WEBVTT NOTE 31. Ignoring the Stamp Act 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.240 volume 3 chapter 31 ignoring the stamp tax immobilizing the distribution of stamps 2 00:00:08.240 --> 00:00:13.840 supplemented by official protest to britain could only be the first step in the people's 3 00:00:13.840 --> 00:00:23.360 nullification of the stamp act for once the act went into effect in november 1765 the colonist 4 00:00:23.360 --> 00:00:30.320 The first, devoid of stamped paper, faced a critical choice, either to carry on normal 5 00:00:30.320 --> 00:00:38.740 transactions as if the Stamp Act did not exist, or to stop all business so as not to violate 6 00:00:38.740 --> 00:00:40.240 the law. 7 00:00:40.240 --> 00:00:47.240 The latter, the conservative path, avoided any breaking of the law, but would have meant 8 00:00:47.240 --> 00:00:52.880 and a suicidal stoppage of trade and of the courts that would have quickly brought the 9 00:00:52.880 --> 00:00:59.600 colonists to their knees. Many of the royal governors, gravely underestimating the fighting 10 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:06.600 qualities of the resistance movement, confidently expected the latter result. They could not 11 00:01:06.600 --> 00:01:13.600 dream that the colonists would make open defiance of the Stamp Act a continuing way of life. 12 00:01:13.600 --> 00:01:20.160 Thus, as the enforcement date drew near, Governor Bernard smugly expected that famine would 13 00:01:20.160 --> 00:01:23.680 soon bring Massachusetts to a standstill. 14 00:01:23.680 --> 00:01:29.720 Jared Ingersoll calmly predicted that the distresses which the want of the stamped papers 15 00:01:29.720 --> 00:01:36.760 will occasion will put the people to desire to introduce and distribute them. 16 00:01:36.760 --> 00:01:43.400 But having disposed of the stamp masters, the colonists were in no mood to submit meekly 17 00:01:43.400 --> 00:01:49.160 to Economic Suicide, rather than defy the hated stamp tax. 18 00:01:49.160 --> 00:01:54.400 For the work of nullifying the Stamp Act, ordinary business transactions within the 19 00:01:54.400 --> 00:01:58.040 colonies presented no problem. 20 00:01:58.040 --> 00:02:02.800 Contracts and exchanges could be made with the simple refusal of bothering about the 21 00:02:02.800 --> 00:02:05.240 Stamp Act's existence. 22 00:02:05.240 --> 00:02:11.340 The major problem in domestic business was faced by the newspapers, who were in an exposed 23 00:02:11.340 --> 00:02:13.000 position. 24 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:19.000 As November approached, the press reluctantly prepared to close up in obedience to the Stamp 25 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:25.960 Law, but their courage was buoyed by threats, especially in New York and Boston, to the 26 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:32.800 person and the property of the printers should they dare thus surrender to the law. 27 00:02:32.800 --> 00:02:38.920 The pattern of press courage was set on November 1 with the bold appearance of the New London 28 00:02:38.920 --> 00:02:53.920 The Great Radical Organs of Liberty, The Boston Gazette and The New York Gazette, or Weekly Post Boy, swiftly followed suit. 29 00:02:53.920 --> 00:02:58.920 John Holt, editor of the New York paper, emblazoned on his newspaper the motto, 30 00:02:58.920 --> 00:03:07.520 Auto, Liberty, Property and No Stamps, which was soon picked up by other leading papers. 31 00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:14.200 Other northern newspapers continued to publish, first hedging with such partial disguises 32 00:03:14.200 --> 00:03:21.800 as changing their titles or leaving out the printer's names, but soon they resumed publication 33 00:03:21.800 --> 00:03:24.160 full blast. 