WEBVTT NOTE 17. The Parson's Cause 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.760 Volume 3, Chapter 17, The Parsons' Cause 2 00:00:05.760 --> 00:00:11.760 A particular area of trouble with England over the Anglican establishment appeared during 3 00:00:11.760 --> 00:00:18.800 this period in the colony of Virginia. Of the seventy or so Anglican clergy in Virginia, 4 00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:25.860 the bulk were moderate, liberal, and easygoing, in keeping with the low church moderation 5 00:00:25.860 --> 00:00:35.220 In the western valley of Virginia, the local vestry, the important local political organ 6 00:00:35.220 --> 00:00:41.680 in that province, included Presbyterians and other dissenters for many years since the 7 00:00:41.680 --> 00:00:49.340 valley was almost exclusively dissenter. Local vestries furthermore selected their ministers 8 00:00:49.340 --> 00:00:55.660 who rapidly fell into the tolerant and liberal spirit of religion in Virginia. 9 00:00:55.660 --> 00:01:03.660 A little knot of high church Anglicans bitterly opposed to this condition and strove to bring 10 00:01:03.660 --> 00:01:11.240 church and British control over ecclesiastical and other affairs of the colony. 11 00:01:11.240 --> 00:01:18.540 These men, largely English-born, clustered in and around the faculty of the College of 12 00:01:18.540 --> 00:01:28.200 of William & Mary. In the fall of 1755, Virginia passed the first of its two-penny acts. Since 13 00:01:28.200 --> 00:01:34.460 Virginia's major currency was tobacco, its dues, contracts and obligations were generally 14 00:01:34.460 --> 00:01:42.660 payable in that commodity or in more convenient warehouse receipts for quantities of tobacco. 15 00:01:42.660 --> 00:01:49.500 In such a system, a poor tobacco crop and a consequent rise in tobacco prices injured 16 00:01:49.500 --> 00:01:54.580 debtors and advantaged creditors. 17 00:01:54.580 --> 00:02:02.660 In 1755, a year of high tobacco prices, there was inaugurated a Virginia practice of fixing 18 00:02:02.660 --> 00:02:07.020 tobacco at an arbitrary price of two pence a pound. 19 00:02:07.020 --> 00:02:14.420 This at a time when the market price of tobacco was far higher than that. Virginians generally 20 00:02:14.420 --> 00:02:22.740 approved the measure because the main creditors or receivers of fixed obligations in tobacco 21 00:02:22.740 --> 00:02:29.620 were the tax collectors and the receivers of government fees. The Two Penny Act caused 22 00:02:29.620 --> 00:02:36.060 a welcome reduction in the real economic burden of taxation and government spending on the 23 00:02:36.060 --> 00:02:42.420 of Virginians, and did this precisely during a time of economic crises when such relief 24 00:02:42.420 --> 00:02:44.820 was most needed. 25 00:02:44.820 --> 00:02:51.980 Government bureaucrats receiving fixed fees in tobacco lost a heavy windfall as a result 26 00:02:51.980 --> 00:02:57.940 of the Two Penny Act, particularly affected with the Anglican Parsons who each received 27 00:02:57.940 --> 00:03:04.660 a fixed sum of a little over 17,000 pounds of tobacco per year. 28 00:03:04.660 --> 00:03:11.500 The knot of high church ministers zealously protested the two-penny law. A small clique 29 00:03:11.500 --> 00:03:17.620 of Parsons, including four professors at William & Mary, sent several bitter protests 30 00:03:17.620 --> 00:03:24.460 to the Bishop of London. They were led by the Reverend John Cam of York County, a professor 31 00:03:24.460 --> 00:03:32.580 of divinity at William & Mary. The 1755 law was meant to be enforced for ten months only, 32 00:03:32.580 --> 00:03:37.860 After which the crop crisis would be over. The most important of the Virginia two-penny 33 00:03:37.860 --> 00:03:45.300 laws was passed in the fall of 1758, amid a catastrophic drought that lowered Virginia's 34 00:03:45.300 --> 00:03:53.040 tobacco production by nearly 90 percent. A fixed maximum price of two pence a pound was 35 00:03:53.040 --> 