A \ B \ C \ D \ E \ F \ G \ H \ I \ J \ K \ L \ M \ N \ O \ P \ R \ S \ T \ U \ V \ W \Z

The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) by Edmund Burke

E >> Edmund Burke >> The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12)




It is, then, Sir, upon the _principle_ of this measure, and nothing
else, that we are at issue. It is a principle of political expediency.
Your act of 1767 asserts that it is expedient to raise a revenue in
America; your act of 1769, which takes away that revenue, contradicts
the act of 1767, and, by something much stronger than words, asserts
that it is not expedient. It is a reflection upon your wisdom to persist
in a solemn Parliamentary declaration of the expediency of any object,
for which, at the same time, you make no sort of provision. And pray,
Sir, let not this circumstance escape you,--it is very material,--that
the preamble of this act which we wish to repeal is not _declaratory of
a right_, as some gentlemen seem to argue it: it is only a recital of
the _expediency_ of a certain exercise of a right supposed already to
have been asserted; an exercise you are now contending for by ways and
means which you confess, though they were obeyed, to be utterly
insufficient for their purpose. You are therefore at this moment in the
awkward situation of fighting for a phantom,--a quiddity,--a thing that
wants, not only a substance, but even a name,--for a thing which is
neither abstract right nor profitable enjoyment.

They tell you, Sir, that your dignity is tied to it. I know not how it
happens, but this dignify of yours is a terrible incumbrance to you; for
it has of late been ever at war with your interest, your equity, and
every idea of your policy. Show the thing you contend for to be reason,
show it to be common sense, show it to be the means of attaining some
useful end, and then I am content to allow it what dignity you please.
But what dignity is derived from the perseverance in absurdity is more
than ever I could discern. The honorable gentleman has said
well,--indeed, in most of his _general_ observations I agree with
him,--he says, that this subject does not stand as it did formerly. Oh,
certainly not! Every hour you continue on this ill-chosen ground, your
difficulties thicken on you; and therefore my conclusion is, remove from
a bad position as quickly as you can. The disgrace, and the necessity of
yielding, both of them, grow upon you every hour of your delay.

But will you repeal the act, says the honorable gentleman, at this
instant, when America is in open resistance to your authority, and that
you have just revived your system of taxation? He thinks he has driven
us into a corner. But thus pent up, I am content to meet him; because I
enter the lists supported by my old authority, his new friends, the
ministers themselves. The honorable gentleman remembers that about five
years ago as great disturbances as the present prevailed in America on
account of the new taxes. The ministers represented these disturbances
as treasonable; and this House thought proper, on that representation,
to make a famous address for a revival and for a new application of a
statute of Henry the Eighth. We besought the king, in that
well-considered address, to inquire into treasons, and to bring the
supposed traitors from America to Great Britain for trial. His Majesty
was pleased graciously to promise a compliance with our request. All the
attempts from this side of the House to resist these violences, and to
bring about a repeal, were treated with the utmost scorn. An
apprehension of the very consequences now stated by the honorable
gentleman was then given as a reason for shutting the door against all
hope of such an alteration. And so strong was the spirit for supporting
the new taxes, that the session concluded with the following remarkable
declaration. After stating the vigorous measures which had been pursued,
the speech from the throne proceeds:--

"You have assured me of your _firm_ support in the _prosecution_ of
them. Nothing, in my opinion, could be more likely to enable the
well-disposed among my subjects in that part of the world effectually to
discourage and defeat the designs of the factious and seditious than the
hearty concurrence of every branch of the legislature in the resolution
of _maintaining the execution of the laws in every_ part of my
dominions."

After this no man dreamt that a repeal under this ministry could
possibly take place. The honorable gentleman knows as well as I, that
the idea was utterly exploded by those who sway the House. This speech
was made on the ninth day of May, 1769. Five days after this speech,
that is, on the thirteenth of the same month, the public circular
letter, a part of which I am going to read to you, was written by Lord
Hillsborough, Secretary of State for the Colonies. After reciting the
substance of the king's speech, he goes on thus:--

"I can take upon me to assure you, notwithstanding insinuations to the
contrary from men with _factious and seditious views_, that his
Majesty's _present administration have at no time entertained a design
to propose to Parliament to lay any further taxes upon America, for the
purpose of_ RAISING A REVENUE; and that it is at present their intention
to propose, the next session of Parliament, to take off the duties upon
glass, paper, and colors, upon consideration of such duties _having been
laid contrary to the true principles of commerce_.