34 00:03:24.160 --> 00:03:30.460 Only in the South did the bulk of the press display cowardice by suspending operations rather 35 00:03:30.460 --> 00:03:33.640 than publishing unstamped. 36 00:03:33.640 --> 00:03:38.280 In some cases, courage returned and printing resumed. 37 00:03:38.280 --> 00:03:45.040 For example, the Annapolis-Maryland Gazette and the Williamsburg-Virginia Gazette. 38 00:03:45.040 --> 00:03:50.320 However, the publisher of the latter paper was not trusted by the liberals, who induced 39 00:03:50.320 --> 00:04:06.320 The New Unstamped Newspaper 40 00:04:06.320 --> 00:04:15.320 In Wilmington, North Carolina, the radicals turned to violent methods of persuasion. 41 00:04:15.320 --> 00:04:23.240 A mob forced the publisher of the North Carolina Gazette to resume publication unstamped, at 42 00:04:23.240 --> 00:04:29.200 the hazard of life, being maimed or have his printing office destroyed. 43 00:04:29.200 --> 00:04:36.880 The publisher, however, found himself whipsawed between two masters, the governor and counsel, 44 00:04:36.880 --> 00:04:42.600 finally removing him as public printer for inflammatory expressions. 45 00:04:42.600 --> 00:04:49.320 The only southern paper that defied the Stamp Act from the start was the Georgia Gazette, 46 00:04:49.320 --> 00:04:54.920 which however was closed by pressure from the royal governor in late November. Internal 47 00:04:54.920 --> 00:05:02.560 transactions and even the press thus successfully defied the Stamp law. The real problem for 48 00:05:02.560 --> 00:05:09.280 the colonist was transactions necessarily involving government agencies, which could 49 00:05:09.280 --> 00:05:20.200 The most vital question was foreign trade, on which many economic activities, especially 50 00:05:20.200 --> 00:05:24.400 in the port towns, depended absolutely. 51 00:05:24.400 --> 00:05:31.480 For merchants needed clearances from the royal customs officials to ship out of port. 52 00:05:31.480 --> 00:05:37.160 Without such clearance, they were liable to seizure on the high seas by the British Navy, 53 00:05:37.160 --> 00:05:44.280 which did not have to worry about colonial opposition or rebellious activity on the Atlantic. 54 00:05:44.280 --> 00:05:51.360 Domestic transactions requiring government stamps presented a much lighter problem. Marriages, 55 00:05:51.360 --> 00:05:58.720 wills and diplomas could be and were informally recorded, and criminal court procedures did 56 00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:04.820 not require stamped paper. Furthermore, a positive advantage accrued to the colonists. 57 00:06:04.820 --> 00:06:10.140 The closing of the hated Admiralty Courts, which were not supposed to function without 58 00:06:10.140 --> 00:06:11.860 stamps. 59 00:06:11.860 --> 00:06:15.260 Only the civil courts posed a problem for the colonies. 60 00:06:15.260 --> 00:06:21.500 On the crucial question of foreign trade, which could make or break the resistance movement, 61 00:06:21.500 --> 00:06:27.280 the colonists could either greatly increase their smuggling operations or put pressure 62 00:06:27.280 --> 00:06:33.180 on the royal customs officials to grant the merchants clearance papers. 63 00:06:33.180 --> 00:06:55.180 The Great Trading Center of Boston particularly had to face the port problem. The Assembly had first thought to make unstamped trade legal on the ground that no stamps existed, and guaranteeing to indemnify officers who might be penalized by Britain for such action. 64 00:06:55.180 --> 00:07:01.460 But the assembly shrewdly decided that such a stand would compromise the cause, for it 65 00:07:01.460 --> 00:07:08.860 would concede the legality of the Stamp Act if there were a stamp master in the colony. 66 00:07:08.860 --> 00:07:16.260 Instead, the Massachusetts assembly, unwilling to go so far as to encourage open resistance, 67 00:07:16.260 --> 00:07:23.320 left the whole matter to the Sons of Liberty, who were quite willing to assume the responsibility. 