00:04:00.580 placed on tobacco for the following year. The Tory faction of the Virginia establishment 36 00:04:00.580 --> 00:04:06.880 was embittered at the loss of its windfall gains. The market tobacco price had risen 37 00:04:06.880 --> 00:04:13.540 to six pence a pound. Half of the Anglican clergy of the colony convened and with dispatch 38 00:04:13.540 --> 00:04:22.900 sent John Cam to England to plead their parson's cause for royal disallowance of the law. Cam 39 00:04:22.900 --> 00:04:29.500 took with him the minister's representation of the clergy of the Church of England. The 40 00:04:29.500 --> 00:04:48.500 The representation bitterly and incorrectly denounced the Two-Penny Act as deliberately designed to injure the Anglican clergy and angered the Virginians by warning that the royal prerogative was being violated by the colony. 41 00:04:48.500 --> 00:04:56.180 The Anglican clergy were thus urging a royal veto over the self-governing acts of the Virginians, 42 00:04:57.140 --> 00:05:02.980 and went from there to urge the nullifying, rather than the mere setting aside of the law, 43 00:05:03.620 --> 00:05:08.180 so that the two-penny act would be null and void from the beginning. 44 00:05:08.180 --> 00:05:13.060 The importance of this stemmed from the short-term nature of the crisis 45 00:05:13.060 --> 00:05:19.940 and of the law. If it could be voided from the beginning, Virginia would be liable for 46 00:05:19.940 --> 00:05:27.220 a large retroactive salary to its established clergy. The Virginia assembly countered the 47 00:05:27.220 --> 00:05:34.860 appointment of Cam in early 1759 by appointing its own agent in London and selecting a committee 48 00:05:34.860 --> 00:05:41.140 of correspondents to carry on the struggle. The argument was now carried to England, where 49 00:05:41.140 --> 00:05:47.040 Where Virginians were further embittered by a vicious attack upon them by Bishop Thomas 50 00:05:47.040 --> 00:05:52.940 Sherlock of London, who had long been one of the prime movers in the scheme for an American 51 00:05:52.940 --> 00:06:01.820 episcopate. Sherlock leveled false accusations of a deliberate attack on the Virginia clergy, 52 00:06:01.820 --> 00:06:07.580 and then went on in a crescendo of calumny to charge the Virginia Assembly in its passing 53 00:06:07.580 --> 00:06:22.040 Sherlock went on to denounce the increasing number of dissenters, largely Presbyterians, 54 00:06:22.040 --> 00:06:28.680 in the colony. The CAM Petition, aided by Archbishop Secker, traveled favorably through 55 00:06:28.680 --> 00:06:36.560 the ranks of the British bureaucracy. Finally, in August 1759, the Privy Council disallowed 56 00:06:36.560 --> 00:06:42.000 The Two Two-Penny Acts It also went beyond this to order the Virginia 57 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:50.520 Governor not to sign in the future any such law that did not have a suspension clause delaying 58 00:06:50.520 --> 00:06:57.400 execution of the law until the King should approve, a serious threat to the self-rule 59 00:06:57.400 --> 00:07:04.900 of the colony. The Crown had merely disallowed the Two-Penny Act rather than nullified it 60 00:07:04.900 --> 00:07:11.900 from the start. The outcome of the dispute was therefore still unclear, a fact that would 61 00:07:11.900 --> 00:07:19.220 rankle Virginia-British relations for eight more years. The Reverend Mr. Kam and a few 62 00:07:19.220 --> 00:07:25.460 other Tory Parsons immediately decided to sue in the courts for the missing back pay, 63 00:07:25.460 --> 00:07:32.220 and if these cases were won, total nullification would be a fact. The Virginia taxpayers would 64 00:07:32.220 --> 00:07:57.220 The assembly and its committee of correspondents decided to back the vestries in the court cases, and its committee of correspondents warned that the royal decision called into question the powers of the Virginia legislature to make temporary laws for the public wheel. 