"These have _always_ been, and _still are_, the sentiments of _his
Majesty's present servants_, and by which their conduct _in respect to
America has been governed._ And _his Majesty_ relies upon your prudence
and fidelity for such an explanation of _his_ measures as may tend to
remove the prejudices which have been excited by the misrepresentations
of those who are enemies to the peace and prosperity of Great Britain
and her colonies, and to reestablish that mutual _confidence and
affection_ upon which the glory and safety of the British empire
depend."

Here, Sir, is a canonical boot of ministerial scripture: the general
epistle to the Americans. What does the gentleman say to it? Here a
repeal is promised,--promised without condition,--and while your
authority was actually resisted. I pass by the public promise of a peer
relative to the repeal of taxes by this House. I pass by the use of the
king's name in a matter of supply, that sacred and reserved right of the
Commons. I conceal the ridiculous figure of Parliament hurling its
thunders at the gigantic rebellion of America, and then, five days
after, prostrate at the feet of those assemblies we affected to
despise,--begging them, by the intervention of our ministerial sureties,
to receive our submission, and heartily promising amendment. These might
have been serious matters formerly; but we are grown wiser than our
fathers. Passing, therefore, from the Constitutional consideration to
the mere policy, does not this letter imply that the idea of taxing
America for the purpose of revenue is an abominable project, when the
ministry suppose none but _factious_ men, and with seditious views,
could charge them with it? does not this letter adopt and sanctify the
American distinction of _taxing for a revenue_? does it not formally
reject all future taxation on that principle? does it not state the
ministerial rejection of such principle of taxation, not as the
occasional, but the constant opinion of the king's servants? does it not
say, (I care not how consistently,) but does it not say, that their
conduct with regard to America has been _always_ governed by this
policy? It goes a great deal further. These excellent and trusty
servants of the king, justly fearful lest they themselves should have
lost all credit with the world, bring out the image of their gracious
sovereign from the inmost and most sacred shrine, and they pawn him as a
security for their promises:--"_His Majesty_ relies on your prudence and
fidelity for such an explanation of _his_ measures." These sentiments of
the minister and these measures of his Majesty can only relate to the
principle and practice of taxing for a revenue; and accordingly Lord
Botetourt, stating it as such, did, with great propriety, and in the
exact spirit of his instructions, endeavor to remove the fears of the
Virginian assembly lest the sentiments which it seems (unknown to the
world) had _always_ been those of the ministers, and by which _their_
conduct _in respect to America had been governed_, should by some
possible revolution, favorable to wicked American taxers, be hereafter
counteracted. He addresses them in this manner:--

"It may possibly be objected, that, as his Majesty's present
administration are _not immortal_, their successors may be inclined to
attempt to undo what the present ministers shall have attempted to
perform; and to that objection I can give but this answer: that it is my
firm opinion, that the plan I have stated to you will certainly take
place, and that it will never be departed from; and so determined am I
forever to abide by it, that I will be content to be declared infamous,
if I do not, to the last hour of my life, at all times, in all places,
and upon all occasions, exert every power with which I either am or ever
shall be legally invested, in order to obtain and _maintain_ for the
continent of America that _satisfaction_ which I have been authorized to
promise this day by the _confidential_ servants of our gracious
sovereign, who to my certain knowledge rates his honor so high _that he
would rather part with his crown than preserve it by deceit_."[4]

A glorious and true character! which (since we suffer his ministers with
impunity to answer for his ideas of taxation) we ought to make it our
business to enable his Majesty to preserve in all its lustre. Let him
have character, since ours is no more! Let some part of government be
kept in respect!

