 CHAPTER V. THE NEW COURSE IN BRITISH IMPERIAL POLICY On October 25, 1760, King George II died, and the British crown passed to his young grandson. The first George, the son of the Elector of Hanover and Sophia, the granddaughter of James I, was a thorough German who never even learned to speak the language of the land over which he reigned. The second George never saw England until he was a man. He spoke English with an accent, and until his death preferred his German home. During their reign the principal had become well established that the king did not govern, but acted only through ministers representing the majority in Parliament. George III and his system. The Character of the New King. The third George rudely broke the German tradition of his family. He resented the imputation that he was a foreigner, and on all occasions made a display of his British sympathies. To the draught of his first speech to Parliament he added the popular phrase, born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Britain. Macaulay, the English historian, certainly of no liking for high royal prerogative, said of George, the young king was a born Englishman. All his tastes and habits, good and bad, were English. No portion of his subjects had anything to reproach him with. His age, his appearance, and all that was known of his character, conciliated public favour. He was in the bloom of youth, his person and address were pleasing, scandal imputed to him no vice, and flattery might without glaring absurdity ascribed to him many princely virtues. Nevertheless George III had been spoiled by his mother, his tutors, and his courtiers. Under their influence he developed high and mighty notions about the sacredness of royal authority and his duty to check the pretensions of Parliament and the ministers dependent upon it. His mother had dined into his ears the slogan, George be king. Lord Butte, his teacher and adviser, had told him that his honour required him to take an active part in the shaping of public policy and the making of laws. Thus educated he surrounded himself with courtiers, who encouraged him in the determination to rule as well as reign, to subdue all parties and to place himself at the head of the nation and empire. Political parties and George III The state of the political parties favoured the plans of the king to restore some of the ancient luster of the crown. The Whigs, who were composed mainly of the smaller freeholders, merchants, inhabitants of towns, and Protestant nonconformists, had grown haughty and overbearing through long continuance in power, and had as a consequence raised up many enemies in their own ranks. Their opponents the Tories had by this time given up all hope of restoring to the throne the direct steward line, but they still cherished their old notions about divine right. With the accession of George III the coveted opportunity came to them to rally around the throne again. George received his Tory friends with open arms, gave them offices, and bought them seats in the House of Commons. The British Parliamentary System The peculiarities of the British Parliament at the time made smooth the way for the king and his allies with their designs for controlling the entire government. In the first place the House of Lords was composed mainly of hereditary nobles, whose number the king could increase by the appointment of his favourites as of old. Though the members of the House of Commons were elected by popular vote, they did not speak for the mass of English people. Great towns like Leeds, Manchester, and Birmingham, for example, had no representatives at all. While there were about eight million inhabitants in Great Britain, there were in 1768 only about one hundred and sixty thousand voters. That is to say, only about one in every ten adult males had a voice in the government. Many boroughs returned one or more members to the Commons, although they had merely a handful of voters, or in some instances no voters at all. Furthermore, these tiny boroughs were often controlled by Lords who openly sold the right of representation to the highest bidder. The rotten boroughs, as they were called by reformers, were a public scandal, but George III readily made use of them to get his friends into the House of Commons. George III's ministers and their colonial policies. Greenville and the War Debt. Within a year after the accession of George III, William Pitt was turned out of office, the king treating him with gross insubility, and the crowds shouting, Pitt, forever. The direction of affairs was entrusted to men enjoying the king's confidence. Leadership in the House of Commons fell to George Greenville, a grave and laborious man who for years had grown over the increasing cost of government. The first task, after the conclusion of peace in 1763, was the adjustment of the disordered finances of the kingdom. The debt stood at the highest point in the history of the country. More revenue was absolutely necessary, and Greenville began to search for it, turning his attention finally to the American colonies. In this quest he had the aid of a zealous colleague, Charles Townsend, who had long been in public service and was familiar with the difficulties encountered by royal governors in America. These two men, with the support of the entire ministry, inaugurated in February 1763, quote, a new system of colonial government. It was announced by authority that there were to be no more requisitions from the king to the colonial assemblies for supplies, but that the colonies were to be taxed instead by active parliament. Colonial governors and judges were to be paid by the crown. They were to be supported by a standing army of twenty regiments, and all the expenses of this force were to be met by parliamentary taxation, end quote. Restriction of Paper Money, 1763. Among the many complaints filed before the Board of Trade were vigorous protests against the issuance of paper money by the colonial legislatures. The new ministry provided a remedy in the act of 1763, which declared void all colonial laws authorizing paper money or extending the life of outstanding bills. This law was aimed at the cheap money which the Americans were fond of making when specie was scarce, money which they tried to force on their English creditors in return for goods and payment of the interest and principal of debts. Thus the first chapter was written in the long battle over sound money on this continent. Limitation on Western Land Sales Later in the same year, 1763, George III issued a royal proclamation providing, among other things, for the government of the territory recently acquired by the Treaty of Paris from the French. One of the provisions in this royal decree touched frontiersmen to the quick. The contests between the king's officers and the colonists over the disposition of western lands had been long and sharp. The Americans chafed at restrictions on settlement. The more adventurous were continually moving west and squatting on land purchase from the Indians or simply seized without authority. To put an end to this, the king forbade all further purchases from the Indians, reserving to the crown the right to acquire such lands and dispose of them for settlement. A second provision in the same proclamation vested the power of licensing trade with the Indians, including the lucrative fur business in the hands of royal officers in the colonies. These two limitations on American freedom and enterprise were declared to be in the interest of the crown and for the preservation of the rights of the Indians against fraud and abuses. The Sugar Act of 1764 King George's ministers next turned their attention to measures of taxation and trade. Since the heavy debt under which England was laboring had been largely incurred in the defense of America, nothing seemed more reasonable to them than the proposition that the colonies should help to bear the burden which fell so heavily upon the English taxpayer. The Sugar Act of 1764 was the result of this reasoning. There was no doubt about the purpose of this law, for it was set forth clearly in the title, quote, an act for granting certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in America for applying the produce of such duties towards defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the said colonies and plantations, and for more effectually preventing the clandestine conveyance of goods to and from the said colonies and plantations, and improving and securing the trade between the same and Great Britain. The old molasses act had been prohibitive. The Sugar Act of 1764 was clearly intended as a revenue measure. Specified duties were laid upon sugar, indigo, calico, silks, and many other commodities imported into the colonies. The enforcement of the molasses act had been utterly neglected, but this Sugar Act had teeth in it. Special precautions as to bonds, security, and registration of shipmasters accompanied by heavy penalties promised a vigorous execution of the new revenue law. The strict terms of the Sugar Act were strengthened by administrative measures. Under a law of the previous year, the commanders of armed vessels stationed along the American coast were authorized to stop, search, and on suspicion seize merchant ships approaching colonial ports. By supplementary orders, the entire British official force in America was instructed to be diligent in the execution of all trade and navigation laws. Revenue collectors, officers of the Army and Navy, and royal governors were currently ordered to the front to do their full duty in the matter of law enforcement. The ordinary motives for the discharge of official obligations were sharpened by an appeal to avarice, for naval officers who seized defenders against the law were rewarded by large prizes out of the forfeitures and penalties. The Stamp Act, 1765. The Greenville Townsend Combination moved steadily towards its goal. While the Sugar Act was under consideration in Parliament, Greenville announced a plan for a stamp bill. The next year it went through both houses with the speed that must have astounded its authors. The vote in the Commons stood 205 in favor to 49 against, while in the lords it was not even necessary to go through the formality of account. As George III was temporarily insane, the measure received royal assent by a commission acting as a Board of Regency. Protests of colonial agents in London were futile. We might as well have hindered the sun's progress, exclaimed Franklin. Protests of a few opponents in the Commons were equally vain. The Ministry was firm in its course, and from all appearances the Stamp Act hardly roused as much as a languid interest in the City of London. In fact it is recorded that the fateful measure attracted less notice than a bill providing for a commission to act for the King when he was incapacitated. The Stamp Act, like the Sugar Act, declared the purpose of the British Government to raise revenue in America, quote, towards defraying the expense of defending, protecting, and securing the British colonies and plantations in America. It was a long measure of more than 50 sections, carefully planned and skillfully drawn. By its provisions duties were imposed on practically all papers used in legal transactions. Deeds, mortgages, inventories, rits, bail