WEBVTT NOTE 30. The Stamp Act Congress 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.320 Volume 3, Chapter 30, The Stamp Act Congress 2 00:00:05.320 --> 00:00:12.400 The major effort of official protest was the Stamp Act Congress, called in June by the 3 00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:18.900 Massachusetts House at the behest of James Otis and the Boston Town Meeting. 4 00:00:18.900 --> 00:00:25.120 The Congress, which met in New York City on October 7, consisted of delegates from each 5 00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:33.680 of the colonial assemblies, with the exception of those of Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia, 6 00:00:33.680 --> 00:00:39.800 whose governors prevented the assemblies from meeting, and of New Hampshire, which declined 7 00:00:39.800 --> 00:00:41.440 to attend. 8 00:00:41.440 --> 00:00:46.300 Delaware and New Jersey met the same obstruction from their governors, but their assemblymen 9 00:00:46.300 --> 00:00:52.440 defied the governor by meeting informally and selecting delegates anyway. 10 00:00:52.440 --> 00:01:00.000 All in all, twenty-seven delegates from nine colonies attended this early example of united 11 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:03.480 inter-colonial resistance. 12 00:01:03.480 --> 00:01:07.360 The delegates to the Stamp Act Congress were as follows. 13 00:01:07.360 --> 00:01:16.360 Massachusetts, James Otis Jr., Timothy Ruggles, and Oliver Partridge, Rhode Island, Henry Ward 14 00:01:16.360 --> 00:01:25.460 and Metcalf Bowler, Connecticut, Aliphelet Dyer, William Samuel Johnson and Davand Rowland, 15 00:01:25.460 --> 00:01:34.740 New York, Robert R. Livingston, Philip Livingston, William Bayard, John Krueger and Leonard Lispenard, 16 00:01:34.740 --> 00:01:43.760 New Jersey, Robert Ogden, Joseph Gordon and Hendrick Fisher, Pennsylvania, John Dickinson, 17 00:01:43.760 --> 00:01:54.240 George Bryan and John Morton, Delaware, Thomas McKean and Cesar Rodney, Maryland, Edward Tillman, 18 00:01:54.240 --> 00:02:01.520 Thomas Ringgold and William Murdoch, South Carolina, Christopher Gadsden, Thomas Lynch 19 00:02:01.520 --> 00:02:07.760 and John Rutledge. Massachusetts could have been expected to give the leadership to the Congress, 20 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:15.520 Otis, but its delegation consisted of trimmers and renegades to the colonial cause. Otis 21 00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:21.040 was in one of his conservative phases, having recently called for British troops to put 22 00:02:21.040 --> 00:02:28.720 down rebellion. Ruggles and Partridge's election had been craftily engineered by Governor Bernard, 23 00:02:28.720 --> 00:02:36.080 and this manipulation paid off when Ruggles was chosen as chairman of the Stamp Act Congress. 24 00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:41.560 Ruggles had secretly agreed with Bernard to try to bend the Congress to ask England for 25 00:02:41.560 --> 00:02:48.700 repeal solely on pragmatic economic grounds and to recommend in the meanwhile passive 26 00:02:48.700 --> 00:02:54.960 submission to the Stamp Act. Fortunately for colonial liberty, Ruggles was not able to 27 00:02:54.960 --> 00:03:01.140 prevent and cripple the movement for colonial resistance. The first struggle in the Congress 28 00:03:01.140 --> 00:03:08.020 was waged over a declaration of principles which occupied the delegates for 12 days. 29 00:03:08.020 --> 00:03:13.100 Over the bulk of the principles there was general agreement, the right to be taxed only 30 00:03:13.100 --> 00:03:21.500 by one's own representatives, the impracticality of any American representation in Parliament, 31 00:03:21.500 --> 00:03:28.280 the inherent right of trial by jury, and the evils and invasions of rights committed by 32 00:03:28.280 --> 00:03:30.240 the Stamp Act. 33 00:03:30.240 --> 00:03:36.300 The big struggle was waged over the definition of the scope of Parliament's authority over 34 00:03:36.300 --> 00:03:43.920 the colonies. All the delegates privately admitted that Parliament had the authority to regulate 35 00:03:43.920 --> 00:03:50.480 colonial trade. But the radical liberals, led by Christopher Gadsden and Thomas Lynch 36 00:03:50.480 --> 00:03:57.480 of South Carolina, strongly objected to any explicit admission of parliamentary authority. 