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NOTE 8. Reaction in Massachusetts

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Volume 3, Chapter 8, Reaction in Massachusetts

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The news of the New Revenue Act reached America in early May 1764 and provoked a storm of

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protest in the northern and other colonies, especially in trade-conscious Boston. A Boston

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town meeting on May 15 quickly appointed a committee to draw up Boston's instructions

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The Committee's instructions, approved rapidly at the next meeting, were drawn up by the great popular leader of the Massachusetts Liberals, Sam Adams.

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Adams threw down the gauntlet on constitutional and libertarian principles, as well as on the pragmatic consequences of the crippling restrictions.

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He boldly denied any right of Parliament to tax the colonies.

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Adams warned, for if our trade may be taxed, why not our lands? An appeal to the farmers of Massachusetts. Why not the produce of our lands and everything we possess or make use of? This, we apprehend, annihilates our charter right to govern and tax ourselves. It strikes at our British privileges.

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Adams also called for uniting the efforts of protest of the other American colonies.

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The Massachusetts legislature promptly organized two committees, each dominated by their Boston

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members. One committee, headed by James Otis, instructed Massachusetts' London agent to

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urge repeal of the American Revenue Act and wavered between a principled denial of the

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The State of the Rights of the Colonies Implied an Immunity of the Colonies from Parliamentary Taxation and Grounded its Argument against the State of the Rights of the Colonies.

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not only on the Magna Carta but also on common law and on the laws of nature and of nations, the voice of universal reason and of God.

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The other House committee sent a circular letter at the end of June to the other colonies urging a united colonial protest.

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A few weeks later James Otis published an expanded version of his thesis titled

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The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved

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in person or by his representative, as well as the invalidity of acts contrary to natural

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law. At other points, he upheld the absolute power of Parliament to legislate for the general

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good of the Empire. But in the pamphlet, Otis stressed that government derived its powers

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from the people. Should a government violate, rather than protect the natural rights of

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the People to Their Life, Liberty and Property, Otis emphasized, then it could be overthrown

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by the people. Otis also condemned the abrogation of trial by jury, admiralty courts, restrictions

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on colonial trade, the discriminatory treatment of colonial troops during the war, and Negro

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slavery. Later in the summer, another Boston representative, the lawyer Oxenbridge Thatcher,

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Thacher protested the various enforcement provisions in the Revenue Act and again denounced the violations of the basic English right of taxation only by consent of one's representatives.

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In the fall, the Massachusetts House held a special session called at the behest of Otis Thacher and the other Boston delegates.

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It approved and addressed to England a claim of exemption from any parliamentary taxes

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for revenue on the essentially British right of no taxation without representation.

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The Conservative Council, however, declined to approve and a compromise address confined

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the protest to pragmatic grounds implying that Parliament did have the right to impose

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external taxes on the colonies and only denying its right to levy direct internal taxation.

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This was a grave retreat from principle, since all previous English taxation of trade had

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been designed for regulation rather than for revenue. Indeed, in 1764, before the Revenue

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Therefore, before the Revenue Act came into force, gross annual revenue from all the trade

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acts on the colonies amounted to less than 2,000 pounds a year, while the cost of collecting

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it totaled over 7,000 pounds. The way was now, unfortunately, open to unlimited

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taxation of American trade. The person responsible for weakening the Massachusetts stand was

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Thomas Hutchinson, Lieutenant Governor, Chief Justice, Counselor and Head of the Court Party

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Oligarchy in Massachusetts. Hutchinson understood the issue clearly enough, but he imposed a

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distinction between internal and external taxation that he knew to be unsound for fear

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of jeopardizing his position as royal favorite in Massachusetts. In addition, the pernicious

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This influence of Richard Jackson helped to sabotage Massachusetts' stand on principle.

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It was Jackson, in fact, who propounded the spurious distinction between internal and

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external taxation. Jackson was undoubtedly motivated in his advice to the colonist by

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his powerful post as secretary to the British prime minister. Despite the crucial role played

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by Otis and especially by Adams in triggering colonial protest at the Sugar Act, the Radical

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Liberal Party in Massachusetts suffered troubles by early 1765.

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For one thing, Boston, the center of radical liberalism in the province, was grievously

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underrepresented in the Massachusetts assembly.

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The House was represented by the number of towns rather than by population, and as a

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result the disproportion against populous Boston grew ever greater as the colony expanded

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and more towns arose in western Massachusetts. In this period, Boston had only four representatives

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out of one hundred twenty in the House. Moreover, rural Massachusetts had not been really aroused

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Roused Against British Tyranny. In fact, Western Massachusetts was then dominated by such leading

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Tories as Colonel John Murray of Rutland, the largest landowner in Worcester County,

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and by Colonel Timothy Ruggles of Hardwick, another leader of the Court Party.