The Sparrowhawk Companion (12 page)

“Sirs, a man’s powers of persuasion rest not solely in his eloquence, but in how successful his style orders the facts he presents. I ask you, therefore, not to judge my eloquence, but the facts.

“Let us proceed to those facts, and scan some simple arithmetic. It is claimed by the authors and proponents of the Stamp Act, a copy of which is now in the custody of this House, that from these colonies, the levies enumerated in that act will raise some one hundred thousand pounds per annum. It is not denied by these gentlemen that the tax is an internal one, nor that it has been one long in contemplation. They make no distinction between that tax, taxes on our exports and imports, and any passed by this or any other colonial assembly. Nor should we, but that is another matter to be taken up, in future. We are assured by these gentlemen, the authors of this act, that the revenue raised by this new tax—a tax that may be paid in sterling
only
, let me stress that aspect, neither in kind nor in our own notes, but in rare sterling—that the revenue will remain in the colonies to defray the cost of the army here.

“Well, sirs, here is an instance of Punic faith! Britain may rightly abhor a standing army. Britain, so close to her regular enemies France, Spain, and the Netherlands, can exist in security and confidence without the burden and imposition of a standing army! We colonies, however, are spared that abhorrence, even though our close enemies to the west are less a threat to us than a single French privateer! Why are we to be relieved of that just fear? Well, you have all read the Proclamation of two years past. Allow me to read to you the reasons behind that qualification, that ominous exception, written by eminences in London who lay claim to being
friends
of these colonies.

“Here is what a person in the train of Lord Shelburne wrote in his recommendations of policy: ‘The provinces now being surrounded by an army, a navy, and by hostile tribes of Indians, it may be time, not to oppress or injure them, but to exact a
due
deference
to the just and equitable demands of a British Parliament.’ And, here is what an agent for Georgia wrote in recommendation: ‘Troops and fortifications will be very necessary for Great Britain to keep up in her colonies, if she intends to settle their dependency on her.’

“It is such recommendations that influenced the wording and intent of the Proclamation, sirs. I trust I needn’t repeat the encircling particulars of that document. The records of the Board of Trade, of the Privy Council, of the Secretary of State, are rife with such recommendations, written, for the most part, by subministers and under–secretaries.

“What is the estimated cost of our standing army? Mr. Grenville asserts four hundred thousand pounds per annum. Where will the balance of that estimate come from, other than from the projected one hundred thousand raised by this stamp? In the best conjecture, from here, from there, but mostly from
us
, by way of all the duties we pay on manufactures and necessities brought into these colonies. Parliamentary trade estimates show that these colonies provide the Crown with a revenue of two millions per annum. That number represents not only our purchases,
but all duties, indirect excises, and other charges and levies paid by us. What assurances have we that neither the army nor its subsidy here will not grow?
None
.

“More arithmetic, sirs. Not all of you have had the opportunity to peruse the tome of taxation now resting on the Clerk’s table. I now read to you some of the new costs to you and your fellow Virginians, when this statute becomes active law—when the trigger is pressed on November first.”
(Here, Hugh reads many of the stamp duties for the House.)

“Paltry sums, to be sure, you may be thinking—paltry to His Majesty, who thinks nothing of spending one hundred thousand pounds to guarantee his party’s election to the Commons, or to purchase a party there after an election. Paltry sums, sirs, but are
we
so prosperous and solvent that we can pay them? If the Crown will not accept our notes, even after discounting, or Spanish or French silver, with what can we pay these duties? With our credit? We have all but exhausted our credit with the mother country and the merchants there. If new credit is to be granted us, on what terms?

“So much for the arithmetic, gentlemen. On to the
budget
of our liberty, and to what lays ahead for us if we submit
humbly
to the authority of this statute.

“Firstly, we will have conceded to Parliament the right and power to levy this tax, a tax contrived and imposed in careless violation of precedent, legality, and our liberties. This tax, sirs, if admitted and tolerated by us, will surely serve as an overture to other taxes and other powers. And, having granted Parliament that power
in absentia
—a power to raise a revenue from us, which was never the object of any of the navigation and commercial laws, burdensome and arbitrary in themselves—we will also have invited Parliament to render
this
body, and all colonial legislatures, redundant and superfluous! What would be the consequence of that negligence? That we would have representation neither here nor in Parliament! The very purpose and function of this assembly will have been obviated! This
chamber, though occupied by men, would become a shell, a mockery! Think ahead, gentlemen. What would then prevent Parliament or the Board of Trade or the Privy Council from concluding that a costly assembly of voiceless and powerless burgesses should be forever dissolved? What would prevent the sages of Westminster from replacing a governor with a
lord-lieutenant
?

