in England cast about for the means of accomplishing their purpose. There was but one, and this taxation. Now, taxation of a certain sort was nothing new to the colonies. They had long borne with taxes for the so-called regulation of trade. But the ministry and their supporters, not content with the old taxes, were for raising new ones taxes for revenue as well as for regulation of trade. Substantially, there was no difference; taxes were taxes, whether laid upon imports or upon any thing else; but the colonies were persuaded at the time, and for some time after, that there was a difference, and a vital one.

Discus

.

When, therefore, Parliament voted, in the beginsion. ning of the year, (1764,) that it had "a right to tax the colonies,” implying in any way whatever, the colonies took alarm. The Massachusetts House of Representatives ordered a committee of correspondence with the other colonies. James Otis, in a pamphlet on the Rights of the British Colonies, exclaimed, "that by this [the British] constitution, every man in the dominions is a free man; that no part of his majesty's dominions can be taxed without their consent." "The book," said Lord Mansfield, chief justice of the King's Bench, "is full of wildness." But it did not satisfy many of the colonists, and wilder still, as the chief justice would have said, became their assertions of independence. It was not long before the right of Parliament to lay any taxes whatsoever was discussed and denied.

But for the moment, the colonies were willing to Sugar act. bear with taxation under one name, provided it was not levied under another. The ministry, however, adopted the very style which the colonies disliked, and passed an act laying duties upon sugar and other articles of colonial import, with the expressed understanding that "it is just and necessary that a revenue be raised in America for defray

ing the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same." In other words, both the commercial and the military sway over the colonies was to be supported and carried out by a course of taxation. Thus decided George Grenville and his party by the sugar act of 1764. It was a momentous decision.

Stamp The earnest remonstrances of the colonies, esact. pecially of New York and Rhode Island, produced no effect, except to precipitate measures in England. Ten months after the sugar act, a series of acts far more decisive was passed. A stamp act, proposed some time before, was enacted without any other serious opposition than that of English merchants in the American trade. By this act, all business papers and certificates, as well as newspapers, required a stamp, similar to that already used in Great Britain. At the same time, the jurisdiction of the Admiralty Court was extended, to the exclusion, therefore, of juries in many cases previously brought before them. Together with these new burdens upon the colonies, an old one was revived in the quartering act, by which quarters and various supplies were demanded from the colonies for the British troops amongst them. But neither the provisions for the troops nor those for the admiralty had any significance to be compared with the stamp duties, so unwonted and so unbearable, (1765.)

Resist

ance.

They roused the colonies with a general start. "This unconstitutional method of taxation," was the comment of George Washington, who, for the last six years, had been a burgess of Virginia. "That parliamentary procedure," was the subsequent language of Jonathan Mayhew, of Boston, "which threatened us and our posterity with perpetual bondage and slavery." Virginia was the first to speak out, as a colony, in resolutions proposed by Patrick Henry. "Those Virginians," responded Oxen

bridge Thacher, of Massachusetts, the associate of Otis in opposing the writs of assistance," those Virginians are men." The response of Massachusetts, as a colony, was the vote of her representatives, on the proposal of James Otis, that the colonies should be invited to send committees of their representatives or burgesses to meet at New York. South Carolina, led by Christopher Gadsden, was the first to appoint a committee to the proposed assembly.

Congress.

The first congress of the colonies met on the 7th of October, 1765. South Carolina, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Maryland sent committees of their respective assemblies, according to the original plan; the committees of New York, New Jersey, and Delaware being otherwise appointed. New Hampshire and Georgia, without sending committees, promised to adhere to the decisions of the congress. Virginia and North Carolina were absent and silent, but not from want of sympathy. Timothy Ruggles, of Massachusetts, an officer in the late war with France, was chosen president; amongst the members were James Otis and Christopher Gadsden, the two prime movers in the creation of the congress. Otis, like the other Massachusetts members, came instructed by the House of Representatives "to insist upon an exclusive right in the colony to all acts of taxation." This instruction sounds like the key note of the congress.

