WEBVTT

NOTE 32. Government Replaced by the Sons of Liberty

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.920
Volume 3, Chapter 32, Government Replaced by the Sons of Liberty

2
00:00:06.920 --> 00:00:13.520
The Stamp Act was, in effect, nullified throughout the period of its official enforcement in

3
00:00:13.520 --> 00:00:15.160
the colonies.

4
00:00:15.160 --> 00:00:21.400
It was nullified by the official bodies of the colonies, but even more so by the direct

5
00:00:21.400 --> 00:00:27.920
action of the people, enforcing the Stamp Masters to resign, in carrying on business

6
00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:34.400
and Trade as Usual in Defiance of the Stamp Act, and enforcing the Royal Customs officials

7
00:00:34.400 --> 00:00:42.280
to allow ports to remain open to ships without stamps. Corollary to this process of revolutionary

8
00:00:42.280 --> 00:00:48.940
mass nullification of the Stamp Act was a highly significant phenomenon that increasingly

9
00:00:48.940 --> 00:00:56.580
occurred in the colonies, a withering away of the authority of all organs of government,

10
00:00:56.580 --> 00:01:05.460
In a virtual shift to a condition of quasi-anarchism, the revolutionary situation rendered the royal

11
00:01:05.460 --> 00:01:11.060
executive impotent and the colonial assemblies ineffective.

12
00:01:11.060 --> 00:01:17.020
The judges did not usually meet, and when they did it was at the behest, rather, of

13
00:01:17.020 --> 00:01:23.460
the radical organizations of the people than of the legally constituted authority.

14
00:01:23.460 --> 00:01:30.260
In short, effective rule of the colonies past from the organs of government to voluntary

15
00:01:30.260 --> 00:01:36.540
organizations to the sons of liberty and their popular allies.

16
00:01:36.540 --> 00:01:44.260
Such a shift of rule and of majority obedience from state organs to voluntary organizations

17
00:01:44.260 --> 00:01:49.500
is certainly a hallmark of a situation of near anarchism.

18
00:01:49.500 --> 00:01:55.220
The conditions differed, however, from those of the earlier anarchism in late seventeenth

19
00:01:55.220 --> 00:01:59.340
century Pennsylvania in two ways.

20
00:01:59.340 --> 00:02:05.060
One, local governments, in this case, remained in existence.

21
00:02:05.060 --> 00:02:13.100
Two, the anarchism was not, as before, totally pacifist and devoid of all institutions of

22
00:02:13.100 --> 00:02:19.020
defensive force against criminal invasions of person or property.

23
00:02:19.020 --> 00:02:25.660
As in all revolutionary situations, the breakaway of popular allegiance to constituted government

24
00:02:25.660 --> 00:02:32.660
implied a breakdown of that government into voluntary self-governing actions by each individual.

25
00:02:34.740 --> 00:02:40.620
It was indeed voluntary cooperative action among the people without benefit of official

26
00:02:40.620 --> 00:02:47.620
sanction or of compulsory revenue from taxation that brought rule to such private organizations

27
00:02:49.020 --> 00:03:04.020
The philosophical meaning of this process has been brilliantly elucidated by the late 19th century libertarian constitutional lawyer from Boston, Lysander Spooner.

28
00:03:04.020 --> 00:03:14.020
Spooner's analysis dealing with the American Revolution in a sense applied far more aptly to the Stamp Act crisis

29
00:03:14.020 --> 00:03:22.020
in which no new governmental forms intervened to alter the course or the meaning of that crisis.

30
00:03:22.020 --> 00:03:24.020
Spooner wrote,

31
00:03:24.020 --> 00:03:31.020
The revolution was declared and accomplished by the people, acting separately as individuals,

32
00:03:31.020 --> 00:03:40.020
and exercising each his natural rights and not by their governments in the exercise of their constitutional powers.

33
00:03:40.020 --> 00:03:48.500
Each declared for himself that his own will, pleasure and discretion were the only authorities

34
00:03:48.500 --> 00:03:55.220
he had any occasion to consult in determining whether he would any longer support the government

35
00:03:55.220 --> 00:03:58.300
under which he had always lived.

36
00:03:58.300 --> 00:04:04.180
And if this action of each individual were valid and rightful, when he had so many other

37
00:04:04.180 --> 00:04:17.180
In order for other individuals to keep him company, it would have been, in the view of natural justice and right, equally valid and rightful, if he had taken the step alone.

38
00:04:17.180 --> 00:04:26.180
He had the same natural right to take up arms alone, to defend his own property against a single tax gatherer,

39
00:04:26.180 --> 00:04:31.980
that he had to take up arms in company with three million of others to defend the property

40
00:04:31.980 --> 00:04:40.620
of all against an army of tax gatherers. Thus the whole revolution turned upon, asserted,

41
00:04:40.620 --> 00:04:48.100
and in theory established, the right of each and every man, at his discretion, to release

42
00:04:48.100 --> 00:04:54.660
himself from the support of the government under which he had lived. From this spontaneous

43
00:04:54.660 --> 00:05:01.780
This repudiation of the authority of the government under which the people lived, emerged voluntary

44
00:05:01.780 --> 00:05:07.180
organizations to lead the popular struggle, and throughout the colonies they took the

45
00:05:07.180 --> 00:05:09.860
name Sons of Liberty.

46
00:05:09.860 --> 00:05:16.320
The Sons directed strategy, led the pressure of the crowd when intimidation became necessary,

47
00:05:16.320 --> 00:05:20.900
and prepared also for armed defense should the British government try to enforce its

48
00:05:20.900 --> 00:05:23.140
laws with force majeure.

49
00:05:23.140 --> 00:05:29.140
For, as the governors saw their authority crumble, it became clear that the British government

50
00:05:29.140 --> 00:05:35.860
was now faced with a fundamental choice, to abandon enforcement of the stamp tax, or to

51
00:05:35.860 --> 00:05:40.260
send an army to suppress colonial resistance.

52
00:05:40.260 --> 00:05:45.100
Open rebellion against the royal governors was very near, and they realized that they

53
00:05:45.100 --> 00:05:51.140
could not rely on the militia, which sided with the popular resistance.

54
00:05:51.140 --> 00:05:56.220
Seeing the Sons of Liberty in control of Boston, Governor Bernard was on the point of fleeing

55
00:05:56.220 --> 00:06:03.260
Massachusetts. Governor Penn revealed in mid-December that Pennsylvania was not more than one degree

56
00:06:03.260 --> 00:06:11.780
from open rebellion. And New York's Governor Colden hardly dared stir outside Fort George.

57
00:06:11.780 --> 00:06:18.180
If Colden had refused to turn over the stamps to the crowd, open war would have broken out.

58
00:06:18.180 --> 00:06:23.060
The prudent British troops knew that if the fort had fired on the people, the Sons of

59
00:06:23.060 --> 00:06:29.060
Liberty could have assembled an overwhelming force of 50,000 men from New York and New

60
00:06:29.060 --> 00:06:35.860
Jersey alone. The royal governors then kept very quiet about the stamp tax. As Governor

61
00:06:35.860 --> 00:06:42.320
William Franklin of New Jersey wrote his father, Benjamin, for any man to set himself up as

62
00:06:42.320 --> 00:06:49.120
as an advocate of the Stamp Act in the colonies is a mere piece of quixotism. The governors

63
00:06:49.120 --> 00:06:55.360
were not disposed to being quixotic. But what of the British? Would they use an army to

64
00:06:55.360 --> 00:07:01.880
enforce the tax? It was clear that the scattered army in America, not yet up to authorized

65
00:07:01.880 --> 00:07:08.040
strength, would have to be supplemented by a new army sent from England. But English

66
00:07:08.040 --> 00:07:14.080
The British threats of cramming the stamps down American throats made Americans aware

67
00:07:14.080 --> 00:07:18.200
that they must be prepared to face such a challenge.

68
00:07:18.200 --> 00:07:23.440
Accordingly, the Sons of Liberty held meetings throughout the colonies during the winter

69
00:07:23.440 --> 00:07:31.000
of 1765-66 to proclaim the defiance of the citizens.

70
00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:35.600
The meetings of the Sons of Liberty proclaimed views that were far more revolutionary than

71
00:07:35.600 --> 00:07:41.320
and those of the Colonial Assemblies. The lead was taken by the Sons of Liberty of Windham

72
00:07:41.320 --> 00:07:48.200
at New London, Connecticut. This meeting of a large assembly of the respectable populace

73
00:07:48.200 --> 00:07:57.200
of New London on December 10 frankly proclaimed an uncompromisingly revolutionary natural

74
00:07:57.200 --> 00:08:05.000
rights position, namely that every form of government rightfully founded originates from

75
00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:11.120
From the Consent of the People That whenever these bounds on government set

76
00:08:11.120 --> 00:08:17.920
by the people are exceeded, the people have a right to re-assume the exercise of that

77
00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:25.000
authority which by nature they had before they delegated it to individuals.

78
00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:31.600
That every tax imposed upon English subjects without consent is against the natural rights

79
00:08:31.600 --> 00:08:36.360
and the Bounds Prescribed by the English Constitution.