68 00:07:23.320 --> 00:07:29.860 The first step was to gain time, and this the Boston merchants, as well as the merchants 69 00:07:29.860 --> 00:07:36.820 of all the colonies, did by putting every possible ship out to sea before the November 70 00:07:36.820 --> 00:07:38.820 1 deadline. 71 00:07:38.820 --> 00:07:44.920 In the meanwhile, the royal officials, the governor, controller, collector of customs, 72 00:07:44.920 --> 00:07:50.340 advocate general of the admiralty court, attorney general, and surveyor general of the Customs 73 00:07:50.340 --> 00:07:56.860 Customs of New England engaged in a complex, farce comedy of passing the buck in deciding 74 00:07:56.860 --> 00:08:03.280 on clearance policy for the port. Cutting through this confusion were the Sons of Liberty, 75 00:08:03.280 --> 00:08:08.420 which put intense pressure on the Customs collectors and threatened to storm the Customs 76 00:08:08.420 --> 00:08:16.060 House with a mob by December 17. Then the radicals showed their power by again forcing 77 00:08:16.060 --> 00:08:21.340 A Public Resignation from Stamp Master Andrew Oliver 78 00:08:21.340 --> 00:08:28.260 A mob of 2000, such as pressured Oliver, could not be ignored, and the customs officials 79 00:08:28.260 --> 00:08:35.440 promptly capitulated, agreeing to provide ship clearances without stamps. 80 00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:41.980 On the night of December 17, the Sons of Liberty celebrated their highly significant victory, 81 00:08:41.980 --> 00:08:47.780 And it was particularly fitting that the brilliant organizer of the radicals, Sam Adams, was 82 00:08:47.780 --> 00:08:50.780 feted as the guest of honor. 83 00:08:50.780 --> 00:08:56.400 The earliest and easiest resolution of the problem came in Virginia, which had the good 84 00:08:56.400 --> 00:09:02.260 fortune of having a liberal and understanding surveyor general in Peter Randolph of the 85 00:09:02.260 --> 00:09:04.780 eminent Virginia family. 86 00:09:04.780 --> 00:09:11.660 As early as November 2, Randolph advised all the customs collectors to clear all vessels 87 00:09:11.660 --> 00:09:17.380 Customs Without Stamped Paper Governor Fokker of Virginia was also intelligent 88 00:09:17.380 --> 00:09:22.620 about the issue and quickly seconded Randolph's stand. 89 00:09:22.620 --> 00:09:26.320 The customs officials in Rhode Island promptly followed. 90 00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:32.740 The merchants of Philadelphia used an ingenious device of adding clearances to partially loaded 91 00:09:32.740 --> 00:09:39.940 cargo ships before November to extend their time of grace through that month. 92 00:09:39.940 --> 00:09:44.260 Collector John Penn induced the collector to go along with the scheme. 93 00:09:44.260 --> 00:09:49.980 By early December, however, the Philadelphia harbor was filled with vessels, and the customs 94 00:09:49.980 --> 00:09:54.980 officials faced squarely the problem of clearances. 95 00:09:54.980 --> 00:10:00.380 Riding to England, the Philadelphia collectors admitted their fear of the populace should 96 00:10:00.380 --> 00:10:06.340 they enforce the Stamp Act, and they soon began to issue ship clearances. 97 00:10:06.340 --> 00:10:12.340 In a few days, the Philadelphia breakthrough was enormously widened by Charles Stewart, 98 00:10:12.340 --> 00:10:18.780 Surveyor General of Customs for the Eastern Middle District, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania 99 00:10:18.780 --> 00:10:20.780 and Delaware. 100 00:10:20.780 --> 00:10:27.820 Stewart authorized all the customs officials to issue ship clearances without stamps, and 101 00:10:27.820 --> 00:10:32.700 again gave the threat of popular force as his justification. 