bonds, on licenses to practice law and sell liquor, on college diplomas, playing cards, dice, pamphlets, newspapers, almanacs, calendars, and advertisements. The dragnet was closely knit for scarcely anything escaped. The Quartering Act, 1765. The Ministers were aware that the Stamp Act would rouse opposition in America, how great they could not conjecture. While the measure was being debated, a friend of General Wolfe, Colonel Barré, who knew America well, gave them an ominous warning in the Commons. Believe me, remember I this day told you so, he exclaimed, the same spirit of freedom which actuated that people at first will accompany them still, a people jealous of their liberties and who will vindicate them if ever they should be violated. The answer of the Ministry to a Prophecy of Force was a threat of force. Preparations were accordingly made to dispatch a larger number of soldiers than usual to the colonies, and the ink was hardly dry on the Stamp Act when Parliament passed the Quartering Act, ordering the colonists to provide accommodations for the soldiers who were to enforce the new laws. We have the power to tax them, said one of the Ministry, and we will tax them. End of Section 1. Section 2 of History of the United States, Part 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritter Beard, Part 2, Section 2. Colonial Resistance Forces Repeal. Popular Opposition. The Stamp Act was greeted in America by an outburst of denunciation. The merchants of the seaboard cities took the lead in making a dignified but unmistakable protest, agreeing not to import British goods while the hated law stood upon the books. Lawyers, some of them incensed at the heavy taxes on their operations and others intimidated by patriots who refused to permit them to use stamped papers, joined with the merchants. Aristocratic colonial wigs, who had long grumbled at the administration of royal governors, protested against taxation without their consent as the wigs had done in Old England. There were Tories, however, in the colonies as in England, many of them of the official class, who denounced the merchants, lawyers, and wig aristocrats, as seditious, factious, and Republican. Yet opposition to the Stamp Act and its accompanying measure, the Quartering Act, grew steadily all through the summer of 1765. In a little while it was taken up in the streets and along the countryside. All through the north and in some of the southern colonies there sprang up as if by magic committees and societies pledged to resist the Stamp Act to the bitter end. These popular societies were known as Sons of Liberty and Daughters of Liberty, the former including artisans, merchants, and laborers, and the latter patriotic women. Both groups were alike in that they had as yet taken little part in public affairs. Many artisans, as well as all the women, were excluded from the right to vote for colonial assemblymen. While the merchants and wig gentlemen confined their efforts chiefly to drafting well-phrased protests against British measures, the Sons of Liberty operated in the streets and chose rougher measures. They stirred up riots in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston when attempts were made to sell the stamps. They sacked and burned the residences of high royal officers. They organized committees of inquisition who, by threats and intimidation, curtailed the sale of British goods and the use of stamped papers. In fact, the Sons of Liberty carried their operations to such excesses that many mild opponents of the Stamp Act were frightened and drew back in astonishment at the forces they had unloosed. The Daughters of Liberty in a quieter way were making a very effective resistance to the sale of the hated goods by spurring on domestic industries, their own particular province being the manufacturer of clothing and devising substitutes for taxed foods. They helped to feed and clothe their families without buying British goods. Legislative Action Against the Stamp Act Leaders in the colonial assemblies accustomed to battle against British policies supported the popular protest. The Stamp Act was signed on March 22, 1765. On May 30, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a set of resolutions, declaring that the General Assembly of the Colony alone had the right to lay taxes upon the inhabitants, and that attempts to impose them otherwise were illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust. It was in support of these resolutions that Patrick Henry uttered the Immortal Challenge. Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I his Cromwell, and George III cries of treason were calmly met by the orator who finished. George III may profit by their example, if that be treason make the most of it. The Stamp Act Congress The Massachusetts Assembly answered the call of Virginia by inviting the colonies to elect delegates to a Congress to be held in New York to discuss the situation. Nine colonies responded and sent representatives. The delegates, while professing the warmest affection for the king's person and government, firmly spread on record a series of resolutions that admitted of no double meaning. They declared that taxes could not be imposed without their consent, given through their respective colonial assemblies, that the Stamp Act showed a tendency to subvert their rights and liberties, that the recent trade acts were burdensome and grievous, and that the right to petition the king and parliament was their heritage. They thereupon made humble supplication for the repeal of the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act Congress was more than an assembly of protest. It marked the rise of a new agency of government to express the will of America. It was the germ of a government which in time was to supersede the government of George III in the colonies. It foreshadowed the Congress of the United States under the Constitution. It was a successful attempt at union. There ought to be no New England men, declared Christopher Gadsden in the Stamp Act Congress, no New Yorkers known on the continent, but all of us Americans. The Repeal of the Stamp Act and the Sugar Act The effect of American resistance on opinion in England was telling. Commerce with the colonies had been effectively boycotted by the Americans, ships lay idly swinging at the wharves, bankruptcy threatened hundreds of merchants in London, Bristol, and Liverpool. Working men in the manufacturing towns of England were thrown out of employment. The government had sown fowly and was reaping in place of the coveted revenue rebellion. Perplexed by the storm they had raised, the ministers summoned to the bar of the House of Commons Benjamin Franklin, the agent for Pennsylvania, who was in London. Do you think it right, asked Greenville, that America should be protected by this country and pay no part of the expenses? The answer was brief. That is not the case. The colonies raised, clothed, and paid during the last war 25,000 men and spent many millions. Then came an inquiry whether the colonists would accept a modified stamp act. No, never, replied Franklin, never. They will never submit to it. It was next suggested that military force might compel obedience to law. Franklin had a ready answer. They cannot force a man to take stamps. They may not find a rebellion. They may indeed make one. The Repeal of the Stamp Act was moved in the House of Commons a few days later. The sponsor for the repeal spoke of commerce interrupted, debts due British merchants placed in jeopardy, Manchester industries closed, working men unemployed, oppression instituted, and the loss of the colonies threatened. Pitt and Edmund Burke, the former near the close of his career, the latter just beginning his, argued cogently in favor of retracing the steps taken the year before. Greenville refused. America must learn, he wailed, that prayers are not to be brought to Caesar through riot and sedition. His protests were idle. The Commons agreed to repeal on February 22, 1766, amid the cheers of the victorious majority. It was carried through the lords in the face of strong opposition, and on March 18, reluctantly signed by the King, now restored to his right mind. In rescinding the Stamp Act, Parliament did not admit the contention of the Americans that it was without the power to tax them. On the contrary, it accompanied the repeal with a declaratory act. It announced that the colonies were subordinate to the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain, that the King and Parliament therefore had undoubted authority to make laws binding the colonies in all cases whatsoever, and that the resolutions and proceedings of the colonists denying such authority were null and void. The repeal was greeted by the colonists with great popular demonstration. Bells were rung, toast to the King were drunk, and trade resumed its normal course. The declaratory act, as a mere paper resolution, did not disturb the good humor of those who again cheered the name of King George. Their confidence was soon strengthened by the news that even the Sugar Act had been repealed, thus practically restoring the condition of affairs before Greenville and Townsend inaugurated their policy of thoroughness. Resumption of British Revenue and Commercial Policies The Townsend Acts, 1767 The triumph of the colonists was brief. Though Pitt, the friend of America, was once more Prime Minister and seated in the House of Lords as the Earl of Chatham, his severe illness gave to Townsend and the Tory party practical control over Parliament. Unconvinced by the experience with the Stamp Act, Townsend brought forward and pushed through both Houses of Parliament three measures, which to this day are associated with his name. First among his restrictive laws was that of June 29, 1767, which placed the enforcement of the collection of duties and customs on colonial imports and exports in the hands of British commissioners appointed by the King, resident in all the colonies, paid from the British Treasury and independent of all control by the colonists. The second measure of the same date imposed attacks on lead, glass, paint, tea, and a few other articles imported into the colonies, the revenue derived from the duties to be applied toward the payment of the salaries and other expenses of royal colonial officials. A third measure was the Tea Act of July 2, 1767, aimed at the tea trade which the Americans carried on illegally with foreigners. This law abolished the duty which the East India Company had to pay to England on tea exported to America, for it was thought that English tea merchants might thus find it possible to undersell American tea smugglers. Ritz of assistance legalized by Parliament. Had Parliament been content with laying duties just as a manifestation of power and right and neglected their collection, perhaps little would have been heard of the Townsend Acts. It provided, however, for the strict, even the harsh enforcement of the law. It ordered customs officers to remain at their posts and put an end to smuggling. In the Revenue Act of June 29, 1767, it expressly authorized the superior courts of the colonies to issue Ritz of assistance, empowering customs officers to enter any house, warehouse, shop, cellar, or other place in the British colonies or