many places they begin already to feel the effects of their resistence to government. Interest very soon divides mercantile people; and, although there may be some mad, enthusiastic, or ill-designing people in the colonies, yet I am convinced that the greatest bulk, who have understanding and property, are still well affected to the mother country. You have, my Lords, many friends still in the colonies; and take care that you do not, by abdicating your own authority, desert them and yourselves, and lose them forever.

In all popular tumults, the worst men bear the sway at first. Moderate and good men are often silent for fear or modesty, who, in good time, may declare themselves. Those who have any property to lose are sufficiently alarmed already at the progress of these public violences and violations, to which every man’s dwelling, person, and property are hourly exposed. Numbers of such valuable men and good subjects are ready and willing to declare themselves for the support of government in due time, if government does not fling away its own authority.

My Lords, the Parliament of Great Britain has its rights over the colonies; but it may abdicate its rights.

There was a thing which I forgot to mention. I mean, the manuscript quoted by the noble Lord. He tells you that it is there said, that if the act concerning Ireland had passed, the Parliament might have abdicated its rights as to Ireland. In the first place, I heartily wish, my Lords, that Ireland had not been named, at a time when that country is of a temper and in a situation so difficult to be governed; and when we have already here so much weight upon our hands, encumbered with the extensiveness, variety, and importance of so many objects in a vast and too busy empire, and the national system shattered and exhausted by a long, bloody, and expensive war, but more so by our divisions at home, and a fluctuation of counsels. I wish Ireland, therefore, had never been named.

I pay as much respect as any man to the memory of Lord Chief Justice Hale; but I did not know that he had ever written upon the subject; and I differ very much from thinking with the noble Lord, that this manuscript ought to be published. So far am I from it, that I wish the manuscript had never been named; for Ireland is too tender a subject to be touched. The case of Ireland is as different as possible from that of our colonies. Ireland was a conquered country; it had its _pacta conventa_ and its _regalia_. But to what purpose is it to mention the manuscript? It is but the opinion of one man. When it was written, or for what particular object it was written, does not appear. It might possibly be only a work of youth, or an exercise of the understanding, in sounding and trying a question problematically. All people, when they first enter professions, make their collections pretty early in life; and the manuscript may be of that sort. However, be it what it may, the opinion is but problematical; for the act to which the writer refers never passed, and Lord Hale only said, that if it had passed, the Parliament might have abdicated their right.

But, my Lords, I shall make this application of it. You may abdicate your right over the colonies. Take care, my Lords, how you do so, for such an act will be irrevocable. Proceed, then, my Lords, with spirit and firmness; and, when you shall have established your authority, it will then be a time to show your lenity. The Americans, as I said before, are a very good people, and I wish them exceedingly well; but they are heated and inflamed. The noble Lord who spoke before ended with a prayer. I cannot end better than by saying to it Amen; and in the words of Maurice, Prince of Orange, concerning the Hollanders: “_God bless this industrious, frugal, and well-meaning, but easily-deluded people._”

The Stamp Act was repealed, and the Declaratory Act, thus advocated
by Lord Mansfield, was also passed by a large majority.

The positions taken by Lord Mansfield were answered in a variety of
ways by the colonists. What may be called the American Case, was
carefully stated in a “Declaration of Rights and Grievances,” passed
by the New York Congress, October 19, 1765. The substance of the
American claims may be summarized in the following propositions:

1. They owed their existence not to Parliament, but to the Crown.
The King, in the exercise of the high sovereignty then conceded to
him, had made them by charter _complete civil communities_, with
legislatures of their own having power to lay taxes and do all
other acts which were necessary to their subsistence as distinct
governments. Hence,

2. They stood substantially on the same footing as Scotland previous
to the Union. Like her they were subject to the Navigation Act, and
similar regulations touching the _external_ relations of the empire;
and like her the ordinary legislation of England did not reach them,
nor did the common law any farther than they chose to adopt it. Hence,

3. They held themselves amenable in their internal concerns, not to
Parliament, but to the Crown alone. It was to the _King_ in council
or to _his_ courts that they made those occasional references and
appeals, which Lord Mansfield endeavors to draw into precedents. So
“the post tax” spoken of above, did not originate in Parliament,
but in a charter to an individual which afterward reverted to the
Crown, and it was in this way alone that the post-office in America
became connected with that of England. Even the American Declaration
of Independence does not once refer to the British Parliament. The
colonists held that they owed allegiance to the King only, and hence
it was the King’s conduct alone that was regarded as a just reason
for their renouncing their allegiance. One of their grievances was,
that he confederated with others in “_pretended acts of legislation_.”

