Читать книгу The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution - James Henry Stark - Страница 14

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One of the principal causes that led to the American Revolution was the question of what was lawful under the constitution of the British empire, and what was expedient under the existing circumstances of the colonies. It was the contention of the American Whigs that the British parliament could not lawfully tax the colonies, because by so doing it would be violating an ancient maxim of the British constitution: "No taxation without representation."

On the contrary, many of the profoundest constitutional lawyers of America as well as of England, both rejected the foregoing contention, and at the same time admitted the soundness and the force of the venerable maxim upon which the contention was alleged to rest, but the most of them denied that the maxim was violated by the acts of parliament laying taxation upon the colonies. Here everything depends on the meaning to be attached to the word "representation"—and that meaning is to be ascertained by examining what was understood by the word in England at the time when this old maxim originated, and in subsequent ages during which it had been quoted and applied. During this whole period the idea was that representation in parliament was constituted not through any uniform distribution among individual persons, but rather through a distribution of such privileges among certain organized communities, as counties, cities, boroughs, and universities. Very few people in England then had votes for members of the house of commons—only one-tenth of the population of the entire realm. Such was the state of the electoral system that entire communities, such as the cities of Leeds, Halifax, Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool, communities which were as populous and as rich as entire provinces in America, and yet they had no vote whatever for members of parliament. The people of these several communities in England did not refuse to pay taxes levied by act of parliament, because of that reason. It is still a principle of parliamentary representation that from the moment a member is thus chosen to sit in parliament, he is the representative of the whole empire, and not of his particular constituency. He "is under no obligation, therefore, to follow instructions from the voters or the inhabitants of the district from which he is chosen. They have no legal means of enforcing instructions. They cannot demand his resignation. Moreover, members of the house of lords represent, in principle, the interest of the whole empire and of all classes, as truly as the Commons."[11] Therefore the historic meaning of the word "representation," as the word has always been used in English constitutional experience, seemed to justify the Loyalist contention that the several organized British communities in America, as an integral part of the British empire, were to all intents and purposes represented in the British parliament, which sat at the capital as the supreme council of the whole empire and exercised legislative authority coextensive with the boundaries of that empire. The Loyalists admitted that for all communities of British subjects, both in England and America, the existing representation was very imperfect; that it should be reformed and made larger and more uniform, and they were ready and anxious to join in all forms of constitutional agitation under the leadership of such men as Chatham, Camden, Burke, Barre, Fox and Pitt, to secure such reform, and not for a rejection of the authority of the general government, nullification, and disruption of the empire. Accordingly, when certain English commoners in America at last rose up and put forward the claim that merely because they had no votes for members of the house of commons, therefore that house did not represent them, and therefore they could not lawfully be taxed by parliament, this definition of the word "representation" up to that time had never been given to it in England or enjoyed by commoners in England. Nine-tenths of the people of England did not vote. Had not those British subjects in England as good a right as these British subjects in America to deny they were represented in parliament, and that they could not be lawfully taxed by parliament? It was the right and duty of the imperial legislature to determine in what proportion the different parts of the empire should contribute to the defence of the whole, and to see that no one part evaded its obligation and unjustly transferred its part to others. The right of taxation was established by a long series of legal authorities, and there was no real distinction between internal and external taxation. It now suited colonists to describe themselves as apostles of liberty and to denounce England as an oppressor. It was a simple truth that England governed her colonies more liberally than any other country in the world. They were the only existing colonies which enjoyed real political liberty. Their commercial system was more liberal than that of any other colony. They had attained under British rule to a degree of prosperity which was surpassed in no quarter of the globe. England had loaded herself with debt in order to remove one great danger to their future; she cheerfully bore the whole burden of their protection by sea. At the Peace of Paris she had made their interests the very first object of her policy, and she only asked them in return to bear a portion of the cost of their own defence. Less than eight millions of Englishmen were burdened with a national debt of 140,000,000 pounds. The united debt of about three millions of Americans was now less than 800,000 pounds. The annual sum the colonists were asked to contribute was less than 100,000, with an express condition that no part of that sum should be devoted to any other purpose than the defence and protection of the colonies, and the country which refused to bear this small tax was so rich that in the space of three years it had paid off 1,755,000 pounds of its debt. No demand could be more moderate and equitable than that of England. The true motive of the resistance was a desire to pay as little as possible and to throw as much as possible upon the mother country. Nor was the mode of resistance more honorable—the plunder of private houses, and custom-houses, and mob violence, connived at and unpunished. This was the attitude of the colonies within two years after the Peace of Paris, and these were the fruits of the new sense of security which British triumphs in Canada had given to the colonists.