“Ah, sirs! Here is more arrogance in the offing! A
lord-lieutenant
, he says. What impudence! Impossible! Our charters grant us the right to governors, dependent on our assemblies for their pay! Well, sirs, there is talk in the dank closets of Westminster of revising the charters of all the colonies, in order to exact a ‘due deference’ from them! A lord-lieutenant, may I remind you gentlemen, has neither an assembly to address, nor one to answer to. Such a false ‘governor’ would not be dependent on the benefices of an elected assembly, but would be paid directly by the Crown from our stamped pockets and purses, to ensure enforcement of Crown law.

“And, here is another ominous provision of this Stamp Act, sirs. In any case concerning violation of it, a prosecutor may choose between the venues of a jury court, and a juryless admiralty court in which to try a defendant. I leave to your imaginations, sirs, to think of which court would regularly find defendants so charged at fault, and promote the careers of interested informants and Crown officers.

“What would we be left with, sirs? Nothing that we had ever prided ourselves in. We would become captives of the Crown, paying, toiling captives in a vast Bridewell prison! The one thing will follow the other, as surely as innocuous streams feed great rivers. Mr. Grenville is first minister now. Who will follow him? Another minister with his own notion of ‘due deference’? I shall paraphrase something I heard uttered not long ago. It should matter little to us whether this law and the Proclamation are a consequence of premeditated policy, or of divers coincidences, when the same logical end is our
slavery
.

“‘
Traitor
,’ did you say, sir? Allow me to read to you the words
of another ‘traitor,’ words on which I had planned to end my remarks, but which ought to shame you for having pronounced your one. ‘The people who are the descendents of those, who were forced to submit to the yoke of a government by constraint, have always the right to shake it off, and free themselves from the usurpation, or tyranny, which the sword hath brought in upon them, till their rulers put them under such a frame of government, as they willingly, and of choice consent to.’

“That, sir, was Mr. John Locke, to whom we all owe a debt of thanks, and you, sir, an apology. I do not perceive in this Stamp Act, sirs, either our will, our choice, or our consent!

“The time to say ‘No,’ gentlemen, is
now
, and to give ambitious, careless men notice that we will not be ruled and bled to feebleness. If we succeed in a new, more vigorous protest, then the stage will be set for us to correct other imbalances, other injustices, other impositions. Better men than those who authored and passed this act are in Parliament now. They spoke for us. They were overwhelmed by the inertia of ignorance and the arrogance of avarice. But, if we stand our ground now, more like them will take heart and come to the fore, men who see in this encroachment jeopardy of liberty in England itself, men who recognize the possibility of a partnership between England and this ad hoc confederation of colonies. We are Britons, sirs, and will not be slaves! We are Virginians, sirs, and should be wise and proud enough to find this tax repugnant to the cores of our souls!

“Let us be known for our
Attic
faith!”

“We who endorse these resolves are neither ignorant of the difference between foolishness and wisdom, nor oblivious to the virtues of those who have trod the earth before many of us came into it. Virtue, said Socrates, springs not from possessions—and
I mean here not merely our tangible wealth, but our liberties as well—not from possessions, but from virtue springs those possessions, and all other human blessings, whether for the individual or society. In these circumstances, the virtue which that gentleman accuses us of lacking, has become a vice. Call it moderation, or charity, it will not serve us now. We exercise the virtue of righteous certitude, for it alone has the efficacy that conciliation and accommodation have not. That virtue is expressed—and I believe that the honorable Colonel Bland there will concur with me on this point—that virtue is expressed in one of the original charters of this colony, and in the first charter of Massachusetts, and has merely been reiterated in these resolves, but in clearer language. Moral certitude is a virtue itself, and in this instance is a glorious one, because it asserts and affirms, in all those charters and resolves, our natural liberty and the blessings it bestows upon us!

“Let us not imbibe the hemlock of humility, duty, or deference, sirs! Socrates did not have a choice in that regard.
We
have. Should we choose to rest on the virtue boasted of and advocated by that more experienced gentleman, that will be a more certain path to the despair, defeat, and regret he fears, and we will have nothing left that we can call our own!”

“I wish to introduce a number of resolutions to the committee for its sagacious consideration.

“Sirs, this House’s original entreaties to Parliament and His Majesty in protest of the then contemplated Stamp Act—entreaties written in astonishing deference, but doubtless from a sense of reason and justice—stand as of this day without the reciprocate courtesy of reply, except in the enactment of this
Act. We therefore find ourselves in a predicament which will not correct itself, not unless we take corrective actions. Many members of this House are in agreement that stronger and clearer positions must be transmitted to those parties, in order to elicit from them a concern for this matter commensurate with our own, lest Parliament and His Majesty construe our silence for passive concession and submission.

