American Crisis

Samuel Adams of Massachusetts

The American Crisis was a political dispute that developed in the 1760s and 1770s over whether the Parliament of Great Britain had the authority to legislate for the North American colonies, and in particular whether it had the authority to unilaterally impose taxes. The dispute grew more severe over time, until an armed uprising called the North American Rebellion broke out in the colonies. The colonies attempted to declare independence, but a series of military reversals led them to accept a return to British rule in 1778. The American Crisis was finally resolved by the passage of the Britannic Design in 1781, which reorganized the colonies into the Confederation of North America with limited self-rule.

Origins of the Crisis

The American Crisis had its origins in the Seven Years' War of 1756 to 1763. The war ended with Great Britain gaining control of French Canada and eastern Louisiana, as well as Spanish Florida, but also with the British government deeply in debt. Many members of Britain's political elite came to believe that since the war had greatly benefited the American colonists, that they ought to contribute to the payment of the government debt by direct taxation. The government also attempted to reduce the cost of defending the colonies from Indian attacks by limiting colonial settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Both of these policies were unpopular among the colonists, the former because it represented an unprecedented expansion of Parliamentary power over the colonies, and the latter because it was regarded as putting the Indians' interests ahead of the colonists'.

Territorial changes from the Treaty of Paris.

The first instance of the new policies was the Royal Proclamation of 1763. This established a boundary along the Appalachian watershed between the colonial lands of the Atlantic seaboard and the Indian lands of the Mississippi basin. The Proclamation also banned the private purchase of Indian land; henceforth, all land purchases from the Indians would be made by Crown officials "at some public Meeting or Assembly of the said Indians". Furthermore, British colonists were forbidden to move beyond the line and settle on native lands, and colonial officials were forbidden to grant grounds or lands without royal approval. The proclamation gave the Crown a monopoly on all future land purchases from American Indians. Almost immediately, many British colonists and land speculators objected to the proclamation boundary, since there were already many settlements beyond the line, as well as many existing land claims yet to be settled.

The following year saw the introduction of two new acts, the Sugar Act and the Currency Act. The former was the first direct tax to be levied on the American colonies, and the latter restricted the ability of colonial governments to issue paper currency. Both acts had the effect of depressing the colonies' economies. Radical agitators Samuel Adams and James Otis first came to prominence when they organized an embargo of British luxury goods in response to the Sugar Act.

The Stamp Act

At the time the Sugar Act was passed, the Prime Minister, George Grenville, announced that he was also considering a stamp tax, whereby various printed materials in the colonies would have to be printed on paper produced in London carrying an embossed revenue stamp. This would represent the first internal tax to be levied on the colonies by Parliament. Despite protests and petitions from the colonies, Parliament passed the Stamp Act on 22 March 1765 with an effective date of 1 November. It passed 205-49 in the House of Commons and unanimously in the House of Lords. The act placed a tax on attorney licenses, court documents, land grants, newspapers, pamphlets, playing cards, and dice. Payment of the tax had to be made in British currency. Jurisdiction over violations of the Stamp Act was given to the admiralty courts. Passage of the Stamp Act gave rise to the Stamp Act Crisis in the colonies.

In Virginia on 30 May 1765, the House of Burgesses passed a series of resolutions drafted by Patrick Henry denying Parliament's right to tax the colonies. Seven days later, the Massachusetts lower house called for a general meeting of colonial representatives in New York City to consult on a response to the Stamp Tax. At the same time, there was a growing series of spontaneous protests against the Stamp Tax by ordinary colonists. These protests gave rise to a clandestine organization called the Sons of Liberty that extended throughout the thirteen colonies. In New York City, over 200 merchants met and agreed to import nothing from Britain until the Stamp Act was repealed. Other embargoes of British goods were established elsewhere in the colonies.

John Dickinson of Pennsylvania.

In October 1765 the Stamp Act Congress met in New York City, made up of representatives from nine of the thirteen colonies. The Congress produced a Declaration of Rights and Grievances that was drawn up by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania. The Declaration asserted that the colonists possessed all the rights of Englishmen, and that since they had no voting rights in Parliament, Parliament could not represent the colonists. Only the colonial assemblies had a right to tax the colonies. The Declaration also asserted that the extension of authority of the admiralty courts to non-naval matters represented an abuse of power. The Declaration was sent to King George III as well as to both Houses of Parliament.