102 00:10:32.700 --> 00:10:37.780 New York Custom Officials were especially relieved. They had suffered the growing pressure 103 00:10:37.780 --> 00:10:45.580 of the populace, particularly of the seaman, unemployed by the stoppage of trade. New England's 104 00:10:45.580 --> 00:10:53.060 ports were in effect blasted open by the surrender of the Boston Customs officials in mid-December. 105 00:10:53.060 --> 00:11:00.180 Duncan Stewart, collector at New London, Connecticut, was forced to give way a few days before Boston. 106 00:11:00.180 --> 00:11:05.780 New Haven, Connecticut and Portsmouth, New Hampshire followed a few days after. There 107 00:11:05.780 --> 00:11:11.740 was a little resistance by customs officials at Portsmouth, but this was arrested by a 108 00:11:11.740 --> 00:11:18.880 mob demonstration on December 26, and there was no clearance trouble after that. Except 109 00:11:18.880 --> 00:11:25.500 for Virginia, the main customs difficulties were experienced in the South. Maryland did 110 00:11:25.500 --> 00:11:32.020 did not finally issue clearances without stamps at the main port of Annapolis until the end 111 00:11:32.020 --> 00:11:38.240 of January. The courageous Peter Randolph tried his best to open up the Carolinas as 112 00:11:38.240 --> 00:11:45.160 he had Virginia, but he was foiled for a long time by the zeal of the governors and local 113 00:11:45.160 --> 00:11:52.160 customs officials. In South Carolina, Randolph joined with the assembly, the merchants, the 114 00:11:52.160 --> 00:11:58.160 and the rest of the people to battle the stubborn Governor William Bull. 115 00:11:58.160 --> 00:12:11.160 Finally, the resigned stamp master Caleb Lloyd reaffirmed his resignation and began to issue certificates of unavailability of stamps to attach to clearance papers. 116 00:12:11.160 --> 00:12:17.160 By mid-February, ships were sailing legally from South Carolina without stamps. 117 00:12:17.160 --> 00:12:24.500 Meanwhile, North Carolina's reactionary governor, William Tryon, tried a particularly shrewd 118 00:12:24.500 --> 00:12:29.680 maneuver in attempting to induce submission to the Stamp Act. 119 00:12:29.680 --> 00:12:36.280 While blocking any meeting of the assembly, Tryon convened a private meeting of fifty 120 00:12:36.280 --> 00:12:42.880 leading planters and other gentlemen of the colony and tried to sell them on abandoning 121 00:12:42.880 --> 00:12:50.680 Resistance. Assuring them that he personally strongly opposed the Stamp Act, Tryon urged 122 00:12:50.680 --> 00:12:57.500 them to submit to the tax and enjoy untrammeled trade, while he personally would appeal to 123 00:12:57.500 --> 00:13:03.840 Britain for special favors for North Carolina. As a further inducement, he promised to pay 124 00:13:03.840 --> 00:13:11.960 personally for the cost of the stamps required on papers issued by him. The leading citizens, 125 00:13:11.960 --> 00:13:20.260 offer, spurned this shrewd appeal to ease and short-run cupidity, and firmly refused 126 00:13:20.260 --> 00:13:21.960 the offer. 127 00:13:21.960 --> 00:13:27.240 North Carolina suffered from closed ports until February, when the customs officials 128 00:13:27.240 --> 00:13:29.440 finally gave in. 129 00:13:29.440 --> 00:13:36.480 The one exception was the port of Cape Fear, in extreme southern North Carolina. 130 00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:42.240 There are particularly reactionary set of royal officials cracked down rigorously to 131 00:13:42.240 --> 00:13:44.440 enforce the Stamp Act. 132 00:13:44.440 --> 00:13:51.280 Captain Jacob Blob of the Royal Navy had had the gall in early January to seize several 133 00:13:51.280 --> 00:13:57.340 vessels coming into Cape Fear because their clearance papers officially issued in other 134 00:13:57.340 --> 00:14:00.960 American ports were unstamped. 