This is a brief statement and a fair one of the principal arguments of the Loyalists. Certainly the position taken by them was a very strong one. A learned American writer upon law, one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, in referring to the decision of Chief Justice Hutchinson sustaining the legality of the writs of assistance, gave this opinion: "A careful examination of the question compels the conclusion that there was at least reasonable ground for holding, as a matter of mere law, that the British parliament had power to bind the colonies."[12] This view has been sustained by the highest English authorities upon British constitutional law, from the time of Lord Mansfield to the present. "As a matter of abstract right," says Sir Vernon Harcourt, "the mother country has never parted with the claim of ultimate supreme authority for the imperial legislature. If it did so, it would dissolve the imperial tie, and convert the colonies into foreign and independent states." It is now apparent that those Americans who failed in their honest and sacrificial championship of measures that would have given us political reform and political safety, but without civil war, and without an angry disruption of the English-speaking race can justly be regarded as having been, either in doctrine or in purpose, or in act, an unpatriotic party, and yet even at the present time it is by no means easy for Americans, if they be descended from men who fought in behalf of the Revolution, to take a disinterested attitude, that is an historical one towards those Americans who thought and fought against the Revolution.

No candid historian, however, now contends that the government of England had done anything prior to the commencement of the Revolutionary War that justified a Declaration of Independence; for, as previously stated, the amount of taxes required by Parliament was moderate, the money was needed for a proper purpose, and it seemed there was no other way of obtaining it.

Another important factor in the causes of the American Revolution was the so-called "Quebec Act." This act John Adams asserted constituted a "frightful system," and James Rowdoin pronounced it to be "an act for encouraging and establishing Popery." The policy of this legislation may be doubted. Of its justice there can be no doubt. The establishment of the Catholic clergy in Canada and their resultant domination has entailed many disadvantages upon the governing powers of the dominion. But at the time the law was passed it was a simple act of justice. Had Parliament refused to do this it would have been guilty of that tyranny charged against it by the Revolutionists, and today the dominion would not be a part of the British Empire. To the student of American history it at first seems very strange and unaccountable why at the outbreak of the Revolution, the recently conquered French provinces were not the first to fly to arms, especially as their mother country, France, had espoused the cause of the Revolutionists. Instead of this the French Canadians remained loyal to their conqueror and resisted by force of arms all attempts to conquer Canada. The explanation of this curious state of affairs is the "Quebec Act."

By this act the French Canadians were to retain their property, their language, their religion, their laws, and to hold office. In fact, they were allowed greater liberty than they had when subject to France. All this was allowed them by the British Parliament, and this was resented by the English colonists, for they were not allowed to confiscate their lands and drive out the inhabitants as the New Englanders did when they conquered Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. They also claimed that by the laws of the realm Roman Catholics could not vote, much less hold office. At a meeting of the first Continental Congress, held October 21, 1774, an address to the people of Great Britain was adopted, setting forth the grievances of the colonies, the principal one of which was as follows:

"Nor can we suppress our astonishment that a British Parliament should ever consent to establish in that country a religion that has deluged your island in blood and dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder and rebellion through every part of the world, and we think the legislature of Great Britain is not authorized to establish a religion fraught with such sanguinary and infamous tenets."

This act also granted the Catholic clergy a full parliamentary title to their old ecclesiastical estates, and to tithes paid by members of their own religion, but no Protestant was obliged to pay tithes. It provided for a provincial governing council in which Catholics were eligible to sit, and it established the Catholic clergy securely in their livings. There were then in the Province of Quebec two hundred and fifty Catholics to one Protestant[13]. Surely it would have been a monstrous perversion of justice to have placed this vast majority under the domination of this petty minority, it would have degraded the Catholics into a servile caste and reproduced in America, in a greatly aggravated form, the social conditions which existed in Ireland, but those determined sticklers for freedom of conscience and "the right of self-government," those clamorers for the liberty of mankind, the disunion propagandists, were horrified at the bestowal of any "freedom" or "right" upon a people professing a religion different from their own. "The friends of America" in England, Chatham, Fox, Burke, Barre and others, joined them in their denunciation of the act, the last named especially deprecating the "Popish" measure.

On February 15, 1776, it was resolved that a committee of three, "two of whom should be members of congress," be appointed to pursue such instructions as shall be given them by that body.[14] Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase and Chas. Carroll were chosen for this purpose, and John Carroll, a Jesuit, who afterwards became the first Roman Catholic Archbishop of the United States, accompanied them. The two Carrolls were chosen because they were Catholics, but they were not justified in joining an expedition that might kindle the flame of religious war on the Catholic frontier. The commissioners carried with them an "Address to the Inhabitants of the Province of Quebec"[15] from Congress, which for cool audacity and impertinence can scarcely be paralleled. It commenced with "We are too well acquainted with the liberality of sentiment distinguishing your natures to imagine that difference of religion will prejudice you against a hearty amity with us," etc.

The address from the Continental Congress was translated into French and was very favorably received. They then begged the translator, as he had succeeded so well, to try his hand on that addressed to Great Britain. He had equal success in this, and read his performance to a numerous audience. But when he came to that part which treats of the new modelling of the province, draws a picture of the Catholic religion and Canadian manners, they could not restrain their resentment nor express it except in broken curses. "O the perfidious, double-faced Congress! Let us bless and obey our benevolent prince, whose humanity is consistent and extends to all religions. Let us abhor all who would seduce us from our loyalty by acts that would dishonor a Jesuit, and whose address, like their resolves, is destructive of their own objects."