much for the welfare of mankind, but little to promote the securities
of freedom. Power was better employed than formerly, but it did not
abdicate.
In England, politically the most advanced country, the impetus which
the English Revolution gave to progress was exhausted, and people
began to say, now that the Jacobite peril was over, that no issue
remained between parties which made it worthwhile for men to cut each
others' throats. The development of the Whig philosophy was checked by
the practical tendency to compromise. Compromise distinguished the
Whig from the Roundhead, the man who succeeded from the man who
failed, the man who was the teacher of politics to the civilized world
from the man who left his head on Temple Bar.
The Seven Years' War renewed the interrupted march by involving
America in the concerns of Europe, and causing the colonies to react
on the parent state. That was a consequence which followed the
Conquest of Canada and the accession of George III. The two events,
occurring in quick succession, raised the American question.
A traveler who visited America some years earlier reports that there
was much discontent, and that separation was expected before very
long. That discontent was inoperative whilst a great military power
held Canada.
Two considerations reconciled the colonists to the disadvantages
attending the connection with England. The English fleet guarded the
sea against pirates; the English army guarded the land against the
French. The former was desirable; the latter was essential to their
existence. When the danger on the French side disappeared, it might
become very uncertain whether the patrol of the Atlantic was worth the
price that America had to pay for it. Therefore Montcalm foretold that
the English, if they conquered the French colonies, would lose their
own.
Many Frenchmen saw this, with satisfaction; and the probability was so
manifest that Englishmen saw it too. It was their interest to
strengthen their position with new securities, in the place of that
one supreme security which they had lost by their victory at Quebec.
That victory, with the vast acquisition of territory that followed,
would be no increase of imperial power if it loosened the hold on
Atlantic colonies. Therefore, the policy of the hour was to enforce
the existing claims and to obtain unequivocal recognition of English
sovereignty.
The most profitable method of doing it was in the shape of heavier
taxation; but taxes were a small matter in comparison with the
establishment of undisputed authority and unquestioning submission.
The tax might be nominal, if the principle was safe. Ways and means
would not be wanting in an empire which extended from Hudson's Bay to
the Gulf of Mexico. For the moment the need was not money but
allegiance. The problem was new, for the age of expansion had come
suddenly, in East and West, by the action of Pitt; and Pitt was no
longer in office to find the solution.
Among the Whigs, who were a failing and discredited party, there were
men who already knew the policy by which since then the empire has
been reared — Adam Smith, Dean Tucker, Edmund Burke. But the great
mass went with the times, and held that the object of politics is
power, and that the more dominion is extended, the more it must be
retained by force. The reason why free trade is better than dominion
was a secret obscurely buried in the breast of economists.
Whilst the expulsion of the French from their transatlantic empire
governed the situation, the immediate difficulty was brought on by the
new reign. The right of searching houses and ships for contraband was
conveyed by certain warrants called writs of assistance, which
required no specified designation, no oath or evidence, and enabled
the surprise visit to be paid by day or night. They were introduced
under Charles II, and had to be renewed within six months of the
demise of the crown. The last renewal had been at the death of George
II; and it was now intended that they should be efficacious, and
should protect the revenue from smugglers.
Between 1727 and 1761 many things had changed, and the colonies had
grown to be richer, more confident, more self-respecting. They claimed
to extend to the Mississippi, and had no French or Spaniards on their
borders. Practically, there was no neighbor but England, and they had
a patrimony such as no Englishman had dreamt of. The letter of the
law, the practice of the last generation, were no argument with the
heirs of unbounded wealth and power, and did not convince them that
they ought to lose by the aid which they had given against France.
The American jurists argued that this was good by English law, but
could not justly be applied to America, where the same constitutional
safeguards did not exist — where the cases would be tried by judges
without a jury, by judges who could be dismissed at pleasure, by
judges who were paid by fees which increased with the amount of the
property confiscated, and were interested in deciding against the
American importer and in favor of the revenue. That was a technical
and pedestrian argument which every lawyer could understand, without
passing the limits of accustomed thought.
Then James Otis spoke, and lifted the question to a different level,
in one of the memorable speeches in political history. Assuming, but
not admitting, that the Boston customhouse officers were acting
legally, and within the statute, then, he said, the statute was wrong.
Their action might be authorized by parliament; but if so, parliament
had exceeded its authority, like Charles with his ship money, and
James with the dispensing power. There are principles which override
precedents. The laws of England may be a very good thing, but there is
such a thing as a higher law.
The court decided in favor of the validity of the writs; and John
Adams, who heard the judgment, wrote long after that in that hour the
child Independence was born. The English view triumphed for the time,
and the governor wrote home that the murmurs soon ceased. The states,
and ultimately the United States, rejected general warrants; and since
1817 they are in agreement with the law of England. On that point,
therefore, the colonies were in the right.
Then came the larger question of taxation. Regulation of external
traffic was admitted. England patrolled the sea and protected America
from the smuggler and the pirate. Some remuneration might be
reasonably claimed; but it ought to be obtained in such a way as not
to hamper and prohibit the increase of wealth. The restrictions on
industry and trade were, however, contrived for the benefit of England
and to the injury of her colonies.
They [the Americans] demanded that the arrangement should be made for
their mutual advantage. They did not go so far as to affirm that it
ought to be to their advantage only, irrespective of ours, which is
our policy with our colonies at the present time. The claim was not
originally excessive. It is the basis of the imputation that the
dispute, on both sides, was an affair of sordid interest. We shall
find it more just to say that the motive was empire on one side and
self-government on the other. It was a question between liberty and
authority, government by consent and government by force, the control
of the subject by the state and the control of the state by the
subject.
The issue had never been so definitely raised. In England it had long
been settled. It had been settled that the legislature could, without
breach of any ethical or constitutional law, without forfeiting its
authority or exposing itself to just revolt, make laws injurious to
the subject for the benefit of English religion or English trade. If
that principle was abandoned in America it could not well be
maintained in Ireland, and the green flag might fly on Dublin Castle.
This was no survival of the dark ages. Both the oppression of Ireland
and the oppression of America was the work of the modern school, of
men who executed one king and expelled another. It was the work of
parliament, of the parliaments of Cromwell and of William III. And the
parliament would not consent to renounce its own specific policy, its
right of imposing taxes.
The crown, the clergy, the aristocracy were hostile to the Americans;
but the real enemy was the House of Commons. The old European
securities for good government were found insufficient protection
against parliamentary oppression. The nation itself, acting by its
representatives, had to be subjected to control. The political problem
raised by the New World was more complicated than the simple issues
dealt with hitherto in the Old. It had become necessary to turn back
the current of the development of politics, to bind and limit and
confine the state, which it was the pride of the moderns to exalt.
No comments:
Post a Comment