Independence (5 page)

Virginia was one of the few places that did not experience cruel and frenzied mob violence, but it witnessed decisive protest nonetheless. Twenty-nine-year-old Patrick Henry took the lead in Virginia in rallying opposition to Parliament’s tax. One of ten children born to a Scottish immigrant who had married into a prominent Virginia family, young Henry was raised in Hanover County, near the frontier. After four years of formal education, and further tutoring by his father, Henry at age fifteen was put to work as a clerk in a general store. Sometime around his twenty-first birthday, Henry opened his own crossroads store. When it failed, he opened another. When that foundered as well, he went to work as a barkeep in his father’s tavern. But Henry wanted more. In 1760, at age twenty-four, he taught himself enough law in a few weeks to open his own practice. Possessed of a fast mind and a silver tongue, Henry flourished as a backcountry attorney. Within five years he was a member of the House of Burgesses. He was sworn in as an assemblyman in May 1765, less than a week before word of the Stamp Act arrived in Williamsburg. When news of Parliament’s levy reached the Virginia capital, Henry refused to be silenced by his status as a newcomer. He joined in the debate over how Virginia should respond to the tax. On only his ninth day as a burgess, Henry delivered an electrifying speech, the only one from the debate that is now remembered. Numerous versions of what Henry said have come down to posterity, but according to popular legend, he defiantly stated: “Tarquin and Caesar had each his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third …” He got no further before he was interrupted by loud cries of “Treason! Treason!” Henry paused for a moment. But, unflappable as always, he proceeded by observing that the king “may profit by their example! If this be treason, make the most of it.”

Patrick Henry by George Bagby Matthews, after Thomas Sully. Among the early advocates of American resistance, Henry introduced the Virginia Resolves in the House of Burgesses in 1765. Chosen to be part of the Virginian delegation to Congress, he resigned in the spring of 1775. He was never a leader on the national stage as he had been in Virginia. (U.S. Senate Collection)

If Henry’s exact words are in question, there is no doubt that following his stirring speech he introduced a series of resolutions, several of which were quickly approved by the House of Burgesses. The Virginia Resolves stated that the earliest settlers “brought with them … all the Liberties, Privileges, Franchises, and Immunities … held, enjoyed, and possessed, by the People of Great Britain.” Their charters, moreover, confirmed that they were entitled to all rights and liberties enjoyed by those “abiding and born within the Realm of
England
.” A “distinguishing characteristick of British Freedom,” the Resolves added, was that taxes might only be levied by “the People … themselves, or by Persons chosen by themselves to represent them.” From the beginning the English colonists had enjoyed these rights, none of which they had ever “forfeited or yielded up.”

These resolutions soon were published in nearly every colonial newspaper. Before the spring and summer ended, the Virginia Resolves had been adopted nearly word for word by almost every colonial assembly in America. The point of view embraced by the colonists was believed to be an expression of ideology that traced its heritage to the ancient English constitution, and in fact every official set of American resolutions denounced the Stamp Act as unconstitutional. Parliament, it was asserted, had no legal authority to tax the colonists, for the Americans were not, and could not be, represented in that faraway body. What is more, the colonial assemblies alone could lawfully tax the colonists. Any taxes levied by any other than the colonial assemblies were not just illegal; they were also a violation of the colonists’ rights and an irrefutable threat to their liberty. Indeed, the colonists saw a linkage between taxation and liberty. Taxation was a manifestation of government’s power, and if that authority was wielded improperly or unconstitutionally, it could destroy all rights and liberty. Americans had embraced a constitutional position from which they would never depart so long as they remained British subjects. In October, seven colonies sent delegates to the Stamp Act Congress, a rare intercolonial assembly that met in New York. It adopted a similar statement concerning the British constitution: Parliament had no authority to levy taxes in America.
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Officials in Great Britain did not know, but feared, that the Stamp Act was a transformative event for many Americans. Their fears were well-founded. There were colonial activists, like Patrick Henry, who sensed that their constituents were restive under London’s new colonial policies. There were also those, like Richard Henry Lee, who took note when a Johnny-come-lately such as Henry was catapulted overnight to a position of leadership when he denounced those policies. There were lessons to be learned as well from the lot of those who defended parliamentary taxation. Not only was there the destruction of Hutchinson’s estate to consider, but there was also the fact that nineteen members of the Massachusetts assembly who had spoken on behalf of the Stamp Act were defeated for reelection in the fall of 1765.
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The Stamp Act did far more than reshape the fortunes of a few politicians, however. The Stamp Act, and the protests that followed, was the salient moment when many Americans for the first time contemplated the second-class status of both colonies and colonists within the British Empire. Of course, all had long known that there were limits to how far a colonist could rise. An American might win election to his provincial assembly, but no colonist could hold a seat in Parliament. There was next to no chance that a colonist might become a royal governor or be named to an important imperial board. No colonist had ever held an office in a British ministry, much less become the prime minister. No colonist had ever been appointed as an ambassador to another country. It was difficult for a colonist to secure a commission in the British army or the Royal Navy, and advancement was problematical for anyone who did. An American might become a field officer in his colony’s army, but he would be outranked by the lowliest officer in the British army.