Word of the spreading resistance to the Stamp Act, including the embargoes, reached London in October. Pressure from British merchants, along with Grenville's replacement by Lord Rockingham in July, led to a reconsideration of the Stamp Act. When Parliament reconvened on 14 January 1766, the Rockingham ministry formally proposed repeal of the Stamp Act. In February, Secretary of State for the Southern Department Henry Conway introduced the Declaratory Act, which affirmed the right of Parliament to tax the colonies "in all cases whatsover," while admitting the inexpediency of attempting to enforce the Stamp Act. On 21 February a resolution to repeal the Stamp Act was also introduced. Both the Declaratory Act and the repeal of the Stamp Act were passed on 18 March 1766.

The Townshend Acts

Lord Rockingham's government fell in August 1766, and was replaced by a government nominally led by William Pitt the Elder, who was soon after raised to the Peerage as Lord Chatham. Due to Chatham's poor health, much of the government's power was exercised by his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Townshend. Townshend intended to resume the project to raise revenue from the American colonies through taxation.

Townshend believed that American objections to the Stamp Act had centered on its being a direct tax, and that indirect taxation through import duties would be more acceptable. Consequently, Townshend gained passage in July 1767 of the Revenue Act, which placed new duties on paper, paint, lead, glass, and tea, items that were not produced in the colonies and could only be purchased from Great Britain. The revenue raised would be used to pay the salaries of colonial governors and judges, increasing their independence from colonial control. Some members of Parliament argued that the revenue raised would be insufficient, but Townshend assured them that after the precedent for the duties had been established, they would be increased until they were sufficient to pay for the administration of the colonies.

At the same time the Revenue Act was passed, Parliament also passed the Indemnity Act, eliminating taxes on tea imported into Britain, and the Commissioners of Customs Act, which established the American Board of Customs Commissioners, which would oversee American trade and be located in Boston. The following year, Parliament passed the Vice Admiralty Board Act, which created three subsidiary admiralty courts located in Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston.

Townshend knew the new acts would be controversial in the American colonies, but he believed that "The superiority of the mother country can at no time be better exerted than now." Townshend did not live to see the effect his legislation would have, dying suddenly on 4 September 1767. He was succeeded as Chancellor by Lord North.

In America, the reaction to the Townshend Acts was not as immediate as in the case of the Stamp Act two years before, but proved to be just as defiant. Dickinson responded to the Acts by publishing a series of twelve essays called Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania in December 1767 that argued that any tax levied in the colonies for the purpose of raising revenue was unconstitutional, and warning the colonists not to accept the duties just because they were low, since the precedent set would be permanently established.

Dickinson sent a copy of the Letters to Otis in Massachusetts, who was able to persuade the colony's House of Representatives to send a petition to King George seeking the repeal of the Revenue Act. The House of Representatives also sent circular letters to the other colonial assemblies asking them to join in resisting the Acts, and they did so, sending their own petitions to the King.

Lord Hillsborough, the newly-appointed Secretary of State for the Colonies, was alarmed by the colonial reaction. He sent messages to the colonial governors asking them to dissolve any colonial assembly that responded to the Massachusetts circular letters. Francis Bernard, the Royal Govenor of Massachusetts, ordered the House to rescind the circular lettter; when the House refused, Bernard dissolved it in July 1768.

George Washington of Virginia.

Merchants in several colonial ports attempted to organize embargoes of British goods, as they had during the Stamp Act crisis, but the effort was not as successful. A Virginia planter and former militia officer named George Washington helped organize the non-importation movement in that state. When the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a resolution denying Parliament's power to tax the province, it was dissolved by Governor Lord Botetort. In Boston, the Townshend Acts were so unpopular that the Customs Board called on the Royal Navy for assistance; in response, HMS Romney arrived in Boston harbor in May 1768. A sloop owned by John Hancock, a wealthy local merchant, was seized by customs officials, which provoked a riot in June 1768.