“We propose that this House adopt and forward to those parties, not genuflective beseechments or adulatory objurgations, but pungent
resolves
of our understanding of the origins and practice of British and American liberty, resolves which will frankly alert them to both the error of their presumptions and our determination to preserve that liberty. These resolves, in order to have some consequence and value, ought not to be expressed by us in the role of effusive mendicants applying for the restitution of what has been wrested from them, but with the cogently blunt mettle of men who refuse to be robbed.

“And, what is it we are being robbed of? The recognized and eviternal right to govern ourselves without Parliamentary interference, meddling, supervision, or usurpation! As another member here has so well explained, the Stamp Act represents not merely the levying of taxes on our goods, but on our
actions
to preserve our property and livelihoods. This law, he explained, will serve to remove from the realm of most of the freemen in this colony, and in our sister colonies, all moral recourse to justice and liberty.

“Surely, some here will counter:
That
is not the intent of this law and those duties. But, nevertheless, wisdom prescribes
that consequence
. And, in the abstract, even should every man in this colony have the miraculous means to pay these duties, the question would remain: Ought they? For if submission is an imperative, then they ought to submit as well to laws that would assign them their diets, arrange their marriages, and regulate their amusements and diversions.

“I am certain that in the vast woodwork of British government,
there lurks an army of interlopers and harpies whose notions of ‘due deference’ and an ordered, dutiful, captive society fancy that direction in the matter of governing these colonies, an army that, until now, has been kept in check by its fear of ridicule and by the regular, bracing tonic of reason. The Stamp Act alone will not prompt that army to forget its proper inhibitions. But, our submission to it will, and invite it to emerge from that worm-eaten woodwork like locusts to further infest our lives by leave of a Parliamentary prerogative that we failed to challenge.

“Challenges, sirs, not remonstrances, are in order today! Resolutions, not memorials!

“Look around you, gentlemen. This is
our
forum,
our
legislature. It is a living, honorable thing, this hall, because we may meet in it to conduct our own business. But, neglect to challenge this law, and I foresee the day when this hall of liberty will become a mausoleum, redolent with the fading echoes of a distant, glorious freedom which from shame you may be reluctant to remember, and of which your children will have no notion, because we failed. Posterity will not look kindly upon us, should we fail. What might happen to this chamber? Well, in one of the many inglorious chapters that comprise the downfall of ancient Rome, it is noted that the Hall of Liberty was made to serve as a barracks for the mercenaries of an emperor. But, perhaps events will be merciful, and this place will be burned and leveled by our wardens to prevent us from ever again presuming to conduct our own business without fear of offense or penalty.

“Here are some resolves.

“Whereas, the honorable House of Commons in England have of late drawn into question how far the General Assembly of this colony hath the power to enact laws for laying of taxes and imposing duties payable by the people of this, His Majesty’s most ancient colony; for setting and ascertaining the same to all future times, the House of Burgesses of this present General Assembly have come to the following resolves.

“Resolved, that the first adventurers and settlers of this His Majesty’s colony and dominion of Virginia brought with them, and transmitted to their posterity, and all other of His Majesty’s subjects since inhabiting in this His Majesty’s said colony, all the privileges and immunities that have at any time been held, enjoyed, and possessed by the people of Great Britain.

“Resolved, that by two royal charters, granted by King James the First, the colonists aforesaid are declared entitled to all the privileges, liberties, and immunities of denizens and natural-born subjects, to all intents and purposes, as if they had been abiding and born within the realm of England.

“Resolved, that the taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know what taxes the people are able to bear, and the easiest mode of raising them, and who must themselves be equally affected by such taxes—an arrangement,” interjected Henry, “which is the surest security against burdensome taxation by our own representatives”—then continued to read from the page, “is the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, and without which, the ancient Constitution cannot subsist.

“Resolve the fourth, gentlemen: That His Majesty’s liege people of this his most ancient and loyal colony of Virginia, have without interruption enjoyed the precious right of being thus governed
by their own Assembly
in the article of their taxes and internal police, and that the same hath
never
been forfeited or in any other way given up or surrendered, but hath been constantly recognized by the kings and people of Great Britain.

“Those, sirs, are the premises of a uniquely extended syllogism. Here is its conclusion.

“Resolved, that the General Assembly of this colony have the
only
and
sole
exclusive right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants of this colony, and that every attempt to vest such power in any person or persons whatsoever, other than the General Assembly of this colony, has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American freedom!

“There are two more resolves to be read, sirs, but these five are their foundation, and must be adopted before the sixth and seventh can have any meaning or force.”