Though little had been said of it, the colonists were also all too aware that London alone had always made crucial decisions that impinged on life in the colonies. The British government enacted trade regulations, prohibited certain kinds of manufacturing, negotiated treaties with the Indians, made policy regarding the African slave trade, and sometimes sentenced criminals to exile in America. Without consulting the colonists, London decided when to go to war, dragging their colonial subjects after them and usually ordering them not only to raise their own armies to help with the fight but also to provision and house the British soldiers who were sent to America. London alone negotiated the peace treaties that ended the imperial wars. The colonists were never brought into the peace deliberations. At times, the Americans were convinced that London agreed to treaties that ran counter to the interests of the provincials.

There is little evidence that many colonists were riled by these facts of imperial life before 1765. The Stamp Act changed that. The year 1765 was a “most remarkable Year,” thought thirty-year-old John Adams. Reflecting in December on the parliamentary legislation and the colonists’ response to it, Adams described the Stamp Act as an “enormous Engine … for battering down all the Rights and Liberties of America.” It had caused the colonists to reconsider their place in the British Empire, he said. “The People, even to the lowest Ranks, have become more attentive to their Liberties, more inquisitive about them, more determined to defend them.”
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Furthermore, Adams was amazed to learn that it was not just his brethren in Massachusetts who shared his thinking about Parliament’s tax and the colonists’ inferior status but also colonists who lived far from New England. Half a century later, he would reflect that the American Revolution had its beginnings in the 1765 transformation in the way the colonists saw themselves and their relationship with the far-off imperial government.
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Though no one in the colonies uttered the word “independence” during the Stamp Act upheaval, the embryo of the idea of American independence was in being by the end of that pivotal year.

Once London realized that the warnings had been correct about the colonists taking exception to parliamentary taxation, those who ruled Great Britain found themselves on the horns of an ugly dilemma. The American uprising against the Stamp Act appeared to confirm the necessity for Great Britain to tighten its control over the colonies. The merest sign of weakness or retreat, many feared, would hasten America’s march toward independence. Furthermore, Great Britain continued to need revenue. However, if Parliament stuck to its guns, or responded with punitive measures, colonial resistance might be inflamed into a full-blown revolution for independence. The quandary that the government had brought on itself when it turned to the Stamp Act would bedevil every ministry from 1766 through to 1776.
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The Stamp Act was greeted by mob violence in several colonies, especially in New England. Property damage occurred and on occasion tax collectors faced the threat of violence, including tarring and feathering. This British cartoon is titled “The Bostonians paying the exciseman, or tarring and feathering.” Published by Sayer and Bennett, London, 1774. (National Archives)

In 1766 Britain’s government readily understood that the Stamp Act was untenable. It covertly decided to repeal the troublesome measure and replace it with an alternative form of taxation. The first step would be to convince the public that a stamp tax had been a mistake. The best way to do this, the ministry concluded, would be to conduct sham hearings in the House of Commons. Its star witness was Benjamin Franklin.

The world has seen few men more ambitious than Franklin, and only a handful who may have worked more assiduously at achieving success. Born in Boston in 1706 to a large working-class family, Franklin was mostly self-educated. As he grew into adolescence, Franklin meditated over how to get ahead. He calculated how to get along with others, worked diligently, lived frugally, and cagily kept his eyes open for every edge that might facilitate his upward mobility, including taking bold risks. Franklin’s most daring move came at age seventeen. Leaving home, he traveled alone to Philadelphia, where he did not know a soul. He was drawn to this new, vibrant city on the Delaware River on the assumption that it offered greater opportunities than Boston, which at the time was larger and about twice as old. The following year he sailed for London, gambling that there were even greener pastures in the great metropolis, though he knew no one there either. When things did not pan out in England, he borrowed money for a return voyage to Philadelphia in 1726, and it was there that his amazing arc of ascent really commenced. Franklin started as a clerk in a store. Within two years he and a partner owned a printing press. After two more years he was the sole owner and publisher of a newspaper, the
Pennsylvania Gazette
. Twenty-one years after his return to Philadelphia, Franklin, with income pouring in from a variety of shrewd investments, retired. He was forty-two years old.

But Franklin was hardly the sort to fancy a carefree and indolent retirement. He devoted considerable time to science, winning fame in America and Europe for his electrical experiments and numerous inventions. He loved Philadelphia, and it is likely that never before, or since, has a city benefited so much from the presence of a single resident. Franklin organized a lending library, a fire company, a militia, a philosophical society, an academy, and a hospital for the city’s inhabitants. In addition, he taught his neighbors how to make their homes safer and more comfortable, and he worked indefatigably—and successfully—to convince Philadelphians of the wisdom of inoculation against smallpox.