65 00:07:57.220 --> 00:08:05.660 The Assembly in late 1760 petitioned the Crown for power to pass such temporary measures, 66 00:08:05.660 --> 00:08:13.700 but in vain. News of Bishop Sherlock's bitter blast particularly infuriated Virginians and 67 00:08:13.700 --> 00:08:20.980 set off a pamphlet war in the colony. Two of Virginia's leading planter oligarchs, 68 00:08:20.980 --> 00:08:29.380 Richard Bland, Jr. and Colonel Landon Carter, both Burgesses and both Anglicans, attacked 69 00:08:29.380 --> 00:08:36.700 Sherlock and became involved in a series of exchanges with John Cam. The Bland family 70 00:08:36.700 --> 00:08:43.500 was intermarried with such eminent planter families as the Randolphs and the Carters with 71 00:08:43.500 --> 00:08:52.040 the Randolphs, Byrds and Harrison's. Bland's pamphlet, A Letter to the Clergy, 1760, was 72 00:08:52.040 --> 00:08:59.840 notable for a sardonic statement on the royal prerogative. Like the King of Babylon's decree, 73 00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:06.460 it may, for aught I know, almost force the people of the plantations to fall down and 74 00:09:06.460 --> 00:09:17.180 Worship any image it shall please to set up. Moreover, as salis populi est suprema lex, 75 00:09:17.180 --> 00:09:24.020 every consideration must give place to it, and even these royal instructions may be deviated 76 00:09:24.020 --> 00:09:30.180 from with impunity. But the major threat lay in the court-suits 77 00:09:30.180 --> 00:09:36.420 of the Reverend Mr. Cam and four of his fellow ministers, for their victory would mean that 78 00:09:36.420 --> 00:09:51.960 The slow processes of the courts kept the whole issue alive and festering. The first 79 00:09:51.960 --> 00:09:58.580 case to be decided was that of Reverend Alexander White of King William County. White's case 80 00:09:58.580 --> 00:10:06.380 This case was turned over in Toto in the fall of 1762 to the jury, which naturally found 81 00:10:06.380 --> 00:10:13.060 for Virginia. In the case of the Reverend Thomas Warrington, decided soon afterward, 82 00:10:13.060 --> 00:10:18.980 the Elizabeth City County Court, headed by George Wythe, sustained the original validity 83 00:10:18.980 --> 00:10:25.140 of the Two Penny Act. Furthermore, it also found for the defendant. 84 00:10:25.140 --> 00:10:32.260 The third case to emerge was that of the Reverend James Murray of Louisa County and was decided 85 00:10:32.260 --> 00:10:35.180 in Hanover County Court. 86 00:10:35.180 --> 00:10:43.700 On November 5, 1763, Judge John Henry decreed that the two-penny act had been null and void 87 00:10:43.700 --> 00:10:45.660 from the start. 88 00:10:45.660 --> 00:10:52.900 The only problem remaining was a jury trial fixing the amount of damages due to Murray. 89 00:10:52.900 --> 00:11:01.100 The trial was held in December. To Murray's disgust, the jury included the vulgar herd, 90 00:11:01.100 --> 00:11:07.700 two of which were ardent New Light Presbyterians. Dissenters had obvious reason to be hostile 91 00:11:07.700 --> 00:11:14.940 to levering taxes upon themselves for the benefit of an Anglican establishment. 92 00:11:14.940 --> 00:11:21.340 The great significance of the Murray trial was the emergence upon the scene of the brilliant 93 00:11:21.340 --> 00:11:28.100 Young Lawyer Patrick Henry Henry, son of Judge John Henry, a leading 94 00:11:28.100 --> 00:11:35.500 planter of Hanover County, was a nephew of a venerable Anglican minister, the Reverend 95 00:11:35.500 --> 00:11:41.060 Patrick Henry, who was one of the ministers filing suit against the colony. 96 00:11:41.060 --> 00:11:48.980 Young Patrick had every family incentive to be on the Tory-Anglican side of the dispute. 