135 00:14:00.960 --> 00:14:07.120 When William Dry, collector at Brunswick, North Carolina, proposed to present the confiscated 136 00:14:07.120 --> 00:14:15.400 vessels at the Halifax Vice Admiralty Court, a group of citizens from Brunswick, New Hanover 137 00:14:15.400 --> 00:14:23.840 and Bladen counties gathered at Wilmington on February 18 to form an association to prevent 138 00:14:23.840 --> 00:14:27.240 operation of the Stamp Act. 139 00:14:27.240 --> 00:14:33.680 The Association quickly amassed a thousand men and marched on Brunswick, capturing control 140 00:14:33.680 --> 00:14:36.160 of the town and the port. 141 00:14:36.160 --> 00:14:42.520 Seizing the recalcitrant William Dry, the Association searched for the ship's papers, 142 00:14:42.520 --> 00:14:48.760 and won from Dry and Captain Lobb the release of the three vessels and a promise to open 143 00:14:48.760 --> 00:14:51.120 the port from then on. 144 00:14:51.120 --> 00:14:57.480 In February 21, the citizens rounded up all the court and customs officials and forced 145 00:14:57.480 --> 00:15:01.960 them to swear an oath not to execute the Stamp Act. 146 00:15:01.960 --> 00:15:08.240 North Carolina, at last, was free of Stamp Act tyranny, and the happy citizens sailed 147 00:15:08.240 --> 00:15:12.000 back to Wilmington on the liberated ships. 148 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:18.520 Georgia, the southernmost of the rebellious colonies, also had its troubles. 149 00:15:18.520 --> 00:15:24.580 George allowed ships to clear without stamps until the end of November, when Governor James 150 00:15:24.580 --> 00:15:32.580 Wright and the customs officials closed the ports. Governor Wright persisted in his dictatorial 151 00:15:32.580 --> 00:15:39.480 course despite the pleas of merchants and shippers. When George Angus distributed stamped 152 00:15:39.480 --> 00:15:46.440 paper during his brief term of office in January, the Savannah merchants earned the hatred and 153 00:15:46.440 --> 00:15:53.520 and contempt of all other merchants and colonists for selling out to the stamp tax by applying 154 00:15:53.520 --> 00:15:55.640 for stamped paper. 155 00:15:55.640 --> 00:16:02.160 The rural people throughout Georgia, similarly outraged, gathered in arms six hundred strong 156 00:16:02.160 --> 00:16:08.060 on January 27, ready for an angry march on Savannah. 157 00:16:08.060 --> 00:16:13.160 For Governor Wright, too, discretion proved to be the better part of valor. 158 00:16:13.160 --> 00:16:18.360 On hearing news of the threatened march, Wright hurriedly shipped the papers onto a British 159 00:16:18.360 --> 00:16:25.260 vessel where they were effectively out of circulation. Very shortly, Savannah was operating 160 00:16:25.260 --> 00:16:32.680 without stamps. Thus, by the end of February, even the most recalcitrant officials in the 161 00:16:32.680 --> 00:16:38.760 South were all permitting open ports, while the northern ports had all been opened by 162 00:16:38.760 --> 00:16:41.760 by the end of 1765. 163 00:16:41.760 --> 00:16:48.240 If the customs officials could be successfully intimidated, what about the British naval officers 164 00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:53.400 beyond the reach of colonial harassment, at least while at sea? 165 00:16:53.400 --> 00:16:59.220 Generally, the colonists found that the British Navy did not much bother to enforce the Stamp 166 00:16:59.220 --> 00:17:00.220 Act. 167 00:17:00.220 --> 00:17:08.320 Astute entrepreneurs in Philadelphia began to issue insurance policies to shippers against 168 00:17:08.320 --> 00:17:14.940 British seizure at the low rate of two and one-half percent, thus indicating the lax 169 00:17:14.940 --> 00:17:22.760 state of enforcement. Moreover, American shippers soon began to find that they could land unmolested 170 00:17:22.760 --> 00:17:29.840 without stamped papers at English-run ports that themselves were obeying the stamp rules 171 00:17:29.840 --> 00:17:37.880 including ports in Quebec, Nova Scotia, Florida, the West Indies and even England itself. During 172 00:17:37.880 --> 00:17:42.840 In the period of the temporary closing of American ports, illegal smuggling increased 173 00:17:42.840 --> 00:17:48.760 greatly, thereby generating further contempt for English authority. 