The Colonists supported their argument by an appeal to
“long-continued usage.” Burke acknowledged the force of this
position, though he drew from it the conclusion merely that, “to
introduce a change now, is both inexpedient and unwise.” The
Colonists, on the contrary, held: “You have no right to lay the
taxes.” The attitude of the colonies is best studied in the volume of
“Prior Documents to Almon’s Remembrancer,” where all the important
papers and the resolutions of the several colonies are given. See,
also, Pilkin’s “Political History,” Marshall’s “American Colonies,”
and vol. i. of Story, “On the Constitution.” There is an excellent
summary of the debate in the English Parliament, probably written by
Burke, in the _Annual Register_, vol. ix., pp. 35–48; and a still
fuller one embracing the examination of Franklin, in Hansard’s
“Parliamentary History,” vol. xvi., pp. 90–200.

EDMUND BURKE.

There is much in the oratory of Edmund Burke to suggest the amplitude of mind and the power and scope of intellectual grasp that characterized Shakespeare. He surveyed every subject as if standing on an eminence and taking a view of it in all its relations, however complex and remote. United with this remarkable comprehensiveness was also a subtlety of intellect that enabled him to penetrate the most complicated relations and unravel the most perplexed intricacies. Why? Whence? For what end? With what results? were the questions that his mind seemed always to be striving to answer. The special objects to which he applied himself were the workings of political institutions, the principles of wise legislation, and the sources of national security and advancement. _Rerum cognoscere causas_,—to know the causes of things—in all the multiform relations of organized society, was the constant end of his striving. More than any other one that has written in English he was a political philosopher. But he was far more than that. He had a memory of extraordinary grasp and tenacity; and this, united with a tireless industry, gave him an affluence of knowledge that has rarely been equalled. He had the fancy of a poet, and his imagination surveyed the whole range of human experience for illustrations with which to enrich the train of his thought.

For the purposes of legislative persuasion many of Burke’s qualities were a hindrance rather than a help. His course of reasoning was often too elaborate to be carried in the mind of the hearer. His exuberant fancy constantly tempted him into illustrative excursions that led the hearer too far away from the march of the argument. The one thing which he always found it difficult to do was to restrain the exuberance of his genius. He could not be straightforward and unadorned. He carried his wealth with him and displayed it on all occasions. Mr. Matthew Arnold has very happily characterized this feature of his mind as “Asiatic.” “He is the only man,” said Johnson, “whose common conversation corresponds with the general fame which he has in the world. No man of sense could meet Burke by accident under a gateway to avoid a shower without being convinced that he was the first man in England.”

It is not singular that these characteristics were often thought to be oppressive. In the House of Commons he sometimes poured forth the wealth of his knowledge for hour after hour till the members were burdened and driven out of the House in sheer self-defence. This peculiarity was well described by the satirist who said:

“He went on refining,
And thought of convincing when they thought of dining.”

Erskine, during the delivery of the speech on “Conciliation with America,” crept out of the House behind the benches on his hands and knees, and yet afterward wrote that he thought the speech the most remarkable one of ancient or modern times.

But this vast superabundance, this superfluity of riches, so oppressive to the ear of the hearer, must ever be a source of pleasure and profit to the thoughtful reader. It is safe to say that there is no other oratory of any language or time that yields so rich a return to the thoughtful efforts of the genuine student. What Fox said to members of Parliament in regard to the speech on the “Nabob of Arcot’s debts,” may be appropriately said with perhaps even greater emphasis to American students in regard to either of the speeches on American affairs: “Let gentlemen read this speech by day and meditate on it by night: let them peruse it again and again, study it, imprint it on their minds, impress it on their hearts.” After all that has been written, the student can nowhere find a more correct and comprehensive account of the causes of the American Revolution than in the speeches on Taxation and Conciliation.