97 00:11:48.980 --> 00:11:57.580 Instead, hired despairingly at the last minute, Henry, presumably in a helpless situation, 98 00:11:57.580 --> 00:12:05.900 radicalized the atmosphere and captured the imagination of the colony in a dramatic speech 99 00:12:05.900 --> 00:12:13.980 to the jury. In short, Henry escalated the dispute straight up to the Crown. By annulling 100 00:12:13.980 --> 00:12:21.260 Between the good and necessary two-penny act, the king had violated the original compact 101 00:12:21.260 --> 00:12:30.220 between king and people, by which the latter had promised obedience in return for royal 102 00:12:30.220 --> 00:12:40.180 protection of their rights. Therefore, concluded Henry inexorably, a king by disallowing acts 103 00:12:40.180 --> 00:12:48.980 of Socialitarian Nature from being the father of his people degenerated into a tyrant and 104 00:12:48.980 --> 00:12:54.040 forfeits all rights to his subjects' obedience. 105 00:12:54.040 --> 00:12:59.600 At that point, the Reverend Mr. Murray recounted that the more sober part of the audience was 106 00:12:59.600 --> 00:13:02.160 struck with horror. 107 00:13:02.160 --> 00:13:08.440 Peter Lyons, the leading lawyer of the area and Murray's counsel, cried out at this that 108 00:13:08.440 --> 00:13:17.880 Henry had spoken treason, and murmurs of treason arose from the audience. But Henry, unruffled, 109 00:13:17.880 --> 00:13:24.040 continued to denounce bitterly the Anglican clergy. The clergy of Virginia, on refusing 110 00:13:24.040 --> 00:13:31.280 to acquiesce in the law, ought to be considered as enemies of the community, and Murray and 111 00:13:31.280 --> 00:13:37.200 and his colleagues should be not rewarded but stripped of their appointments. 112 00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:42.880 In a stirring proration, Henry warned that unless the jury were disposed to rivet the 113 00:13:42.880 --> 00:13:49.420 chains of bondage on their own necks, he hoped they would not let slip the opportunity which 114 00:13:49.420 --> 00:13:57.400 now offered of making such an example of him, Murray, as might hereafter be a warning to 115 00:13:57.400 --> 00:14:04.000 to himself and his brethren not to have the temerity for the future, to dispute the validity 116 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:06.880 of such laws. 117 00:14:06.880 --> 00:14:16.840 The jury swayed and moved, brought in a verdict for token minimum damages, one penny. 118 00:14:16.840 --> 00:14:22.680 Judge Henry moved to tears by his son's great speech, upheld the verdict, and the happy 119 00:14:22.680 --> 00:14:39.500 John Cam's own case came to trial in April 1764. This critical case was decided by the 120 00:14:39.500 --> 00:14:47.360 Council of Virginia, sitting as the Supreme General Court of the colony. The Council decided 121 00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:56.840 against CAM by a vote of five to four. Voting against CAM were John Blair of Williamsburg, 122 00:14:56.840 --> 00:15:04.040 sometime President of the Council, John Taylor, William Byrd III, Robert Burwell, and Presley 123 00:15:04.040 --> 00:15:12.440 Thornton. Voting for CAM were Richard Corbin, Robert Carter, Peter Randolph, Surveyor General 124 00:15:12.440 --> 00:15:20.320 of the Customs, and Philip Ludwell Lee. William and Thomas Nelson of York County excused themselves 125 00:15:20.320 --> 00:15:26.440 from voting as parishioners of the Reverend Mr. Kamm. White, Warrington, and Morrie each 126 00:15:26.440 --> 00:15:32.200 had appealed their cases to the Council, sitting as the Supreme General Court, and the Reverend 127 00:15:32.200 --> 00:15:38.400 Mr. Henry's suit was dismissed when the Kamm case was decided. All the other cases were 128 00:15:38.400 --> 00:15:44.900 were now ended, and the Parsons' cause rested on Cam's further appeal to the Privy Council 129 00:15:44.900 --> 00:15:51.960 in England. Meanwhile, the pamphlet war between Cam, on the one hand, and Bland and Carter 130 00:15:51.960 --> 00:16:00.420 on the other, had renewed in 1763 and 1764. Finally, Richard Bland published in August 131 00:16:00.420 --> 00:16:08.540 August 1764, his famous The Colonel Dismounted, which the historian Lyon G. Tyler has called 132 00:16:08.540 --> 00:16:15.500 the great critical paper of the revolution. Colonel Bland began by