174 00:17:48.760 --> 00:17:55.120 Indeed, the customs officials began to issue clearances partly out of fear that they would 175 00:17:55.120 --> 00:17:58.980 soon be ignored completely by the colonists. 176 00:17:58.980 --> 00:18:05.980 The Philadelphia officials wrote perceptively that we must now submit to necessity and do 177 00:18:05.980 --> 00:18:12.420 Do without them, the stamped papers, or else in a little time people will learn to do without 178 00:18:12.420 --> 00:18:15.140 either them or us. 179 00:18:15.140 --> 00:18:20.860 Once in a while a rigorous naval officer persisted in plaguing the colonist. 180 00:18:20.860 --> 00:18:27.540 Captain Archibald Kennedy, for one, insisted on stopping all vessels leaving New York even 181 00:18:27.540 --> 00:18:34.060 after the port was officially opened and blocking the path of any whose clearance papers were 182 00:18:34.060 --> 00:18:35.820 unstamped. 183 00:18:35.820 --> 00:18:42.840 As Kennedy allowed all entering ships to proceed, New York City soon accumulated a large population 184 00:18:42.840 --> 00:18:50.640 of discontented, unemployed seamen ready to rebel against the laws of trade. One reason 185 00:18:50.640 --> 00:18:56.540 for the lax naval enforcement, ironically enough, was the forced closing of the admiralty 186 00:18:56.540 --> 00:19:04.340 courts for lack of stamps. Only the Halifax court was now open. With these courts closed, 187 00:19:04.340 --> 00:19:10.380 The naval officers were reluctant to detain ships for any length of time. The civil courts 188 00:19:10.380 --> 00:19:15.500 were not opened so quickly, but then the need was not nearly as pressing as in the case 189 00:19:15.500 --> 00:19:21.940 of the ports. We have seen the positive advantage of the closed admiralty courts as well as 190 00:19:21.940 --> 00:19:28.660 the informal substitutes for domestic legal transactions. Moreover, as long as the civil 191 00:19:28.660 --> 00:19:33.940 While courts remained closed, English merchants could not collect on the substantial sum of 192 00:19:33.940 --> 00:19:37.780 debts owed them by Americans. 193 00:19:37.780 --> 00:19:43.860 This blockage could only lead British merchants to put pressure on Parliament to repeal the 194 00:19:43.860 --> 00:19:45.700 Stamp Act. 195 00:19:45.700 --> 00:19:52.300 George Washington, Richard Henry Lee and other Virginia tobacco planters, generally in heavy 196 00:19:52.300 --> 00:19:58.300 to English merchants saw the importance of this method of creating pressure. 197 00:19:58.300 --> 00:20:04.300 As a result, the pressure to reopen the courts was far less than that to reopen the ports. 198 00:20:04.300 --> 00:20:10.300 Pressure for reopening the courts came mainly from the Sons of Liberty and other radicals 199 00:20:10.300 --> 00:20:16.300 who wanted the opening to symbolize judicial repudiation of the Stamp Act. 200 00:20:16.300 --> 00:20:20.300 Thus, as soon as the ports were opened in Massachusetts, 201 00:20:20.300 --> 00:20:27.300 The Massachusetts Council was openly warned, open your courts and let justice prevail, 202 00:20:32.020 --> 00:20:39.020 open your offices and let not trade fail, for if these men in power will not act, we'll 203 00:20:40.180 --> 00:20:47.180 get some that will, in actual fact. This popular pressure was succeeded by arguments by leading 204 00:20:47.180 --> 00:21:10.300 When Parliament heirs declared Adams boldly, it need not be obeyed, and it had no right 205 00:21:10.300 --> 00:21:13.620 to impose taxes on the colonies. 206 00:21:13.620 --> 00:21:17.980 James Otis Jr. this time backed the Adams' view. 207 00:21:17.980 --> 00:21:23.060 The Council wordly passed the buck to the judges of the colony attempting to wash its 208 00:21:23.060 --> 00:21:26.020 hands of the entire problem. 209 00:21:26.020 --> 00:21:31.840 The Massachusetts Superior Court was not scheduled to convene until March, but two lower courts 210 00:21:31.840 --> 00:21:37.900 in Suffolk County, containing Boston, were supposed to meet in January. 211 00:21:37.900 --> 00:21:43.340 The probate court of Suffolk County was being held up by Thomas Hutchinson, judge of the 212 00:21:43.340 --> 00:21:52.160 Hutchinson was soon told that his only viable alternatives were to do business without stamps, 213 00:21:52.160 --> 00:22:00.180 to quit the country, to resign the office, or keeping the stamp-less court closed. 214 00:22:00.180 --> 00:22:05.120 It was made clear was not a healthy path for Hutchinson to choose. 215 00:22:05.120 --> 00:22:11.100 Faced with this threat, Hutchinson consented to have his more pliable brother Foster replace 216 00:22:11.100 --> 00:22:37.420 The House passed a resolution to open all the courts of the justice by the overwhelming 217 00:22:37.420 --> 00:22:39.580 vote of 81 to 5. 218 00:22:39.580 --> 00:22:46.900 But again, the Mestafelian Thomas Hutchinson blocked its passage in the Council. 219 00:22:46.900 --> 00:22:53.860 The radical Boston Gazette, spearheaded by Otis, denounced Hutchinson bitterly, but the 220 00:22:53.860 --> 00:22:59.940 Council, not wanting to take any positive stand, also blocked the proposal of Governor 221 00:22:59.940 --> 00:23:04.180 Bernard to arrest Otis for his seditious essay. 222 00:23:04.180 --> 00:23:10.340 Finally, the Council again passed the buck to the judges of the colony, who in turn passed 223 00:23:10.340 --> 00:23:13.500 it over to the lawyers to decide. 224 00:23:13.500 --> 00:23:19.980 Faced with such responsibility, the lawyers, including Otis, began to stall. 225 00:23:19.980 --> 00:23:26.460 After a token hearing of one case in the crucial Superior Court during March, the Court adjourned 226 00:23:26.460 --> 00:23:34.460 without taking action, to await passively the now rumored imminent repeal of the Stamp Act. 227 00:23:34.460 --> 00:23:40.460 Virginia displayed the same vacillation and hesitancy in opening its courts. 228 00:23:40.460 --> 00:23:47.460 Edmund Pendleton, a judge in Caroline County and one of Virginia's most respected lawyers, 229 00:23:47.460 --> 00:23:54.460 urged keeping the courts open on the same hard-hitting grounds as the Boston Libertarians. 230 00:23:54.460 --> 00:24:08.460 Justice Littleton Eyre of the Northampton County Court took the same stand, but the other judges were far less courageous and they dithered along without taking the decisive step. 231 00:24:08.460 --> 00:24:17.460 The Virginia lawyers, tough in talk and in theory, also balked at taking the public step of reopening the courts. 232 00:24:17.460 --> 00:24:24.780 As a result, the courts of Virginia, as in Massachusetts, largely remained closed, with 233 00:24:24.780 --> 00:24:28.060 the exception of Akamak County. 234 00:24:28.060 --> 00:24:34.660 In Akamak, on the eastern shore, the courts defiantly reopened, but few other lower courts 235 00:24:34.660 --> 00:24:36.180 joined in. 236 00:24:36.180 --> 00:24:40.100 The story in most of the other colonies was much the same. 237 00:24:40.100 --> 00:24:46.460 In colony after colony, the lawyers approved the high libertarian principle of keeping 238 00:24:46.460 --> 00:24:54.100 Open in Disregard of an Invalid Stamp Tax but, timorously, continued to delay putting 239 00:24:54.100 --> 00:25:00.340 their high ideals into practice. The judges, likewise, continued to stall until the thrilling 240 00:25:00.340 --> 00:25:07.100 news of repeal of the Stamp Act reached the colonies in early April and took them all 241 00:25:07.100 --> 00:25:14.780 