Declara

rights

ties.

All other doings of the body, whether petition tion of to king or addresses to Lords and Commons of and liber- Great Britain, sink into comparative insignificance by the side of a declaration of rights and liberties. This document, acknowledging the allegiance due by the colonies to the crown, dwells with peculiar emphasis upon their claim "to all the inherent rights and liberties of natural born subjects within the kingdom of Great Britain."

The rights especially demanded by the colonies are those of taxation by their own assemblies, and of trial by their own juries; the two, as will be remembered, assailed by the stamp act. The injustice and impolicy of the recent proceedings in the mother country are pointed out, with an earnest demand that all the obnoxious statutes should be at once repealed. The importance of the declaration must be evident. Preferring no claim to independence, it preferred claims to privileges which, in the existing relations between the colonies and the mother country, could not be secured without independence. The Declaration of Rights, dated the 19th of October, 1765, foretells the birth of the new nation as near at hand.*

* With the exception of a few lines in the preamble, here follows in full the

DECLARATION OF RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES.

The members of this congress esteem it our indispensable duty to make the following declaration of our humble opinion respecting the most essential rights and liberties of the colonists, and of the grievances under which they labor by reason of several late acts of Parliament.

I. That his majesty's subjects in these colonies owe the same allegiance to the crown of Great Britain that is owing from his subjects born within the realm, and all due subordination to that august body, the Parliament of Great Britain.

II. That his majesty's liege subjects in these colonies are entitled to all the inherent rights and liberties of his natural born subjects within the kingdom of Great Britain.

III. That it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people, and the undoubted right of Englishmen, that no taxes be imposed on them but with their own consent, given personally or by their representatives.

IV. That the people of these colonies are not, and, from their local circumstances, cannot be represented in the House of Commons in Great Britain.

V. That the only representatives of the people of these colonies are persons chosen therein by themselves, and that no taxes ever have been or can be constitutionally imposed on them but by their respective legislatures.

VI. That all supplies to the crown being free gifts of the people, it is

Effect.

*

The declaration was not made by every colony. But though signed by the representatives of only six colonies, it was virtually the act of all but two, Virginia and North Carolina; and as such, it went forth to convince the mother country, nay, the colonies themselves,

unreasonable and inconsistent with the principles and spirit of the British constitution for the people of Great Britain to grant to his majesty the property of the colonists.

VII. That trial by jury is the inherent and invaluable right of every British subject in these colonies.

VIII. That the late act of Parliament entitled "An act for granting and applying certain stamp duties and other duties in the British colonies and plantations in America," &c., by imposing taxes on the inhabitants of these colonies, and the said act, and several other acts, by extending the jurisdiction of the Courts of Admiralty beyond its ancient limits, have a manifest tendency to subvert the rights and liberties of the colonists.

IX. That the duties imposed by several late acts of Parliament, from the peculiar circumstances of these colonies, will be extremely burdensome and grievous, and, from the scarcity of specie, the payment of them absolutely impracticable.

X. That as the profits of the trade of these colonies ultimately centre in Great Britain, to pay for the manufactures which they are obliged to take from thence, they eventually contribute very largely to all supplies granted there to the crown.

XI. That the restrictions imposed by several late acts of Parliament on the trade of these colonies will render them unable to purchase the manufactures of Great Britain.

XII. That the increase, prosperity, and happiness of these colonies depend on the full and free enjoyments of their rights and liberties, and an intercourse with Great Britain mutually affectionate and advantageous.

XIII. That it is the right of the British subjects in these colonies to petition the king or either House of Parliament.

Lastly. That it is the indispensable duty of these colonies, to the best of sovereigns, to the mother country, and to themselves, to endeavor by a loyal and dutiful address to his majesty, and humble applications to both Houses of Parliament, to procure the repeal of the act for granting and applying certain stamp duties, of all clauses of any other acts of Parliament whereby the jurisdiction of the admiralty is extended as aforesaid, and of the other late acts for the restriction of American commerce.

* Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware.