Volume 3, Chapter 32, Government Replaced by the Sons of Liberty
The Stamp Act was, in effect, nullified throughout the period of its official enforcement in
the colonies.
It was nullified by the official bodies of the colonies, but even more so by the direct
action of the people, enforcing the Stamp Masters to resign, in carrying on business
and Trade as Usual in Defiance of the Stamp Act, and enforcing the Royal Customs officials
to allow ports to remain open to ships without stamps. Corollary to this process of revolutionary
mass nullification of the Stamp Act was a highly significant phenomenon that increasingly
occurred in the colonies, a withering away of the authority of all organs of government,
In a virtual shift to a condition of quasi-anarchism, the revolutionary situation rendered the royal
executive impotent and the colonial assemblies ineffective.
The judges did not usually meet, and when they did it was at the behest, rather, of
the radical organizations of the people than of the legally constituted authority.
In short, effective rule of the colonies past from the organs of government to voluntary
organizations to the sons of liberty and their popular allies.
Such a shift of rule and of majority obedience from state organs to voluntary organizations
is certainly a hallmark of a situation of near anarchism.
The conditions differed, however, from those of the earlier anarchism in late seventeenth
century Pennsylvania in two ways.
One, local governments, in this case, remained in existence.
Two, the anarchism was not, as before, totally pacifist and devoid of all institutions of
defensive force against criminal invasions of person or property.
As in all revolutionary situations, the breakaway of popular allegiance to constituted government
implied a breakdown of that government into voluntary self-governing actions by each individual.
It was indeed voluntary cooperative action among the people without benefit of official
sanction or of compulsory revenue from taxation that brought rule to such private organizations
The philosophical meaning of this process has been brilliantly elucidated by the late 19th century libertarian constitutional lawyer from Boston, Lysander Spooner.
Spooner's analysis dealing with the American Revolution in a sense applied far more aptly to the Stamp Act crisis
in which no new governmental forms intervened to alter the course or the meaning of that crisis.
Spooner wrote,
The revolution was declared and accomplished by the people, acting separately as individuals,
and exercising each his natural rights and not by their governments in the exercise of their constitutional powers.
Each declared for himself that his own will, pleasure and discretion were the only authorities
he had any occasion to consult in determining whether he would any longer support the government
under which he had always lived.
And if this action of each individual were valid and rightful, when he had so many other
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.
He had the same natural right to take up arms alone, to defend his own property against a single tax gatherer,
that he had to take up arms in company with three million of others to defend the property
of all against an army of tax gatherers. Thus the whole revolution turned upon, asserted,
and in theory established, the right of each and every man, at his discretion, to release
himself from the support of the government under which he had lived. From this spontaneous
This repudiation of the authority of the government under which the people lived, emerged voluntary
organizations to lead the popular struggle, and throughout the colonies they took the
name Sons of Liberty.
The Sons directed strategy, led the pressure of the crowd when intimidation became necessary,
and prepared also for armed defense should the British government try to enforce its
laws with force majeure.
For, as the governors saw their authority crumble, it became clear that the British government
was now faced with a fundamental choice, to abandon enforcement of the stamp tax, or to
send an army to suppress colonial resistance.
Open rebellion against the royal governors was very near, and they realized that they
could not rely on the militia, which sided with the popular resistance.
Seeing the Sons of Liberty in control of Boston, Governor Bernard was on the point of fleeing
Massachusetts. Governor Penn revealed in mid-December that Pennsylvania was not more than one degree
from open rebellion. And New York's Governor Colden hardly dared stir outside Fort George.
If Colden had refused to turn over the stamps to the crowd, open war would have broken out.
The prudent British troops knew that if the fort had fired on the people, the Sons of
Liberty could have assembled an overwhelming force of 50,000 men from New York and New
Jersey alone. The royal governors then kept very quiet about the stamp tax. As Governor
William Franklin of New Jersey wrote his father, Benjamin, for any man to set himself up as
as an advocate of the Stamp Act in the colonies is a mere piece of quixotism. The governors
were not disposed to being quixotic. But what of the British? Would they use an army to
enforce the tax? It was clear that the scattered army in America, not yet up to authorized
strength, would have to be supplemented by a new army sent from England. But English
The British threats of cramming the stamps down American throats made Americans aware
that they must be prepared to face such a challenge.
Accordingly, the Sons of Liberty held meetings throughout the colonies during the winter
of 1765-66 to proclaim the defiance of the citizens.
The meetings of the Sons of Liberty proclaimed views that were far more revolutionary than
and those of the Colonial Assemblies. The lead was taken by the Sons of Liberty of Windham
at New London, Connecticut. This meeting of a large assembly of the respectable populace
of New London on December 10 frankly proclaimed an uncompromisingly revolutionary natural
rights position, namely that every form of government rightfully founded originates from
From the Consent of the People That whenever these bounds on government set
by the people are exceeded, the people have a right to re-assume the exercise of that
authority which by nature they had before they delegated it to individuals.
That every tax imposed upon English subjects without consent is against the natural rights
and the Bounds Prescribed by the English Constitution.
The meeting concluded that it is the duty of every colonist to oppose execution of these
invalid acts and, if necessary, to re-assume their natural rights and the authority the
laws of nature and of God have vested them with.
The New London meeting threatened every officer neglecting the people's trust with the people's
Resentment, and hoped for no ministerial preaching of any doctrine of passive obedience.
Connecticut saw the earliest and most fiery public meetings held by the Sons of Liberty,
which was quickly emerging from its initially secret status.
A meeting at Palmfret soon followed, and the citizens of Wallingford on January 13 promised
to oppose the Stamp Act to the last extremity, even to take the field.
Sons of Liberty and other colonies were soon inspired to follow suit, and similar meetings
ensued during early 1766 in Providence, New York City, Oyster Bay, and Huntington in New
New York, New Brunswick, New Jersey, Cecil County, Maryland, Leedstown and Norfolk, Virginia,
and Wilmington, North Carolina, all pledging resistance to the uttermost and with our lives
and fortunes.
The eminent liberal Congregationalist divine, the Reverend Charles Chauncey, thundered that
Regardless of cost, the colonists will continue the fight from the interior against any British
army of repression until the invaders have been driven into the sea. Daughters of Liberty
arose who swore to marry no one who was not willing to resist the Stamp Act to the last
extremity. Marylanders swore to fight to the last drop of their blood, and armed resistance
was deemed inevitable even in Quaker Philadelphia.
Advanced strategists among the Sons of Liberty realized that revolutionary armed conflict
against a British force would require coordination among the rebels in all the colonies. To this
end, they moved toward a union of the various Sons of Liberty organizations. Mock funeral
Several processions for liberty appeared on November 1, 1765, in Sons of Liberty demonstrations
in Portsmouth, Newport, Baltimore, and Wilmington, perhaps by coordination. But the first formal
step toward unity took place in a December 25 meeting at New London, Connecticut. There,
Two delegates of the New York Suns met with the Connecticut Suns and ratified an agreement
of mutual military aid against any British armed attack. They also pledged attempts to
seek similar agreements from the Suns of Liberty in all of the colonies. For the next few months,
correspondence flew back and forth between Suns organizations throughout the colonies,
Pledging mutual assistance and proposing boycotts against any colony that might submit to the
Stamp Act, Colonel John Durkey and Colonel Israel Putnam of the Connecticut Militia promised
the aid of 10,000 well-armed men should New York be attacked by the British. Massachusetts
and New Hampshire were also able to command an armed force totaling 40,000. The two New
New York agents in the meanwhile proceeded to Boston where they procured the allegiance
of the Boston Sons to the Mutual Aid Association. Boston soon wrote to Portsmouth and all the
towns in Massachusetts urging them to join the Sons of Liberty Association. The Providence
Sons of Liberty sent out circular letters to other sons pledging aid to any other harassed
Colonies. The Providence Sons pledged 3,000 men to the cause and eagerly approved a union
of the various Sons organizations throughout the Colonies. In early February, the New York
Sons appointed a committee headed by John Lamb to correspond with all other Sons of
Liberty for mutual aid and with a view to wielding united action against a possible
The LAM Committee correspondence with Sons Organizations as far away as South Carolina.
The South Carolina Sons, furthermore, pledged 500 men to assist Georgians, if necessary,
to get rid of their stamped paper.
Connecticut soon organized a unified colony-wide Sons of Liberty in a convention at Hartford
on March 25, which called for an inter-colonial association.
This was followed by unified colony-wide Sons Organizations in Maryland and New Jersey.
The New Jersey Organization of the Unified Sons of Liberty was the most elaborate.
Each town was to elect delegates to a county convention, which would in turn select delegates
for Convention of the Colony. On both county and provincial levels, the Sons appointed
Committees of Correspondence. Sons of Liberty Organizations also expanded throughout New
York, especially in Albany, Huntington, which appointed a Correspondence Committee, Oyster
Bay and Fishkill. By March, the New York City Sons were in command of a sizable armed militia.
International organizations were also stimulated in all the other colonies by active and urgent
correspondents from the New York, Boston, and Connecticut sons. Only in Pennsylvania
were the Sons of Liberty relatively weak, with no correspondence committee established
and no firm response to the growing inter-colonial revolutionary movement. Governor Penn reported
in late March, that though attempts by the British to enforce the Stamp Act would probably
meet with united armed resistance from all the Sons of Liberty, traveling agents of the
Sons had met little response in Pennsylvania. The cause of this weakness was admittedly
the strength of the Franklin-Galloway-Tory faction in Philadelphia and in Virens.
From committees of correspondence and mutual associations of aid, the next obvious step
was a unified central Sons of Liberty organization for all the colonies.
The first concrete proposal for such a union came from the New York City Sons, which on
April 2 urged a Congress of the Sons to form a general plan to be pursued by the whole.
But there was no chance to weld such a unity, for soon the happy news arrived of the repeal
of the Stamp Act. Britain's choice to repeal staved off what undoubtedly would have been
an American Revolution in 1766. It is idle to speculate on what the results of such a
revolution would have been, but it is very likely that the colonies would have been more
were united against the universally hated Stamp Act than they would be a decade later.
On the other hand, since the focus was on just a single tax grievance, it would be far
easier, as events later proved, for Britain to end the revolutionary resistance by simply
by Repealing the Tax