off the spot. This was conspicuously the case, for example, in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and 242 00:25:14.780 --> 00:25:20.260 New York. In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, however, a few lower courts managed to remain 243 00:25:20.260 --> 00:25:26.820 open. In New York, an attempt by judges of the Court of Common Pleas to reopen was harshly 244 00:25:26.820 --> 00:25:33.060 crushed by a threat of Governor Henry Moore to fire any judges who dared to open without 245 00:25:33.060 --> 00:25:40.060 stamps. The courts of South Carolina also dithered throughout the period, but by March 246 00:25:40.060 --> 00:25:45.140 Justices of the Charleston Court of Common Pleas attempted to reopen. 247 00:25:45.140 --> 00:25:50.580 They were responding to pressures by merchants, traders and their associated Sons of Liberty 248 00:25:50.580 --> 00:25:54.740 in Charleston and backed by the South Carolina Assembly. 249 00:25:54.740 --> 00:26:01.460 However, the judges were blocked in this effort by the court clerk Dougal Campbell and by 250 00:26:01.460 --> 00:26:03.660 Governor Bull. 251 00:26:03.660 --> 00:26:11.500 Among the colonies then, only four, New Hampshire, Maryland, Delaware and Rhode Island, opened 252 00:26:11.500 --> 00:26:16.700 all of their courts before the repeal came through. 253 00:26:16.700 --> 00:26:22.440 Meeting in early February, the New Hampshire Superior Court overruled the obstructionism 254 00:26:22.440 --> 00:26:29.380 of its clerk and the victory was promptly hailed by the Portsmouth Sons of Liberty. 255 00:26:29.380 --> 00:26:34.400 Some of Maryland's lower courts opened as early as November, but the superior court did 256 00:26:34.400 --> 00:26:41.900 not open until forced to do so in early April by repeated demands at a mass meeting at Annapolis 257 00:26:41.900 --> 00:26:45.940 of the Sons of Liberty from all over the colony. 258 00:26:45.940 --> 00:26:51.700 The courts of Delaware were opened in February under severe pressure from its grand jury, 259 00:26:51.700 --> 00:26:57.780 which refused to perform its task of making criminal indictments, which were not subject 260 00:26:57.780 --> 00:27:03.280 to the Stamp Tax, until the civil courts agreed to reopen. 261 00:27:03.280 --> 00:27:07.580 Little Rhode Island was unique among the colonies. 262 00:27:07.580 --> 00:27:11.520 There all the courts remained open without interruption. 263 00:27:11.520 --> 00:27:16.940 In this colony, the backbones of the judges were fortified by the assembly's pledge to 264 00:27:16.940 --> 00:27:23.640 indemnify all officials who ignored the Stamp Act, and all the courts continued happily 265 00:27:23.640 --> 00:27:25.340 to function. 266 00:27:25.340 --> 00:27:32.180 In one case before the Superior Court, the hated ex-stamp master Augustus Johnston refused 267 00:27:32.180 --> 00:27:35.900 to prosecute in his capacity as King's attorney. 268 00:27:35.900 --> 00:27:41.900 The Court expressed its contempt for British rule by replacing Johnston as Attorney General 269 00:27:41.900 --> 00:27:46.980 with Silas Downer, Secretary of the Providence, Sons of Liberty. 270 00:27:46.980 --> 00:27:52.760 While most of the colonial civil courts, especially the Superior Courts, remained closed during 271 00:27:52.760 --> 00:27:58.800 and the Stamp Act era. It is clear that legal and judicial shilly-shalling could not have 272 00:27:58.800 --> 00:28:05.840 continued forever, mounting popular pressure undoubtedly, which soon forced a general reopening 273 00:28:05.840 --> 00:28:13.320 of the courts had not repeal intervened. However, it is likely, from their attitude, that the 274 00:28:13.320 --> 00:28:20.320 judges would have proceeded timorously on the practical ground that stamps were unavailable 275 00:28:20.320 --> 00:28:25.520 rather than have taken a stand on constitutional principle.