In January 1770, Lord North became Prime Minister, and he proposed a modification of the Revenue Act, repealing the duties on paper, paint, lead, and glass, but retaining the duty on tea. The Repeal Act was signed by the King in April 1770, and the American Crisis subsided for the time being.

The Boston Massacre

General Thomas Gage.

Lord Hillsborough responded to the unrest in Boston by ordering General Thomas Gage, the commander of British forces in North America, to send "such Force as You shall think necessary to Boston." Gage chose to send four regiments, and the occupation of Boston began on 1 October 1768.

Although two of the regiments were withdrawn from Boston in 1769 as resistance to the Townshend Acts abated, tensions continued to run high between the soldiers and the townspeople. On 22 February 1770 an eleven-year-old boy named Christopher Seider was killed by a customs employee, which inflamed passions in the city.

On the evening of 5 March, townspeople began harassing a sentry standing guard duty outside the Customs house on King Street. A squad of seven more soldiers led by an officer came to the sentry's assistance, and the townspeople began insulting them and throwing snowballs and other objects. When the officer ordered the townspeople, now numbering in the hundreds, to disperse, they refused. The soldiers began firing into the crowd, hitting eleven men and killing three. The crowd moved back, but continued to grow, while additional troops joined the soldiers in front of the Customs house. One of the wounded men died the next morning, and a second died two weeks later.

Acting Governor Thomas Hutchinson arrived on the scene, and from a balcony on the State House was able to persuade the crowd to disperse by promising to hold an inquiry into the shootings. By the morning, Hutchinson had ordered the arrest of the soldiers, and the governor's council ordered that the remaining soldiers be withdrawn to William Castle, a fort on an island in Boston Harbor.

Exaggerated accounts of the shootings quickly spread to the other colonies, which inflamed opinion against the British. In Boston, the officer was tried in October and found not guilty. The eight soldiers were tried for murder the following month, and were defended by John Adams, a cousin of Samuel Adams and a noted opponent of British colonial policy. Six of the soldiers were found not guilty, while the other two were found guilty of manslaughter for firing into the crowd.

The Tea Act

With the duty on tea still in place, American opponents of Parliamentary taxation avoided purchasing British tea, instead purchasing smuggled Dutch tea, which was less costly, though of inferior quality. This cut into the British East India Company's sales, and soon unsold tea was piling up in the Company's warehouses in London. As the Company neared bankruptcy, Lord North sought to solve both problems by passing the Tea Act in May 1773. This act eliminated the duty on tea imported to London, and allowed the Company to sell its tea directly to the American colonies. This would reduce the price of the tea sold in the colonies, thereby undercutting the smuggling of Dutch tea, and also increase the amount of tea sold with the Townshend Duty on it, thereby increasing government revenues. It would also accustom Americans to paying the Townshend Duty, thus establishing a precedent for future Parliamentary taxation.

Passage of the Tea Act also had the effect of ruining American merchants who shipped tea from London to the colonies, since the East India Company would now be shipping the tea directly to its own consignees in the colonies. These merchants, who had previously been rivals of the smugglers, now found themselves united with the smugglers in opposition to the Tea Act.

The Company sent its first shipment of tea to four American port cities in the fall of 1773. In New York City and Philadelphia, the tea was never offloaded from the Company's ships, and was eventually shipped back to Britain. In Charleston, the tea was offloaded, but was left to rot on the docks. In Boston, Governor Hutchinson was determined to keep the Company ships in port, even though the colonists refused to allow the tea to be offloaded. Instead, on the evening of 16 December 1773, about 100 colonists, many disguised as Indians, boarded the Company ships and threw all the casks of tea into Boston Harbor.

The Coercive Acts

British North America after passage of the Quebec Act, 1774.

The destruction of the tea in Boston outraged members of the British government, and the response was a series of acts, collectively known as the Coercive Acts, designed to punish the Massachusetts Bay colony. These included the Boston Port Act, which closed the port of Boston until the East India Company had been payed for the destroyed tea; the Massachusetts Government Act unilaterally altered the Massachusetts colonial charter to bring its government more firmly under British control; the Administration of Justice Act allowed British officials in America to be tried in Great Britain; and the Quartering Act allowed Royal governors to quarter troops in unoccupied buildings if the colonial assemblies did not provide suitable quarters.