plantations in America, to search foreign seas prohibited or smuggled goods. The Ritz of Assistance, which was a general search warrant issued to Revenue officers, was an ancient device hateful to a people who cherished the spirit of personal independence and who had made actual gains in the practice of civil liberty. To allow a minion of the law to enter a man's house and search his papers and premises was too much for the emotions of people who had fled to America in a quest for self-government and free homes, who had braved such hardships to establish them and who wanted to trade without official interference. The Ritz of Assistance had been used in Massachusetts in 1755 to prevent illicit trade with Canada and had aroused a violent hostility at that time. In 1761 it was again the subject of a bitter controversy which arose in connection with the application of a customs officer to a Massachusetts court for Ritz of Assistance as usual. This application was vainly opposed by James Otis in a speech of five hours duration, a speech of such fire and eloquence that it sent every man who heard it away ready to take up arms against Ritz of Assistance. Otis denounced the practice as an exercise of arbitrary power which had cost one king his head and another his throne, a tyrant's device which placed the liberty of every man in jeopardy, enabling any petty officer to work possible malice on any innocent citizen on the nearest suspicion and to spread terror and desolation through the land. What a scene, he exclaimed, does this open. Every man prompted by revenge, ill-humor, or wantonness to inspect the inside of his neighbor's house may get a writ of assistance. Others will ask it from self-defense. One arbitrary exertion will provoke another until society is involved in tumult and blood. He did more than attack the writ itself. He said that Parliament could not establish it because it was against the British Constitution. This was an assertion resting on Slender Foundation, but it was quickly echoed by the people. Then and there James Otis sounded the call to America to resist the exercise of arbitrary power by royal officials. Then and there wrote John Adams the child independence was born. Such was the hated writ that Townsend proposed to put into the hands of customs officers in his grim determination to enforce the law. The New York Assembly suspended. In the very month that Townsend's acts were signed by the king, Parliament took a still more drastic step. The Assembly of New York, protesting against the ruinous and insupportable expense involved, had failed to make provision for the care of British troops in accordance with the terms of the Quartering Act. Parliament therefore suspended the Assembly until it promised to obey the law. It was not until a third election was held that compliance with the Quartering Act was wrung from the reluctant province. In the meantime all the colonies had learned on how frail a foundation their representative bodies rested. End of Section 2. Section 3 of History of the United States, Part 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. History of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritter Beard. Part 2, Section 2. Renewed Resistance in America. The Massachusetts Circular, 1768. Massachusetts, under the leadership of Samuel Adams, resolved to resist the policy of renewed intervention in America. At his suggestion the Assembly adopted a circular letter addressed to the assemblies of the other colonies, informing them of the state of affairs in Massachusetts and roundly condemning the whole British program. The circular letter declared that Parliament had no right to lay taxes on Americans without their consent and that the colonists could not, from the nature of the case, be represented in Parliament. It went on shrewdly to submit to consideration the question as to whether any people could be called free who were subjected to governors and judges appointed by the Crown and paid out of funds raised independently. It invited the other colonies in the most temperate tones to take thought about the common predicament in which they were all placed. The Governor of Massachusetts, hearing of the circular letter, ordered the Assembly to rescind its appeal. On meeting refusal he promptly resolved it. The Maryland, Georgia and South Carolina assemblies endorsed the circular letter and were also dissolved at once. The Virginia House of Burgesses, thoroughly aroused, passed resolutions on May 16, 1769, declaring that the sole right of imposing taxes in Virginia was vested in its legislature, asserting anew the right of petition to the Crown, condemning the transportation of persons accused of crimes or trial beyond the seas, and beseeching the King for a redress of the general grievances. The immediate dissolution of the Virginia Assembly in its turn was the answer of the Royal Governor. The Boston Massacre. American opposition to the British authorities kept steadily rising as assemblies were dissolved, the houses of citizens searched, and troops distributed in increasing numbers among the centers of discontent. Merchants again agreed not to import British goods. The Sons of Liberty renewed their agitation, and women said about the patronage of home products still more loyally. On the night of March 5, 1770, a crowd on the streets of Boston began to jostle and tease some British regulars stationed in the town. Things went from bad to worse until some boys and young fellows began to throw snowballs and stones. Then the exasperated soldiers fired into the crowd, killing five and wounding half a dozen more. The day after the massacre, a mass meeting was held in the town, and Samuel Adams was sent to demand the withdrawal of the soldiers. The Governor hesitated and tried to compromise. Finding Adams relentless, the Governor yielded and ordered the regulars away. The Boston Massacre stirred the country from New Hampshire to Georgia. Popular passions ran high. The guilty soldiers were charged with murder. Their defense was undertaken in spite of the wrath of the populace by John Adams and Josiah Quincy, who as lawyers thought even the worst offenders entitled to their full rights in law. In his speech to the jury, however, Adams warned the British government against its course, saying that from the nature of things soldiers quartered in a populace town will always occasion two mobs where they will prevent one. Two of the soldiers were convicted and lightly punished. Resistance in the South The year following the Boston Massacre, some citizens of North Carolina, goaded by the conduct of the royal governor, openly resisted his authority. Many were killed as a result, and seven who were taken prisoners were hanged as traitors. A little later, royal troops and local militia met in a pitched battle near Alamance River called the Lexington of the South. The Gatsby Affair and the Virginia Resolutions of 1773. On sea as well as on land, friction between the royal officers and the colonists broke out into overt acts. While patrolling Nagaransett Bay, looking for smugglers one day in 1772, the armed ship Gatsby ran ashore and was caught fast. During the night, several men from Providence boarded the vessel and after seizing the crew set it on fire. A royal commission sent to Rhode Island to discover the offenders and bring them to account failed because it could not find a single informer. The very appointment of such a commission aroused the Patriots of Virginia to action, and in March 1773 the House of Burgesses passed a resolution creating a standing committee of correspondence to develop cooperation among the colonies in resistance to British measures. The Boston Tea Party. Although the British government finding the Thousand Revenue Act a failure repealed in 1770 all the duties except that on tea, it in no way relaxed its resolve to enforce the other commercial regulations it had imposed on the colonies. Moreover, Parliament decided to relieve the British East India Company of the financial difficulties into which it had fallen, partly by reason of the Tea Act and the colonial boycott that followed. In 1773 it agreed to return to the company the regular import duties levied in England on all tea trans shipped to America. A small impulse of three pints to be collected in America was left as a reminder of the principle laid down in the declaratory act that Parliament had the right to tax the colonists. This arrangement with the East India Company was obnoxious to the colonists for several reasons. It was an act of favoritism for one thing in the interest of a great monopoly. For another thing it promised to dump on the American market suddenly an immense amount of cheap tea and so cause heavy losses to American merchants who had large stocks on hand. It threatened with ruin the business of all those who were engaged in clandestine trade with the Dutch. It carried with it an irritating tax of three pints on imports. In Charleston, Annapolis, New York, and Boston captains of ships who brought tea under this act were roughly handled. One night in December 1773 a band of Boston citizens disguised as Indians boarded the hated tea ships and dumped the cargo into the harbor. This was serious business for it was open, flagrant, determined violation of the law. As such the British government viewed it. Retaliation by the British government. Reception of the news of the tea riot. The news of the tea riot in Boston confirmed King George in his conviction that there should be no soft policy in dealing with his American subjects. The die is cast, he stated with evident satisfaction. The colonies must either triumph or submit. If we take the resolute part they will undoubtedly be very meek. Lord George Germain characterized the tea party as the proceedings of a tumultuous and riotous rabble who ought, if they had the least prudence, to follow their mercantile employments and not trouble themselves with politics and government, which they do not understand. This expressed in concise form exactly the sentiments of Lord North, who had then for three years been the King's Chief Minister. Even Pitt, Lord Chatham, was prepared to support the government in upholding its authority. The Five Intolerable Acts Parliament beginning on March 31, 1774, passed five stringent measures known in American history as the Five Intolerable Acts. They were aimed at curing the unrest in America. The first of them was a bill absolutely shutting the port of Boston to commerce with the outside world. The second, following closely, revoked the Massachusetts Charter of 1691 and provided furthermore that the counselors should be appointed by the King, that all judges should be named by the royal governor, and that town meetings, except to elect certain officers, could not be held without the governor's consent. A third measure after denouncing the utter subversion of all lawful government in the provinces authorized royal agents to transfer to Great Britain or to other colonies the trials of officers or other persons accused of murder in connection with the enforcement of the law. The fourth act legalized the quartering of troops in Massachusetts towns. The fifth of the measures was the Quebec Act, which granted religious toleration to the Catholics in Canada, extended the boundaries of Quebec