asserting that the 133 00:16:15.500 --> 00:16:25.060 Virginians properly retain the rights of all Englishmen. He added, under an English government, 134 00:16:25.060 --> 00:16:32.300 All men are born free, are only subject to laws made with their own consent. If then 135 00:16:32.300 --> 00:16:38.820 Virginians are free-born and have the rights of Englishmen, then laws over them can be 136 00:16:38.820 --> 00:16:47.980 made only by their own representatives. This, Bland declared, applied to internal laws, 137 00:16:47.980 --> 00:16:55.020 whereas external laws are to be determined by Parliament. As for the royal prerogative, 138 00:16:55.020 --> 00:17:04.060 and warned that submission, even to the supreme magistrate, is not the whole duty of a citizen. 139 00:17:04.060 --> 00:17:10.340 Something is likewise due to the rights of our country and to the liberties of mankind. 140 00:17:10.340 --> 00:17:17.140 To say that a royal instruction to a governor is to have the validity of a law and must 141 00:17:17.140 --> 00:17:24.000 be obeyed without reserve is, at once, to strip us of all the rights and privileges 142 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:39.640 Thus, the strictures of Bland and Henry emphasized the importance of the Parsons' cause in expanding 143 00:17:39.640 --> 00:17:49.080 the colonial conflict with Britain, from taxation by colonists themselves to legislation by 144 00:17:49.080 --> 00:17:51.120 the colonists. 145 00:17:51.120 --> 00:17:59.520 As historian Richard Morton puts it, from the principle of no taxation without representation, 146 00:17:59.520 --> 00:18:08.040 Virginians had moved on to no legislation without representation. 147 00:18:08.040 --> 00:18:13.260 During this debate, Virginians developed the great constitutional arguments, which they 148 00:18:13.260 --> 00:18:19.880 were to use effectively a few years later to justify rebellion, and it started Patrick 149 00:18:19.880 --> 00:18:28.680 Henry on his eloquent and outspoken defiance of British authority in America. 150 00:18:28.680 --> 00:18:35.920 Nullifying the two-penny acts by the Crown irritated the Virginians in many ways. It 151 00:18:35.920 --> 00:18:43.560 involved using royal power to annul a law popular in the colony. It attempted to impose 152 00:18:43.560 --> 00:18:50.480 suspension clauses to restrict further Virginian legislation. It gave rise to the Parsons' 153 00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:59.240 call for rendering such laws initially null and void. It rendered obnoxious to moderate 154 00:18:59.240 --> 00:19:06.320 low church Virginia an influential portion of the Anglican clergy devoted to high church 155 00:19:06.320 --> 00:19:13.320 and it recalled the Episcopal schemes of the leaders of the Church of England. Furthermore, 156 00:19:16.240 --> 00:19:23.240 the Parsons' Cause polarized Virginian opinion, aligning the Anglican and dissenting laity 157 00:19:23.400 --> 00:19:30.400 of Virginia against the reactionary wing of the local Anglican clergy, the English Church 158 00:19:31.600 --> 00:19:33.520 and the Crown itself. 159 00:19:33.520 --> 00:19:38.920 The Parsons' cause now rested on Kam's appeal to the Privy Council. 160 00:19:38.920 --> 00:19:46.680 To combat Kam's case, the Virginia Assembly's Committee of Correspondence in July 1764 prepared 161 00:19:46.680 --> 00:19:52.680 argumentation against Kam. The main brief was drawn up by Committee member Robert Carter 162 00:19:52.680 --> 00:19:58.720 Nicholas of Williamsburg, who had been chief defense lawyer against Kam before the General 163 00:19:58.720 --> 00:20:14.720 and by George Wythe of Williamsburg. The case dragged on unresolved until the end of 1766 when the Privy Council dismissed Cam's appeal on a legal technicality. 164 00:20:14.720 --> 00:20:24.880 The Parsons' cause was ended, but even then, unclearly and inconclusively, it left a significant 165 00:20:24.880 --> 00:20:30.880 Legacy of Opposition and Hostility by Virginians to the Crown.