80
00:08:36.360 --> 00:08:42.480
The meeting concluded that it is the duty of every colonist to oppose execution of these

81
00:08:42.480 --> 00:08:49.700
invalid acts and, if necessary, to re-assume their natural rights and the authority the

82
00:08:49.700 --> 00:08:54.600
laws of nature and of God have vested them with.

83
00:08:54.600 --> 00:09:00.480
The New London meeting threatened every officer neglecting the people's trust with the people's

84
00:09:00.480 --> 00:09:08.640
Resentment, and hoped for no ministerial preaching of any doctrine of passive obedience.

85
00:09:08.640 --> 00:09:14.080
Connecticut saw the earliest and most fiery public meetings held by the Sons of Liberty,

86
00:09:14.080 --> 00:09:18.120
which was quickly emerging from its initially secret status.

87
00:09:18.120 --> 00:09:25.680
A meeting at Palmfret soon followed, and the citizens of Wallingford on January 13 promised

88
00:09:25.680 --> 00:09:32.360
to oppose the Stamp Act to the last extremity, even to take the field.

89
00:09:32.360 --> 00:09:37.780
Sons of Liberty and other colonies were soon inspired to follow suit, and similar meetings

90
00:09:37.780 --> 00:09:47.220
ensued during early 1766 in Providence, New York City, Oyster Bay, and Huntington in New

91
00:09:47.220 --> 00:09:56.300
New York, New Brunswick, New Jersey, Cecil County, Maryland, Leedstown and Norfolk, Virginia,

92
00:09:56.300 --> 00:10:03.780
and Wilmington, North Carolina, all pledging resistance to the uttermost and with our lives

93
00:10:03.780 --> 00:10:05.340
and fortunes.

94
00:10:05.340 --> 00:10:11.700
The eminent liberal Congregationalist divine, the Reverend Charles Chauncey, thundered that

95
00:10:11.700 --> 00:10:18.180
Regardless of cost, the colonists will continue the fight from the interior against any British

96
00:10:18.180 --> 00:10:25.540
army of repression until the invaders have been driven into the sea. Daughters of Liberty

97
00:10:25.540 --> 00:10:32.460
arose who swore to marry no one who was not willing to resist the Stamp Act to the last

98
00:10:32.460 --> 00:10:40.540
extremity. Marylanders swore to fight to the last drop of their blood, and armed resistance

99
00:10:40.540 --> 00:10:45.380
was deemed inevitable even in Quaker Philadelphia.

100
00:10:45.380 --> 00:10:51.800
Advanced strategists among the Sons of Liberty realized that revolutionary armed conflict

101
00:10:51.800 --> 00:10:58.860
against a British force would require coordination among the rebels in all the colonies. To this

102
00:10:58.860 --> 00:11:06.500
end, they moved toward a union of the various Sons of Liberty organizations. Mock funeral

103
00:11:06.500 --> 00:11:14.320
Several processions for liberty appeared on November 1, 1765, in Sons of Liberty demonstrations

104
00:11:14.320 --> 00:11:22.820
in Portsmouth, Newport, Baltimore, and Wilmington, perhaps by coordination. But the first formal

105
00:11:22.820 --> 00:11:30.740
step toward unity took place in a December 25 meeting at New London, Connecticut. There,

106
00:11:30.740 --> 00:11:37.380
Two delegates of the New York Suns met with the Connecticut Suns and ratified an agreement

107
00:11:37.380 --> 00:11:44.380
of mutual military aid against any British armed attack. They also pledged attempts to

108
00:11:45.100 --> 00:11:52.100
seek similar agreements from the Suns of Liberty in all of the colonies. For the next few months,

109
00:11:52.180 --> 00:11:58.860
correspondence flew back and forth between Suns organizations throughout the colonies,

110
00:11:58.860 --> 00:12:05.140
Pledging mutual assistance and proposing boycotts against any colony that might submit to the

111
00:12:05.140 --> 00:12:12.020
Stamp Act, Colonel John Durkey and Colonel Israel Putnam of the Connecticut Militia promised

112
00:12:12.020 --> 00:12:19.300
the aid of 10,000 well-armed men should New York be attacked by the British. Massachusetts

113
00:12:19.300 --> 00:12:26.620
and New Hampshire were also able to command an armed force totaling 40,000. The two New

114
00:12:26.620 --> 00:12:32.300
New York agents in the meanwhile proceeded to Boston where they procured the allegiance

115
00:12:32.300 --> 00:12:39.380
of the Boston Sons to the Mutual Aid Association. Boston soon wrote to Portsmouth and all the