southward to the Ohio River, and established in this western region government by a viceroy. The intolerable acts went through parliament with extraordinary celerity. There was an opposition, alert and informed, but it was ineffective. Burke spoke eloquently against the Boston Port Bill, condemning it roundly for punishing the innocent with a guilty, and showing how likely it was to bring grave consequences in its train. He was heard with respect and his pleas were rejected. The bill passed both houses without a division, the entry unanimous being made upon their journals, although it did not accurately represent the state of opinion. The law destroying the charter of Massachusetts passed the commons by a vote of three to one, and the third intolerable act by a vote of four to one. The triumph of the ministry was complete. What passed in Boston, exclaimed the great jurist Lord Mansfield, is the overt act of high treason proceeding from our overlineity and want of foresight. The crown and parliament were united in resorting to punitive measures. In the colonies the laws were received with consternation. To the American Protestants the Quebec Act was the most offensive. That project they viewed not as an act of grace or mercy, but as a direct attempt to enlist French Canadians on the side of Great Britain. The British government did not grant religious toleration to Catholics either at home or in Ireland and the Americans could see no good motive in granting it in North America. The act was also offensive because Massachusetts, Connecticut and Virginia had under their charters large claims to the territory thus annexed to Quebec. To enforce these intolerable acts the military arm of the British government was brought into play. The commander-in-chief of the armed forces in America, General Gage, was appointed governor of Massachusetts. Reinforcements were brought to the colonies for now King George was to give the rebels, as he called them, a taste of strong medicine. The majesty of his law was to be vindicated by force. From reform to revolution in America, the doctrine of natural rights, the dissolution of assemblies, the destruction of charters, and the use of troops produced in the colonies a new phase in the struggle. In the early days of the contest with the British ministry the Americans spoke of their rights as Englishmen and condemned the acts of parliament as unlawful as violating the principles of the English constitution under which they all lived. When they saw that such arguments had no effect on parliament, they turned for support to their natural rights. The latter doctrine in the form in which it was employed by the colonists was as English as the constitutional argument. John Locke had used it with good effect in defense of the English Revolution in the 17th century. American leaders familiar with the writings of Locke also took up his thesis in the hour of their distress. They openly declared that their rights did not rest after all upon the English constitution or a charter from the crown. Old Magna Carta was not the beginning of all things, retorted Otis, when the constitutional argument failed. A time may come when parliament shall declare every American charter void, but the natural, inherent, and inseparable rights of the colonists as men and as citizens would remain, and whatever became of charters can never be abolished until the general conflagration. Of the same opinion was the young and impetuous Alexander Hamilton. The sacred rites of mankind, he exclaimed, are not to be rummaged for among old parchment or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human destiny by the hand of divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power. Firm as the American leaders were in the statement and defense of their rights, there is every reason for believing that in the beginning they hoped to confine the conflict to the realm of opinion. They constantly avowed that they were loyal to the king when protesting in the strongest language against his policies. Even Otis, regarded by the loyalists as a firebrand, was in fact attempting to avert revolution by winning concessions from England. I argue this cause with the greater pleasure, he solemnly urged in his speech against the rites of assistance, as it is in favor of British liberty, and as it is in opposition to a kind of power the exercise of which in former periods cost one king of England his head and another his throne. Burke offers the doctrine of conciliation. The flooding tide of American sentiment was correctly measured by one Englishman at least, Edmund Burke, who quickly saw that attempts to restrain the rise of American democracy were efforts to reverse the processes of nature. He saw how fixed and rooted in the nature of things was the American spirit, how inevitable, how irresistible. He warned his countrymen that there were three ways of handling the delicate situation, and only three. One was to remove the cause of friction by changing the spirit of the colonists, and utter impossibility because that spirit was grounded in the essential circumstances of American life. The second was to prosecute American leaders as criminals. Of this he begged his countrymen to beware lest the colonists declare that a government against which a claim of liberty is tantamount to high treason is a government of which submission is equivalent to slavery. The third and right way to meet the problem, Burke concluded, was to accept the American spirit, repeal the obnoxious measures, and receive the colonies into equal partnership. Events produced the great decision. The right way indicated by Burke was equally impossible to George III and the majority in Parliament. To their narrow minds American opinion was contemptible and American resistance unlawful, riotous, and treasonable. The correct way, in their view, was to dispatch more troops to crush the rebels, and that very act took the contest from the realm of opinion. As John Adams said, facts are stubborn things. Opinions were unseen, but marching soldiers were visible to the various street urchant. Now, said Governor Morris, the sheep, simple as they are, cannot be gulled as here to fore. It was too late to talk about the excellence of the British Constitution. If anyone is bewildered by the controversies of modern historians as to why the crisis came at last, he can clarify his understanding by reading again Edmund Burke's stately oration on conciliation with America. References G. L. Beer, British Colonial Policy, 1754-1763 E. Channing, History of the United States, Volume 3 R. Frotheringham, Rise of the Republic G. E. Howard, Preliminaries of the Revolution, American Nation Series J. K. Hosmer, Samuel Adams J. T. Morse, Benjamin Franklin M. C. Tyler, Patrick Henry J. A. Woodburn, Editor, The American Revolution, Selections from the English Work by Leakey End of Section 3 Section 4 of the History of the United States, Part 2 This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritterbeard, Part 2 Section 4 The American Revolution, Resistance and Retaliation The Continental Congress When the news of the intolerable acts reached America, everyone knew what strong medicine parliament was prepared to administer to all those who resisted its authority. The cause of Massachusetts became the cause of all the colonies. Opposition to British policy, hitherto local and spasmodic, now took on a national character. To local committees and provincial conventions was added a Continental Congress, appropriately called by Massachusetts, on June 17, 1774, at the instigation of Samuel Adams. The response to the summons was electric. By hurried and irregular methods, delegates were elected during the summer, and on September 5, the Congress duly assembled in Carpenters Hall in Philadelphia. Many of the greatest men in America were there, George Washington and Patrick Henry from Virginia, and John and Samuel Adams from Massachusetts. Every shade of opinion was represented. Some were impatient with mild devices. The majority favored moderation. The Congress drew up a declaration of American rights and stated in clear and dignified language the grievances of the colonists. It approved the resistance to British measures offered by Massachusetts, and promised the united support of all sections. It prepared an address to King George and another to the people of England, disavowing the idea of independence, but firmly attacking the policies pursued by the British government. The Non-Importation Agreement The Congress was not content, however, with professions of faith and with petitions. It took one revolutionary step. It agreed to stop the importation of British goods into America, and the enforcement of this agreement, it placed in the hands of local committees of safety and inspection to be elected by the qualified voters. The significance of this action is obvious. Congress threw itself at thwart British law. It made a rule to bind American citizens and to be carried into effect by American officers. It set up a state within the British state and laid down a test of allegiance to the new order. The colonists, who up to this moment had been wavering, had to choose one authority or the other. They were for the enforcement of the Non-Importation Agreement, or they were against it. They either bought English goods, or they did not. In the spirit of the toast, may Britain be wise and America be free, the First Continental Congress adjourned in October, having appointed the 10th of May following for the meeting of a second Congress should necessity require. Lord North's Olive Branch When the news of the action of the American Congress reached Britain, Pitt and Burke warmly urged a repeal of the obnoxious laws, but in vain. All they can wring from the Prime Minister, Lord North, was a set of conciliatory resolutions, proposing to relieve from taxation any colony that would assume its share of imperial defense and may provision for supporting the local officers of the Crown. This Olive Branch was accompanied by a resolution assuring the king of support at all hazards in suppressing the rebellion, and by the restraining act of March 30, 1775, which in effect destroyed the commerce of New England. Bloodshed at Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775. Meanwhile, the British authorities of Massachusetts relaxed none of their efforts in upholding British sovereignty. General Gage, hearing that military stores had been collected at Concord, dispatched a small force to seize them. By this act he precipitated the conflict he had sought to avoid. At Lexington, on the road to Concord, occurred the little thing that produced the great event. An unexpected collision beyond the thought or purpose of any man had transferred the contest from the forum to the battlefield. The Second Continental Congress Though blood had been shed and war was actually at hand, the Second Continental Congress, which met at Philadelphia in May, 1775, was not yet convinced that conciliation was beyond human power. It petitioned the king to interpose on behalf of the colonists in order that the empire might avoid the calamities of civil war. On the last day of July it made a temperate but firm answer to Lord North's offer of conciliation, stating that the proposal was unsatisfactory because it did