A fifth Act of Parliament, the Quebec Act, was also passed at this time, extending the borders of the Province of Quebec south to the Ohio River, and granting additional rights to the province's Catholic residents. Although the Quebec Act was not passed in response to events in Massachusetts, most colonists believed that it was.

Passage of the Coercive Acts generated sympathy for the colonists of Massachusetts among the rest of the American colonists, due to their harshness. George Washington of Virginia called the Administration of Justice Act the "Murder Act" because he believed it would allow British soldiers and officials to escape justice for crimes they committed in the colonies. It was also widely believed that the Massachusetts Government Act would create a dangerous precedent for Parliament to arbitrarily alter the governments of the other colonies.

Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania.

Delegates from twelve of the colonies met in the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia in September and October to formulate a response to the Coercive Acts. The Congress approved the Suffolk Resolves from Massachusetts calling for resistance to the government created by the Massachusetts Government Act. The Congress also approved a blanket embargo of British goods beginning on 1 December 1774. Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania proposed the formation of a permanent American government called the Galloway Plan of Proposed Union, but his proposal was tabled. The Congress called for the convening of a Second Continental Congress in May 1775 if the Coercive Acts had not been repealed by then.

British exports to the American colonies fell drastically when the embargo went into effect. Meanwhile, General Gage, who had replaced Hutchinson as Royal Governor of Massachusetts in May 1774, was alarmed by the growing radicalism of the colonists. In September, while the Congress was meeting, he withdrew British garrisons from the middle colonies and brought them to Boston. In January 1775 Gage received orders to take military action against the colonists, and on 18 April he ordered a force of soldiers to seize munitions in the town of Concord. The soldiers clashed with colonial militia the next day, touching off the North American Rebellion.

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Sobel's primary sources for the American Crisis are Dickinson's My Life and Work (Philadelphia, 1804); John Adams' Collected Works (Mexico City, 1912); and Samuel Adams' Letters of a Rebel, 14th edition (Mexico City, 1965). Secondary sources are Martin Fuller's Rose Fuller and the Attempts to Prevent the Rebellion (London, 1799); Lord Walter Smithies' The Origins of the North American Rebellion (London, 1889); Elizabeth Donner's "The Failure of the Via Media in Boston in the Critical Year, 1769" from King's University Quarterly, CVI (Summer, 1912); Franklin Hope's John Dickinson's Years of Trial (London, 1917); Edgar Wainwright's Bloody Patrick Henry: The Cromwell Who Failed (New York, 1917); Lawrence Henry's Washington: Reluctant Rebel (New York, 1925); Herbert Wechler's George III and His Circle (New York, 1939) and Sam Adams' Plans: Blood and Boston (New York, 1944); Walter Brownell's Tea and Terror: The Sons of Liberty in 1773 (Melbourne, 1954); Alan Davis's Patriotism Knows No Boundaries (Mexico City, 1954); Lawrence Gilman's Sam Adams and the Rebellion: A Study in Revolutionary Leadership (Mexico City, 1954); Murray Kline's "Pitcairn as a Symbol" from Britannica, VIII (19 April 1954) and "The Myth of the Rebellion: Dorchester and Boston in the Crisis Year" from The Journal of North American History, LI (June, 1964); David Stephenson's The Townshend Alternative (London, 1955); Robert Scott's John Hancock: The Profiteer and the Patriot (New York, 1959); editor Warner Jones' Lord North's Master Plan: Genius or Ignorance? (Mexico City, 1960); Percy Hargrave's Dickinson of North America 6 vols. (London, 1960-1966); Sir James Wilcox's The Triangle of Treason (London, 1962), Isaac Barré and the Conspiracy (London, 1965), and Royal Leadership: George III and the Crisis (London, 1970); Eric Bjornson's The Failure of The Middle: The Triumph of Radicalism in America in 1774 (London, 1965) and The Radical Mind: Studies in Power (London, 1967); Burgoyne Collins' The Origins of the North American Rebellion (New York, 1965); and Robert Grady's The London Conspirators (Mexico City, 1966).