116
00:12:39.380 --> 00:12:46.220
towns in Massachusetts urging them to join the Sons of Liberty Association. The Providence

117
00:12:46.220 --> 00:12:53.500
Sons of Liberty sent out circular letters to other sons pledging aid to any other harassed

118
00:12:53.500 --> 00:13:00.940
Colonies. The Providence Sons pledged 3,000 men to the cause and eagerly approved a union

119
00:13:00.940 --> 00:13:07.740
of the various Sons organizations throughout the Colonies. In early February, the New York

120
00:13:07.740 --> 00:13:14.580
Sons appointed a committee headed by John Lamb to correspond with all other Sons of

121
00:13:14.580 --> 00:13:21.980
Liberty for mutual aid and with a view to wielding united action against a possible

122
00:13:21.980 --> 00:13:30.540
The LAM Committee correspondence with Sons Organizations as far away as South Carolina.

123
00:13:30.540 --> 00:13:37.700
The South Carolina Sons, furthermore, pledged 500 men to assist Georgians, if necessary,

124
00:13:37.700 --> 00:13:40.580
to get rid of their stamped paper.

125
00:13:40.580 --> 00:13:46.780
Connecticut soon organized a unified colony-wide Sons of Liberty in a convention at Hartford

126
00:13:46.780 --> 00:13:52.720
on March 25, which called for an inter-colonial association.

127
00:13:52.720 --> 00:13:59.820
This was followed by unified colony-wide Sons Organizations in Maryland and New Jersey.

128
00:13:59.820 --> 00:14:05.540
The New Jersey Organization of the Unified Sons of Liberty was the most elaborate.

129
00:14:05.540 --> 00:14:11.400
Each town was to elect delegates to a county convention, which would in turn select delegates

130
00:14:11.400 --> 00:14:18.620
for Convention of the Colony. On both county and provincial levels, the Sons appointed

131
00:14:18.620 --> 00:14:24.100
Committees of Correspondence. Sons of Liberty Organizations also expanded throughout New

132
00:14:24.100 --> 00:14:30.960
York, especially in Albany, Huntington, which appointed a Correspondence Committee, Oyster

133
00:14:30.960 --> 00:14:40.120
Bay and Fishkill. By March, the New York City Sons were in command of a sizable armed militia.

134
00:14:40.120 --> 00:14:46.620
International organizations were also stimulated in all the other colonies by active and urgent

135
00:14:46.620 --> 00:14:53.300
correspondents from the New York, Boston, and Connecticut sons. Only in Pennsylvania

136
00:14:53.300 --> 00:14:59.560
were the Sons of Liberty relatively weak, with no correspondence committee established

137
00:14:59.560 --> 00:15:05.500
and no firm response to the growing inter-colonial revolutionary movement. Governor Penn reported

138
00:15:05.500 --> 00:15:11.540
in late March, that though attempts by the British to enforce the Stamp Act would probably

139
00:15:11.540 --> 00:15:18.120
meet with united armed resistance from all the Sons of Liberty, traveling agents of the

140
00:15:18.120 --> 00:15:24.800
Sons had met little response in Pennsylvania. The cause of this weakness was admittedly

141
00:15:24.800 --> 00:15:33.040
the strength of the Franklin-Galloway-Tory faction in Philadelphia and in Virens.

142
00:15:33.040 --> 00:15:39.320
From committees of correspondence and mutual associations of aid, the next obvious step

143
00:15:39.320 --> 00:15:45.760
was a unified central Sons of Liberty organization for all the colonies.

144
00:15:45.760 --> 00:15:50.880
The first concrete proposal for such a union came from the New York City Sons, which on

145
00:15:50.880 --> 00:15:59.240
April 2 urged a Congress of the Sons to form a general plan to be pursued by the whole.

146
00:15:59.240 --> 00:16:05.120
But there was no chance to weld such a unity, for soon the happy news arrived of the repeal

147
00:16:05.120 --> 00:16:12.700
of the Stamp Act. Britain's choice to repeal staved off what undoubtedly would have been

148
00:16:12.700 --> 00:16:21.040
an American Revolution in 1766. It is idle to speculate on what the results of such a

149
00:16:21.040 --> 00:16:27.160
revolution would have been, but it is very likely that the colonies would have been more

150
00:16:27.160 --> 00:16:34.240
were united against the universally hated Stamp Act than they would be a decade later.

151
00:16:34.240 --> 00:16:40.840
On the other hand, since the focus was on just a single tax grievance, it would be far

152
00:16:40.840 --> 00:16:48.320
easier, as events later proved, for Britain to end the revolutionary resistance by simply

153
00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:50.320
by Repealing the Tax