not renounce the right to tax or repeal the offensive acts of parliament. Force, the British Answer Just as the representatives of America were about to present the last petition of Congress to the king on August 23, 1775, George III issued a proclamation of rebellion. This announcement declared the colonists misled by dangerous and ill-designing men were, in a state of insurrection, it called on the civil and military powers to bring the traitors to justice, and it threatened with, Condined punishment, the authors, perpetrators, and abetters of such traitorious designs. It closed with the usual prayer, God Save the King. Later in the year, parliament passed a sweeping act, destroying all trade and intercourse with America. Congress was silent at last. Force was also America's answer. American Independence Drifting into War Although the Congress had not given up all hope of reconciliation in the spring and summer of 1775, it had firmly resolved to defend American rights by arms if necessary. It transformed the militiamen who had assembled near Boston after the Battle of Lexington into a continental army and selected Washington as commander-in-chief. It assumed the powers of a government and prepared to raise money, wage war, and carry on diplomatic relations with foreign countries. Events followed thick and fast. On June 17, the American militia, by the stubborn defense of Bunker Hill, showed that it could make British regulars pay dearly for all they got. On July 3rd, Washington took command of the army at Cambridge. In January 1776, after bitter disappointments and drumming up recruits for its army in England, Scotland, and Ireland, the British government concluded a treaty with the land grab of Hess Castle in Germany, contracting, at a handsome figure, for thousands of soldiers and many pieces of cannon. This was the crowning insult to America. Such was the view of all friends of the colonies on both sides of the water. Such was, long afterwards, the judgment of the conservative historian, Lecky. The conduct of England in hiring German mercenaries to subdue the essentially English population beyond the Atlantic made reconciliation hopeless and independence inevitable. The news of this wretched transaction in German soldiers had hardly reached America before there ran, all down the coast, the thrilling story that Washington had taken Boston on March 17, 1776, compelling Lord Howell to sail with his entire army for Halifax. The growth of public sentiment in favor of independence. Events were bearing the Americans away from their old position under the British Constitution toward a final separation. Slowly and against their desires, prudent and honorable men who cherished the ties that united them to the old order and dreaded with genuine horror all thoughts of revolution were drawn into the path that led to the great decision. In all parts of the country and among all classes, the question of the hour was being debated. American independence, as the historian Bancroft says, was not an act of sudden passion nor the work of one man or one assembly. It had been discussed in every part of the country by farmers and merchants, by mechanics and planters, by the fishermen along the coast in the back woodsmen of the west, in town meetings and from the pulpit, at social gatherings and around the campfires, in country conventions and conferences or committees, in colonial congresses and assemblies. Pains, common sense. In the midst of this ferment of American opinion, a bold and eloquent pamphletier broke in upon the hesitating public with a program for absolute independence, without fears and without apologies. In the early days of 1776, Thomas Paine issued the first of his famous tracks, Common Sense, a passionate attack upon the British monarchy and an equally passionate plea for American liberty. Casting aside the language of petition, with which Americans and hitherto addressed George III, Paine went to the other extreme and assailed him with many a violent epithet. He condemned monarchy itself as a system which had laid the world in blood and ashes. Instead of praising the British Constitution, under which colonists had been claiming their rights, he brushed it aside as ridiculous, protesting that it was, owing to the Constitution of the people, not to the Constitution of the government, that the crown is not as oppressive in England as in Turkey. Having thus summarily swept aside the grounds of allegiance to the old order, Paine proceeded relentlessly to an argument for immediate separation from Great Britain. There was nothing in the sphere of practical interest, he insisted, which would bind the colonies to the mother country. Allegiance to her had been responsible for many wars in which they had been involved. Reasons of trade were not less weighty in behalf of independence. Our corn will fetch its price in any market in Europe, and our imported goods must be paid for by them where we will. As to matters of government, it is not in the power of Britain to do this continent justice. The business of it will soon be too weighty and intricate to be managed, with any tolerable degree of convenience by a power so distant from us, and so very ignorant of us. There is, accordingly, no alternative to independence for America. Everything that is right or natural pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, Tis timed apart. Arms, the last resort, must decide the contest. The appeal was the choice of the king, and the continent hath accepted the challenge. The sun never shone on a cause of greater worth. Tis not the affair of a city, a county, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent. Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age. Posterity is involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected to the end of time by the proceedings now. Now is the sea-time of continental union, faith and honor. Oh, ye that love mankind. Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth. Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct. Let none other be heard among us than those of a good citizen, an open and resolute friend, and a virtuous supporter of the rights of mankind, and of the free and independent states of America. As more than 100,000 copies were scattered broadcast over the country, patriots exclaimed with Washington, sound doctrine, and unanswerable reason. The drift of events towards independence. Official support for the idea of independence began to come from many quarters. On the 10th of February, 1776, Gaston, in the Provincial Convention of South Carolina, advocated a new constitution for the colony, an absolute independence for all America. The convention bogged at the latter, but went halfway by establishing a system of royal administration, and establishing a complete plan of self-government. A month later, on April 12, the neighboring state of North Carolina uttered the daring phrase from which others shrank. It empowered its representatives in the Congress to concur with the delegates of the other colonies in declaring independence. Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Virginia quickly responded to the challenge. The convention of the Old Dominion, on May 15, instructed its delegates at Philadelphia to propose the independence of the United Colonies, and to give the Ascent of Virginia to the act of separation. When the resolution was carried, the British flag on the State House was lowered for all time. Meanwhile, the Continental Congress was alive to the course of events outside. The subject of independence was constantly being raised. Are we rebels, exclaimed Wyeth of Virginia, during a debate in February? No, we must declare ourselves a free people. Others hesitated and spoke of waiting for the arrival of commissioners of conciliation. Is not America already independent? asked Sam Adams a few weeks later. Why not then declare it? Still, there was uncertainty, and delegates avoided the direct word. A few more weeks elapsed. At last, on May 10, Congress declared that the authority of the British Crown in America must be suppressed, and advised the colonies to set up governments of their own. Independence declared. The way was fully prepared, therefore, when, on June 7, the Virginia delegation of the Congress moved that, these United Colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and independent states. A committee was immediately appointed to draft a formal document setting forth the reasons for the act. And on July 2, all the states, save New York, went on record in favor of severing their political connection with Great Britain. Two days later, July 4, Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence, changed in some slight parameters, was adopted. The old bell in Independence Hall, as it is now known, rang out the glad tidings. Couriers swiftly carried the news to the uttermost Hamlet and Farm. A new nation announced its will to have a place among the powers of the world. To some documents is given immortality. The Declaration of Independence is one of them. American patriotism is forever associated with it. But patriotism alone does not make it immortal. Neither does the vigor of its language, or the severity of its indictment give it a secure place in the records of time. The secret of its greatness lies in the simple fact that it is one of the memorable landmarks in the history of a political ideal, which for three centuries has been taking form and spreading throughout the earth, challenging kings and potentates, shaking down thrones and aristocracies, breaking the armies of irresponsible power on battlefields as far as part as Marston Moore and Chateau Théry. That ideal, now so familiar, then so novel, is summed up in the simple sentence. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Britain, in a decent respect for the opinions of mankind, to set forth the causes which impelled the American colonists to separate from Britain, the Declaration contained a long list of abuses and usurpations, which have induced them to throw off the government of King George. That section of the Declaration has passed into ancient history in a seldom read. It is the part laying down a new basis for government, and giving a new dignity to the common man that has become a household phrase in the old world as well as in the new. In the more enduring passages there are four fundamental ideas which, from the standpoint of the old system of government, were the essence of revolution. One, all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Two, the purpose of government is to secure these rights. Three, governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Four, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and institute new government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness. Here was the prelude to the historic drama of democracy, a challenge to every former government and every privilege not founded on popular ascent. End of Section 4. Section 5 of History of the United States, Part 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by M. L. Cohen, Cleveland, Ohio, July 2007. History of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritterbeard. Part 2, Section 5. The establishment of government and the new allegiance. The committees of correspondence. As soon as debate had passed into armed resistance, the patriots found it necessary to consolidate their forces by organizing civil government. This was readily affected, for the means were at hand in town meetings, provincial legislatures and committees of correspondence. The working tools of the revolution were, in fact, the committees of correspondence. Small, local, unofficial groups of patriots formed to exchange views and create public sentiment. As early as November 1772, such a committee had been created in Boston under the leadership of Samuel Adams. It held regular meetings, sent emissaries to neighboring towns, and carried on a campaign of education into doctrines of liberty. Upon local organizations similar in character to the Boston committee, were built county committees and then larger colonial committees, congresses and conventions, all unofficial and representing the revolutionary elements. Ordinarily, the provincial convention was merely the old legislative assembly freed from all royalist sympathizers and controlled by patriots. Finally, upon these colonial assemblies was built the Continental Congress, the precursor of union under the Articles of Confederation, and ultimately under the Constitution of the United States. This was the revolutionary government set up within the British Empire in America. State constitutions framed. With the rise of these new assemblies of the people, the old colonial governments broke down. From the royal provinces, the governor, the judges, and the high officers fled in haste, and it became necessary to substitute patriot authorities. The appeal to the colonies, advising them to adopt a new form of government for themselves, issued by the Congress in May 1776, was quickly acted upon. Before the expiration of a year, Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Georgia, and New York had drafted new constitutions as states, not as colonies uncertain of their destinies. Connecticut and Rhode Island, holding that their ancient charters were equal to their needs, merely renounced their allegiance to the king and went on as before so far as the form of government was concerned. South Carolina, which had drafted a temporary plan early in 1776, drew up a new and more complete constitution in 1778. Two years later, Massachusetts, with much deliberation, put into force its fundamental law, which in most of its essential features remains unchanged today. The new state constitutions and their broad outlines followed colonial models, where the royal governor was substituted a governor or president chosen usually by the legislature. But in two instances, New York and Massachusetts by popular vote. For the provincial council, there was substituted, except in Georgia, a Senate, while the lower house or assembly was continued virtually without change. The old property restriction on the suffrage, though lowered slightly in some states, was continued in full force to the great discontent of the mechanics thus deprived of the ballot. The special qualifications laid down in several constitutions for governors, senators, and representatives indicated that the revolutionary leaders were not prepared for any radical experiments in democracy. The protests of a few women, like Mrs. John Adams of Massachusetts, and Mrs. Henry Corbin of Virginia, against a government which excluded them from political rights were treated as mild curiosities of no significance. Although in New Jersey, women were allowed to vote for many years on the same terms as men. By the new state constitutions, the signs and symbols of royal power of authority derived from any source saved the people, were swept aside in Republican governments on an imposing scale presented for the first time to the modern world. Copies of these remarkable documents prepared by plain citizens were translated into French and widely circulated in Europe. There they were destined to serve as a guide and inspiration to a generation of Constitution makers whose mission it was to begin the democratic revolution in the old world. The Articles of Confederation The formation of state constitutions was an easy task for the revolutionary leaders. They had only to build on foundations already laid. The establishment of a national system of government was another matter. There had always been, it must be remembered, a system of central control over the colonies, but Americans had had little experience in its operation. When the supervision of the Crown of Great Britain was suddenly broken, the patriot leaders accustomed merely to provincial statesmanship were poorly trained for action on a national stage. Many forces worked against those who, like Franklin, had a vision of national destiny. There were differences in economic interest, commerce and industry in North and the planting system of the South. There were contests over the appointment of taxes and the quotas of troops for common defense. To these practical difficulties were added local pride, the vested rights of state and vilous politicians and their provincial dignity, and the scarcity of men with a large outlook upon the common enterprise. Nevertheless, necessity compelled them to consider some sort of federation. The Second Continental Congress had hardly opened its work before the most sagacious leaders began to urge the desirability of a permanent connection. As early as July 1775, Congress resolved to go into a committee of the whole on the state and the Union, and Franklin, undaunted by the fate of his Albany plan of 20 years before, again presented a draft of a constitution. Long and desultory debates followed, and it was not until late in 1777 that Congress presented to the states the Articles of Confederation. Provincial Jealousy's delayed ratification, and it was the spring of 1781, a few months before the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, when Maryland, the last of the states, approved the Articles. This plan of Union, though it was all that could be wrong from the reluctant states, provided for neither a chief executive nor a system of federal courts. It created simply a Congress of Delegates in which each state had an equal voice, and gave it the right to call upon the state legislatures for the sinews of government, money, and soldiers. The Application of Tests of Allegiance As the successive steps were taken in the direction of independent government, the Patriots devised an applied test designed to discover who were for and who were against the new nation in the process of making. When the First Continental Congress agreed not to allow the importation of British goods, it provided for the creation of local committees to enforce the rules. Such agencies were duly formed by the choice of men favoring the scheme, all opponents being excluded from the elections. Before these bodies, those who persisted in buying British goods were summoned and warned or punished according to circumstances. As soon as the new state constitutions were put into effect, local committees set to work in the same way to ferret out all who were not outspoken in the support of the new order of things. These Patriot agencies bearing different names in different sections were sometimes ruthless in their methods. They called upon all men to sign the Test of Loyalty, frequently known as the quote Association Test. Those who refused were promptly branded as outlaws while some of the more dangerous were thrown into jail. The prison camp in Connecticut at one time held the former governor of New Jersey and the mayor of New York. Thousands were blacklisted and subjected to espionage. The blacklist of Pennsylvania contained the names of nearly 500 persons of prominence who were under suspicion. Loyalists or Tories who were bold enough to speak and read against the Revolution were suppressed and their pamphlets burned. In many places, particularly in the north, the property of the Loyalist was confiscated and the proceeds applied to the cause of the revolution. The work of the official agencies for suppression of opposition was sometimes supplemented by mob violence. A few Tories were hanged without trial and others were tarred and feathered. One was placed upon a cake of ice and held there, quote, until his loyalty to King George might cool, end quote. Whole families were driven out of their homes to find their way as best they could within the British lines or into Canada where the British government gave them lands. Such excesses were deployed by Washington, but they were defended on the ground that in effect a civil war as well as a war for independence was being waged. The Patriots and Tories. Thus by one process or another, those who were to be citizens of the New Republic were separated from those who preferred to be subjects of King George. Yet what proportion of the Americans favored independence and what share remained loyal to the British monarchy there is no way of knowing. The question of revolution was not submitted to popular vote and on the point of numbers we have conflicting evidence. On the Patriot side there is the testimony of a careful and informed observer, John Adams, who asserted that two-thirds of the people were for the American cause and not more than one-third opposed a revolution at all stages. On behalf of the Loyalist or Tories as they were popularly known, extravagant claims were made. Joseph Galloway, who had been a member of the First Continental Congress, and had fled to England when he saw its temper, testified before a committee of parliament in 1779 that not one-fifth of the American people supported the insurrection and that, quote, many more than four-fifths of the people prefer a union with Great Britain upon constitutional principles to independence, end quote. At the same time, General Robertson, who had lived in America 24 years, declared that, quote, more than two-thirds of the people would prefer the king's government than a Congress's tyranny, end quote. In an address to the king, in that year a committee of American Loyalists asserted that, quote, the number of Americans in his Majesty's army exceeded the number of troops enlisted by Congress to oppose them, end quote. The character of the Loyalists. When General Howe evacuated Boston, more than a thousand people fled with him. This great company, according to a careful historian, quote, formed the aristocracy of the province by virtue of their official rank, of their dignified callings and professions, of their hereditary wealth and of their culture, end quote. The act of banishment passed by Massachusetts in 1778, listing over 300 Tories, quote, reads like the social register of the oldest and noblest families of New England, end quote, more than one out of five being graduates of Harvard College. The same was true of New York and Philadelphia, namely that the leading Loyalists were prominent officials of the old order, clergymen and wealthy merchants. With passion, the Loyalists fought against the inevitable or with anguish of heart they left as refugees for a life of uncertainty in Canada or the mother country. Tories assailed the Patriots. The Tories who remained in America joined the British Army by the thousands or in other ways aided the Royal cause. Those who were skillful with the penicell, the Patriots and editorials rhymed satires and political catechisms. They