Complete Works. Hamilton Alexander
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against the revenue act, with regard to paper, glass, etc. The design of that, and all his subsequent papers, is to prove that all duties imposed upon the articles of commerce for the purpose of raising a revenue are to be considered in the same light as what you call internal taxes, and ought equally to be opposed.
By the “legal authority to regulate trade,” he means nothing more than what the Congress have allowed: an authority to confine us to the use of our own manufactures; to prescribe our trade with foreign nations, and the like. This is the power he speaks of as being “lodged in the British Parliament.” And as to general duties, he means such as the people of Great Britain are to pay as well as ourselves. Duties, for the purpose of a revenue raised upon us only he calls special duties, and says: “They are as much a tax upon us as those imposed by the Stamp Act.”
The following passage will show the sentiments of this ingenious and worthy gentleman and at the same time will serve to illustrate what I have heretofore said.
“If you once admit,” says he, “that Great Britain may lay duties upon her exportations to us, for the purpose of levying money on us only, she will then have nothing to do, but to lay duties on the articles which she prohibits us to manufacture, and the tragedy of American liberty is finished. We have been prohibited from procuring manufactures, in all cases, anywhere but from Great Britain (excepting linens, which we are permitted to import directly from Ireland). We have been prohibited in some cases from manufacturing for ourselves, and may be prohibited in others. We are therefore exactly in the situation of a city besieged, which is surrounded by the besiegers in every part but one. If that is closed up no step can be taken, but to surrender at discretion. If Great Britain can order us to come to her for the necessaries we want, and can order us to pay what taxes she pleases before we take them away, or when we land them here, we are as abject slaves as France and Poland can show, in wooden shoes, and with uncombed hair.
“Perhaps the nature of the necessities of dependent States, caused by the policy of a governing one for her own benefit, may be elucidated by a fact mentioned in history. When the Carthaginians were possessed of the island of Sardinia, they made a decree that the Sardinians should not raise corn, nor get it any other way than from the Carthaginians. Then, by imposing any duties they would upon it, they drained from the miserable Sardinians, any sums they pleased; and whenever that miserable and oppressed people made the least movement to assert their liberty, their tyrants starved them to death or submission. This may be called the most perfect kind of political necessity.”
You would persuade us also that Mr. Pitt's sentiments accord with yours, about the regulation of trade; but this is as false as the other. When he tells them “to exercise every power but that of taking money out of our pockets,” he does not mean that they shall barely refrain from a manual operation upon our pockets; but they shall exact money from us in no way whatsoever. To tax the commodities Great Britain obliges us to take from her only is as much taking money out of our pockets as to tax our estates, and must be equally excluded by Mr. Pitt's prohibition.
You all along argue upon a supposititious denial of the right of Parliament to regulate our trade. You tell us: “It will never give up the right of regulating the trade of the colonies”; and, in another place: “If we succeed in depriving Great Britain of the power of regulating our trade, the colonies will probably be soon at variance with each other. Their commercial interests will interfere there will be no supreme power to interpose; and discord and animosity must ensue.”
I leave others to determine whether you are more defective in memory or honesty: but in order to show that you are starting difficulties where there are really none, I will transcribe, for your perusal, part of the fourth resolve of the Congress. After asserting the right of the several provincial legislatures to an exclusive power of legislation “in all cases of taxation and internal policy.” they conclude thus: “But from the necessity of the case, and a regard to the mutual interests of both countries, we cheerfully consent to the operation of such acts of the British Parliament, as are bona fide restrained to the regulation of our external commerce, for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the whole empire to the mother country, and the commercial benefits of its respective members; excluding every idea of taxation, internal or external, for raising a revenue on the subjects in America without their consent.”
It seems to me not impossible that our trade may be so regulated as to prevent the discord and animosity, at the prospect of which you are so terrified, without the least assistance from a revenue.
Thus have I not only disproved the existence of that parliamentary authority of which you are so zealous an abettor, but also shown that the mode you have proposed for the accommodation of our disputes would be destructive to American freedom. My next business is to vindicate the Congress by a few natural inferences, and such reflections on the state of our commercial connection with the mother country as are necessary to show the insignificancy of your objections to my former arguments on this head.
Since it has been proved, that the British Parliament has no right either to the legislation or taxation of America, and since neither could be ceded without betraying our liberties, the Congress would have acted inconsistent with their duty to their country had they done it. Their conduct, therefore, so far from being reprehensible, was perfectly justifiable and laudable.
The regulation of our trade, in the sense it is now admitted, is the only power we can, with justice to ourselves, permit the British Parliament to exercise; and it is a privilege of so important a nature, so beneficial and lucrative to Great Britain, that she ought, in equity, to be contented with it, and not attempt to grasp at any thing more. The Congress, therefore, have made the only concession which the welfare and prosperity of America would warrant, or which Great Britain, in reason, could expect.
All your clamors, therefore, against them for not having drawn some proper line are groundless and ridiculous. They have drawn the only line which American freedom will authorize, or which the relation between the parent state and the colonies requires.
It is necessary consequence, and not an assumed point, that the claim of Parliament to bind us by statutes in all cases whatsoever is unconstitutional, unjust, and tyrannical; and the repeated attempts to carry it into execution evince a fixed, inveterate design to exterminate the liberties of America.
Mr. Grenville, during his administration, was the projector of this scheme. His conduct, as a minister, has been severely arraigned by his successors in office, and by the nation in general; but, notwithstanding this, a measure which disgraces his character more than any thing else has been steadily pursued ever since.
The Stamp Act was the commencement of our misfortunes; which, in consequence of the spirited opposition made by us, was repealed. The Revenue Act, imposing duties on paper, glass, etc., came next, and was also partly repealed on the same account. A part, however, was left to be the instrument of some future attack. The present minister, in conjuction with a mercenary tribe of merchants, attempted to effect, by stratagem, what could not be done by an open, undisguised manner of proceeding. His emissaries, everywhere, were set to work. They endeavored, by every possible device, to allure us into the snare. The act, passed for the purpose, was misrepresented; and we were assured, with all the parade of pretended patriotism, that our liberties were in no danger. The advantage we should receive from the probable cheapness of English tea was played off with every exaggeration of falsehood, and specious declamations on the criminality of illicit trade served as a gilding for the whole. Thus truth and its opposite were blended. The men who could make just reflections on the sanctity of an oath were yet base enough to strike at the vitals of those rights which ought to be held sacred by every rational being.
It so happened that the first tea ship arrived at Boston. The Assembly of that province, justly alarmed at the consequences, made repeated applications to the consignees for the East India Company, requesting them to send back the tea. They as often refused to comply. The ship was detained till the time was elapsed; after which the tea must have been landed, and the duties paid, or it would have been seized by the Custom-House. To prevent this, a part of the citizens of Boston assembled, proceeded to the ship, and threw the tea into the