37 00:03:57.480 --> 00:04:04.300 Party. Such admission might leave a loophole for implied consent to such external parliamentary 38 00:04:04.300 --> 00:04:11.600 taxation as the Sugar Act. The first draft of the Congress's declaration, composed by 39 00:04:11.600 --> 00:04:20.220 Dickinson, pledged colonial obligation to all acts of Parliament, not inconsistent with 40 00:04:20.220 --> 00:04:26.100 the rights and liberties of the colonist. But Gadson insisted throughout on taking a 41 00:04:26.100 --> 00:04:32.580 to stand on the broad and common ground of those natural and inherent rights that all 42 00:04:32.580 --> 00:04:40.280 Americans possessed, not only as Englishmen, but as men. A second Dickinson draft then 43 00:04:40.280 --> 00:04:48.780 changed rights and liberties of the colonist to the principles of freedom, in an attempt 44 00:04:48.780 --> 00:04:55.200 to appease the radicals. But here, too, the radicals saw that such phrasing would commit 45 00:04:55.200 --> 00:05:02.720 the colonists to obey all parliamentary legislation that did not violate principles that remained 46 00:05:02.720 --> 00:05:11.360 highly vague. The final wording, then, only committed the Americans to all-do subordination 47 00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:19.640 to Parliament, which of course conceded nothing to England since the word do remained undefined. 48 00:05:19.640 --> 00:05:24.720 This solution was bitterly opposed by the ultra-conservatives in the delegation, especially 49 00:05:24.720 --> 00:05:30.400 by Ruggles, Robert Ogden, Speaker of the New Jersey Assembly, William Samuel Johnson of 50 00:05:30.400 --> 00:05:37.400 Connecticut, and Robert R. Livingston of New York. Ruggles and Ogden, indeed, went to the 51 00:05:37.400 --> 00:05:43.920 length of refusing to sign any of the proceedings of the Stamp Act Congress. The next step 52 00:05:43.920 --> 00:05:50.920 for the Congress was to draw up petitions of protest to England based on its declaration. 53 00:05:50.920 --> 00:05:56.880 Gadsen and the radicals urged that no petition be sent to parliament, as this would imply 54 00:05:56.880 --> 00:06:04.220 an admission of parliamentary authority, but the others would not go that far, and Gadsen 55 00:06:04.220 --> 00:06:09.600 could be happy in knowing that the main radical point, no explicit admission of parliamentary 56 00:06:09.600 --> 00:06:17.800 authority, had been carried. The petitions were drawn up and approved in only four days. 57 00:06:17.800 --> 00:06:23.280 By late October, the Stamp Act Congress had been concluded. 58 00:06:23.280 --> 00:06:28.920 Every one of the colonial assemblies, even those that had been absent, hastened to approve 59 00:06:28.920 --> 00:06:35.500 the actions of the Congress, and Ruggles and Ogden were censured by their respective assemblies 60 00:06:35.500 --> 00:06:37.680 for not going along. 61 00:06:37.680 --> 00:06:43.520 Ogden, furthermore, was burned in effigy in almost every town in New Jersey, and was forced 62 00:06:43.520 --> 00:06:46.600 to resign his seat in the assembly. 63 00:06:46.600 --> 00:06:52.620 Only the Virginia House of Burgesses, prevented from meeting by the governor, could not meet 64 00:06:52.620 --> 00:06:59.840 to approve the Congress's resolved, but it had made its position clear months before. 65 00:06:59.840 --> 00:07:05.200 It must be noted, however, that the radicals were not able to generate a call for open 66 00:07:05.200 --> 00:07:13.200 resistance by the Congress. Rhode Island remained alone in this courageous stand, nor with Gadsden 67 00:07:13.200 --> 00:07:21.120 In the Congress's petition, a position grounded on natural human rights, rather than one confined 68 00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:23.880 to the mere rights of Britons. 69 00:07:23.880 --> 00:07:30.560 Of the colonial resolves, only the Assemblies of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts expanded 70 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:35.880 their groundwork to include these libertarian natural rights. 71 00:07:35.880 --> 00:07:43.180 Pennsylvania referred to the natural rights of mankind, which later helped form the groundwork 72 00:07:43.180 --> 00:07:51.860 By far the most eloquent statement of the natural rights position was the Massachusetts 73 00:07:51.860 --> 00:08:01.180 Resolve of October 29. These logical and incisively libertarian resolutions were drawn up by Sam 74 00:08:01.180 --> 00:08:08.460 Adams, who had replaced Thatcher in the Massachusetts Assembly. Squarely in the tradition of John 75 00:08:08.460 --> 00:08:15.460 On Locke's Essay on Civil Government, Adams began by explicitly grounding British rights 76 00:08:15.460 --> 00:08:24.960 on the law of God in nature and on the common rights of mankind. Therefore, Adams continued, 77 00:08:24.960 --> 00:08:32.220 the people of Massachusetts are unalienably entitled to those essential rights in common 78 00:08:32.220 --> 00:08:39.580 with all men, and that no law of society can, consistent with the law of God and nature, 79 00:08:39.580 --> 00:08:48.260 divest them of those rights. Crucial to these natural and inalienable rights was the right 80 00:08:48.260 --> 00:08:58.020 of property, resolved that no man can justly take the property of another without his consent. 81 00:08:58.020 --> 00:09:04.900 And from this Adams presumed to derive the right of representation in Levine, Texas.