declared that the members of Congress were, quote, obscure, pitifogging attorneys, bankrupt shopkeepers, outlawed smugglers, etc., end quote. The people and their leaders they characterized as, quote, wretched bandit, the refuge and dregs of mankind, end quote. The generals in the army, they sneered at as, quote, men of rank and honor nearly on a par with those of Congress, end quote. Patriot writers aroused a national spirit. Stung by Tory taunts, Patriot writers devoted themselves to creating and sustaining a public opinion favorable to the American cause. Moreover, they had to combat the depression that grew out of the misfortunes in the early days of the war. A terrible disaster befell generals Arnold and Montgomery in the winter of 1775 as they attempted to bring Canada into the revolution, a disaster that cost 5,000 men. Repeated calamities harassed Washington in 1776 as he was defeated on Long Island, driven out of New York City, and beaten at Harlem Heights and White Plains. These reverses were almost too great for the stoutest Patriots. Pamphleteers, preachers and publicist rose, however, to meet the needs of the hour. John Witherspoon, provost of the College of New Jersey, forsook the classroom for the field of political controversy. The poet Philip Fresno flung taunts of cowardice at the Tories and celebrated the spirits of liberty in many a stirring poem. Songs, ballads, plays and satires flowed from the press in an unending stream. Fast days, battle anniversaries, celebration of important steps taken by Congress, affording to the patriotic clergymen, abundant opportunities for their sermons. Does Mr. Wilbur preach against depression? Anxiously inquired John Adams in a letter to his wife. The answer was decisive. The clergy of every denomination, not accepting the Episcopalian, thunder and lightning, every Sabbath. They pray for Boston and Massachusetts. They thank God most explicitly and fervently for our remarkable successes. They pray for the American Army. Thomas Paine never let his pen rest. He had been with the forces of Washington when they retreated from Fort Lee and were harried from New Jersey into Pennsylvania. He knew the effect of such reverses on the Army as well as on the public. In December 1776, he made a second great appeal to his countrymen in his pamphlet, The Crisis, the first part of which he had written while the feet and gloom were all about him. This tract was a cry for continued support of the Revolution. Quote, These are the times that try men's souls, he opened. The summer soldier and the sunshine patron will in this crisis shrink from the service of his country. But he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of men and women. Paine laid his last fiercely on the Tories, branding everyone as a coward grounded in, servile, slavish, self-interested fear. He deplored the inadequacy of the militia and called for a real army. He refuted the charge that the retreat through New Jersey was a disaster and he promised victory soon. Quote, By perseverance and fortitude he concluded, We have the prospect of a glorious issue. By cowardice and submission the sad choice of a variety of evils, a ravaged country, a depopulated city, habitations without safety and slavery without hope. Look on this picture and weep over it. His ringing call to arms was followed by another and another until the long contest was over. End of Section 5. Section 6 of History of the United States, Part 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Robin Cotter, July 2007. History of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritter Beard, Part 2 Section 6 Military Affairs The Two Phases of War The war which opened with the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775 and closed with the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown on October 19, 1781 passed through two distinct phases, the first lasting until the Treaty of Alliance with France in 1778 and the second until the end of the struggle. During the first phase the war was confined mainly to the North. The outstanding features of the contest were the evacuation of Boston by the British, the expulsion of American forces from New York, and their retreat through New Jersey, the Battle of Trenton, the seizure of Philadelphia by the British, September 1777, the invasion of New York by Burgoyne and his capture at Saratoga in October 1777, and the encampment of American forces at Valley Forge for the terrible winter of 1777 to 1778. The final phase of the war, opening with the Treaty of Alliance with France on February 6, 1778, was confined mainly to the Middle States, the West and the South. In the first sphere of action the chief events were the withdrawal of the British from Philadelphia, the Battle of Monmouth, and the enclosure of the British in New York by deploying American forces from Morristown, New Jersey, up to West Point. In the West George Rogers Clark, by his famous march into the Illinois country, secured Cascadia and Vincennes, and laid a firm grip on the country between the Ohio and the Great Lakes. In the South the second period opened with successes for the British. They captured Savannah, conquered Georgia, and restored the Royal Governor. In 1780 they seized Charleston, administered a crushing defeat to the American forces under gates at Camden, and overran South Carolina, though meeting reverses at Cowpens and Kings Mountain. Then came the closing scenes. Cornwallis began the last of his operations. He pursued General Green far into North Carolina, clashed with him at Guilford Courthouse, retired to the coast, took charge of British forces engaged in plundering Virginia, and fortified Yorktown, where he was penned up by the French fleet from the sea, and the combined French and American forces on land. The Geographical Aspects of the War For the British the theatre of the war offered many problems. From first to last it extended from Massachusetts to Georgia, a distance of almost a thousand miles. It was nearly three thousand miles from the main base of supplies, and, though the British Navy kept the channel open, transports were constantly falling prey to daring privateers and fleet American war vessels. The sea, on the other hand, offered an easy means of transportation between points along the coast and gave ready access to the American centers of wealth and population. Of this the British made good use. Though early forced to give up Boston, they seized New York and kept it until the end of the war. They took Philadelphia and retained it until threatened by the approach of the French fleet, and they captured and held both Savannah and Charleston. Wars, however, are seldom won by the conquest of cities. Particularly was this true in the case of the Revolution. Only a small portion of the American people lived in towns. Countrymen back from the coast were in no way dependent upon them for a livelihood. They lived on the produce of the soil, not upon the profits of trade. This very fact gave strength to them in the contest. Whenever the British ventured far from the points of entry, they encountered reverses. Burgoyne was forced to surrender at Saratoga because he was surrounded and cut off from his base of supplies. As soon as the British got away from Charleston, they were harassed and worried by the guerrilla warriors of Marion, Sumter, and Pickens. Cornwallis could technically defeat Green at Guilford, far in the interior, but he could not hold the inland region he had invaded. Sustained by their own labor, possessing the interior to which their armies could readily retreat, supplied mainly from native resources, the Americans could not be hemmed in, penned up, and destroyed at one fell blow. The Seapower The British made good use of their fleet in cutting off American trade, but control of the sea did not seriously affect the United States. As an agricultural country, the ruin of its commerce was not such a vital matter. All the materials for a comfortable, though somewhat rude life were right at hand. It made little difference to a nation fighting for existence, if silks, fine linens, and chinaware were cut off. This was an evil to which submission was necessary. Nor did the brilliant exploits of John Paul Jones and Captain John Berry materially change the situation. They demonstrated the scale of American seamen, and their courage as fighting men. They raised the rates of British marine insurance, but they did not dethrone the mistress of the seas. Less spectacular, and more distinctive, were the deeds of the hundreds of privateers, and minor captains who overhauled British supply ships, and kept British merchantmen in constant anxiety. Not until the French fleet was thrown into the scale, were the British compelled to reckon seriously with the enemy on the sea, and make plans based upon the possibilities of a maritime disaster. On the score of military leadership it is difficult to compare the contending forces in the revolutionary contest. There is no doubt that all the British commanders were men of experience in the art of warfare. Sir William Howe had served in America during the French War, and was accounted an excellent officer, a strict disciplinarian, and a gallant gentleman. Nevertheless he loved ease, society, and good living, and his expulsion from Boston, his failure to overwhelm Washington by sallies from his comfortable bases at New York and Philadelphia, destroyed every shred of his military reputation. John Burgoyne, to whom was given the task of penetrating New York from Canada, had likewise seen service in the French War both in America and Europe. He had, however, a touch of the theatrical in his nature, and after the collapse of his plans and the surrender of his army in 1777, he devoted his time mainly to light literature. Sir Henry Clinton, who directed the movement which ended in the capture of Charleston in 1780, had, quote, learned his trade on the Continent, unquote, and was regarded as a man of discretion and understanding in military matters. Lord Cornwallis, whose achievements at Camden and Guilford were blotted out by his surrender at Yorktown, had seen service in the Seven Years' War, and had undoubted talents which he afterward displayed with great credit to himself in India. Though none of them, perhaps, were men of first-rate ability, they all had training and experience to guide them. The Americans had a host in Washington himself. He had long been interested in military strategy, and had tested his coolness under fire during the first clashes with the French nearly twenty years before. He had no doubts about the justice of his cause, such as plague to some of the British generals. He was a stern but reasonable disciplinarian. He was reserved and patient, little given to exultation, at success or depression, at reverses. In the dark hour of the revolution, quote, what held the Patriot forces together, unquote, asks Beverage in his life of John Marshall, then he answers, quote, George Washington, and he alone, had he died or been seriously disabled, the revolution would have ended. Washington was the soul of the American cause. Washington was the government. Washington was the revolution, unquote. The weakness of Congress in furnishing men and supplies, the indolence of civilians, who lived at ease while the army starved, the intrigues of army officers against him, such as the Conway Cabal, the cowardice of Lee at Monmouth, even the treason of Benedict Arnold, while they stirred deep emotions in his breast and aroused him to make passionate pleas to his countrymen, did not shake his iron will or his firm determination to see the war through to the bitter end. The weight of Washington's moral force was immeasurable. Of the generals who served under him, none can really be said to have been experienced military men when the war opened. Benedict Arnold, the unhappy trader, but brave and daring soldier, was a drugist, bookseller, and shipowner at New Haven, when the news of Lexington called him to battle. Horatio Gates was looked upon as a seasoned soldier, because he had entered the British army as a youth, had been wounded at Braddock's memorable defeat, and had served with credit during the Seven Years' War, but he was the most conspicuous failure of the Revolution. The triumph over Burgoyne was the work of other men, and his crushing defeat at Camden put an end to his military pretensions. Nathaniel Green was a Rhode Island farmer and smith without military experience, who, when convinced that war was coming, read Caesar's commentaries and took up the sword. Francis Marion was a shy and modest planter of South Carolina, whose sole passage at arms had been a brief but desperate brush with the Indians ten or twelve years earlier. Daniel Morgan, one of the heroes of Cowpens, had been a teamster with Braddock's army, and had seen some fighting during the French and Indian war, but his military knowledge from the point of view of a trained British officer was negligible. John Sullivan was a successful lawyer at Durham, New Hampshire, and a major in the local militia when duty summoned him to lay down his briefs and take up the sword. Anthony Wayne was a Pennsylvania farmer and land surveyor, who, on hearing the clash of arms, read a few books on war, raised a regiment, and offered himself for service. Such is the story of the chief American military leaders, and it is typical of them all. Some had seen fighting with the French and Indians, but none of them had seen warfare on a large scale, with regular troops commanded according to the strategy evolved in European experience. Courage, native ability, quickness of mind, and knowledge of the country they had in abundance, and in battles such as were fought during the Revolution, all those qualities counted heavily in the balance. Foreign officers in American service. To native genius was added military talent from beyond the seas, Baron Steuben, well-schooled in the Iron Regime of Frederick the Great, came over from Prussia, joined Washington at Valley Forge, and day after day drilled and maneuvered the men, laughing and cursing as he turned raw countrymen into regular soldiers. From France came young Lafayette, and the stern Dekalb. From Poland came Poulouski and Kosciuszko, all acquainted with the arts of war as waged in Europe, and fitted for leadership as well as teaching. Lafayette came early in 1776 in a ship of his own, accompanied by several officers of wide experience, and remained loyally throughout the war sharing the hardships of American army life. Poulouski fell at the siege of Savannah and Dekalb at Camden. Kosciuszko served the American War to defend in vain the independence of his native land. To these distinguished foreigners who freely threw in their lot with American revolutionary fortunes was due much of that spirit and discipline which fitted raw recruits and temperamental militiamen to cope with the military power of the first rank. The Soldiers. As far as the British soldiers were concerned, their annals are short and simple. The regulars from the standing army who were sent over at the opening of the contest, the recruits drummed up by special efforts at home, and the thousands of Hessians bought outright by King George, presented few problems of management to the British officers. These common soldiers were far away from home and enlisted for the war. Nearly all of them were well disciplined, and many of them experienced in actual campaigns. The armies of King George fought bravely as the records of Bunker Hill, Brandywine, and Monmouth demonstrate. Many a man and subordinate officer, and, for that matter, some of the high officers expressed a reluctance at fighting against their own kin, but they obeyed orders. The Americans, on the other hand, while they fought with grim determination as men fighting for their homes, were lacking in discipline and in the experience of regular troops. When the war broke in upon them, there were no common preparations for it. There was no continental army. There were only local bands of militiamen, many of them experienced in fighting, but few of them regulars in the military sense. Moreover, they were volunteers serving for a short time, unaccustomed to severe discipline, and impatient at the restraints imposed on them by long and arduous campaigns. They were continually leaving the service just at the most critical moments. Quote, the militia, lamented Washington, come in, you cannot tell how, go, you cannot tell where, consume your provisions, exhaust your stores, and leave you at last at a critical moment. Again and again Washington begged Congress to provide for an army of regulars enlisted for the war, thoroughly trained and paid according to some definite plan. At last he was able to overcome, in part at least, the chronic fear of civilians in Congress, and to ring from that reluctant body an agreement to grant half-pay to all officers and a bonus to all privates who served until the end of the war. Even this scheme, which Washington regarded as far short of justice to the soldiers, did not produce quick results. It was near the close of the conflict before he had an army of well-disciplined veterans capable of meeting British regulars on equal terms. Though there were times when militia men and frontiersmen did valiant and effective work, it is due to historical accuracy to deny the time-honored tradition that a few minute men overwhelmed more numerous forces of regulars in a seven-year war for independence. They did nothing of the sort. For the victories of Bennington, Trenton, Saratoga, and Yorktown, there were the defeats of Bunker Hill, Long Island, White Plains, Germantown, and Camden. Not once did an army of militia men overcome an equal number of British regulars in an open trial by battle. Quote, to bring men to be well acquainted with the duties of a soldier, wrote Washington, requires time. To expect the same service for mora and undisciplined recruits as from veteran soldiers is to expect what never did, and perhaps never will, happen." How the war was won. Then how did the American army win the war? For one thing there were delays and blunders on the part of the British generals, who in 1775 and 1776 dallied in Boston and New York with large bodies of regular troops when they might have been dealing paralyzing blows at the scattered bands that constituted the American army. Quote, nothing but the supineness or folly of the enemy could have saved us. solemnly averred Washington in 1780. Still it is fair to say that this apparent supineness was not all due to the British generals. The ministers behind them believed that a large part of the colonists were loyal, and the compromise would be promoted by inaction, rather than by a war vigorously prosecuted. Victory by masterly inactivity was obviously better than conquest, and the slider the wounds, the quicker the healing. Later in the conflict, when the seasoned forces of France were thrown into the scale, the Americans themselves had learned many things about the practical conduct of campaigns. All along the British were embarrassed by the problem of supplies, their troops could not forage with the scale of militiamen, as they were in unfamiliar territory. The long over-ceo ages were uncertain at best, and doubly so when the warships of France joined the American privateers in praying on supply-boats. The British were in fact battered and worn down by a guerrilla war and outdone on two important occasions by superior forces, at Saratoga and Yorktown. Stern facts convinced them finally that an immense army which could be raised only by a supreme effort would be necessary to subdue the colonies if that hazardous enterprise could be accomplished at all. They learned also that America would then be alienated, fretful, and the scene of endless uprisings calling for an army of occupation. That was a price which staggered even Lord North and George III. Moreover, there were forces of opposition at home with which they had to reckon. Women and the War At no time were the women of America indifferent to the struggle for independence. When it was confined to the realm of opinion they did their part in creating public sentiment. Mrs. Elizabeth Timothy, for example, founded in Charleston in 1773, a newspaper to espouse the cause of the province. Far to the north, the sister of James Otis, Mrs. Mercy Warren, early begged her countrymen to rest their case upon their natural rights, and in influential circles she urged the leaders to stand fast by their principles. While John Adams was tossing about with uncertainty at the Continental Congress, his wife was writing letters to him declaring her faith in independency. When the war came down upon the country women helped in every field. In sustaining public sentiment they were active. Mrs. Warren with a tireless pen combated loyalist propaganda in many a drama and satire. Almost every revolutionary leader had a wife or daughter who rendered service in the, quote, second line of defense, unquote. Mrs. Washington managed the plantation while the general was at the front and went north to face the rigors of the awful winter at Valley Forge, an inspiration to her husband and his men. The daughter of Benjamin Franklin, Mrs. Sarah Bosch, while her father was pleading the American cause in France, sent the women of Pennsylvania to work sewing and collecting supplies. Even near the firing line women were to be found, aiding the wounded, hauling powder to the front, and carrying dispatches at the peril of their lives. In the economic sphere the work of women was invaluable. They harvested crops without enjoying the picturesque title of Firmarets, and they canned and preserved for the wounded and the prisoners of war. Of their labor in spinning and weaving it is recorded, quote, immediately on being cut off from the use of English manufacturers the women engaged within their own families in manufacturing various kinds of cloth for domestic use. They thus kept their households decently clad, and the surplus of their labors they sold to such as chose to buy rather than make for themselves. In this way the female part of families by their industry and strict economy frequently supported the whole domestic circle, evincing the strength of their attachment and the value of their service, unquote. For their war work women were commended by high authorities on more than one occasion. They were given medals and public testimonials, even as in our own day. Washington thanked them for their labors and paid tribute to them for the inspiration and material aid which they had given to the cause of independence.