This epistle was not the letter of Lord Hillsborough solely, though he
held the official pen. It was the letter of the noble lord upon the
floor,[5] and of all the king's then ministers, who (with, I think, the
exception of two only) are his ministers at this hour. The very first
news that a British Parliament heard of what it was to do with the
duties which it had given and granted to the king was by the publication
of the votes of American assemblies. It was in America that your
resolutions were pre-declared. It was from thence that we knew to a
certainty how much exactly, and not a scruple more nor less, we were to
repeal. We were unworthy to be let into the secret of our own conduct.
The assemblies had _confidential_ communications from his Majesty's
_confidential_ servants. We were nothing but instruments. Do you, after
this, wonder that you have no weight and no respect in the colonies?
After this are you surprised that Parliament is every day and everywhere
losing (I feel it with sorrow, I utter it with reluctance) that
reverential affection which so endearing a name of authority ought ever
to carry with it? that you are obeyed solely from respect to the
bayonet? and that this House, the ground and pillar of freedom, is
itself held up only by the treacherous underpinning and clumsy
buttresses of arbitrary power?

If this dignity, which is to stand in the place of just policy and
common sense, had been consulted, there was a time for preserving it,
and for reconciling it with any concession. If in the session of 1768,
that session of idle terror and empty menaces, you had, as you were
often pressed to do, repealed these taxes, then your strong operations
would have come justified and enforced, in case your concessions had
been returned by outrages. But, preposterously, you began with violence;
and before terrors could have any effect, either good or bad, your
ministers immediately begged pardon, and promised that repeal to the
obstinate Americans which they had refused in an easy, good-natured,
complying British Parliament. The assemblies, which had been publicly
and avowedly dissolved for _their_ contumacy, are called together to
receive _your_ submission. Your ministerial directors blustered like
tragic tyrants here; and then went mumping with a sore leg in America,
canting, and whining, and complaining of faction, which represented them
as friends to a revenue from the colonies. I hope nobody in this House
will hereafter have the impudence to defend American taxes in the name
of ministry. The moment they do, with this letter of attorney in my
hand, I will tell them, in the authorized terms, they are wretches "with
factious and seditious views," "enemies to the peace and prosperity of
the mother country and the colonies," and subverters "of the mutual
affection and confidence on which the glory and safety of the British
empire depend."

After this letter, the question is no more on propriety or dignity. They
are gone already. The faith of your sovereign is pledged for the
political principle. The general declaration in the letter goes to the
whole of it. You must therefore either abandon the scheme of taxing, or
you must send the ministers tarred and feathered to America, who dared
to hold out the royal faith for a renunciation of all taxes for revenue.
Them you must punish, or this faith you must preserve. The preservation
of this faith is of more consequence than the duties on _red lead_, or
_white lead_, or on broken _glass_, or _atlas-ordinary_, or _demy-fine_,
or _blue-royal_, or _bastard_, or _fools cap_, which you have given up,
or the three-pence on tea which you retained. The letter went stamped
with the public authority of this kingdom. The instructions for the
colony government go under no other sanction; and America cannot
believe, and will not obey you, if you do not preserve this channel of
communication sacred. You are now punishing the colonies for acting on
distinctions held out by that very ministry which is here shining in
riches, in favor, and in power, and urging the punishment of the very
offence to which they had themselves been the tempters.

Sir, if reasons respecting simply your own commerce, which is your own
convenience, were the sole grounds of the repeal of the five duties, why
does Lord Hillsborough, in disclaiming in the name of the king and
ministry their ever having had an intent to tax for revenue, mention it
as the means "of reestablishing the confidence and affection of the
colonies?" Is it a way of soothing _others_, to assure them that you
will take good care of _yourself_? The medium, the only medium, for
regaining their affection and confidence is that you will take off
something oppressive to their minds. Sir, the letter strongly enforces
that idea: for though the repeal of the taxes is promised on commercial
principles, yet the means of counteracting the "insinuations of men with
factious and seditious views" is by a disclaimer of the intention of
taxing for revenue, as a constant, invariable sentiment and rule of
conduct in the government of America.

I remember that the noble lord on the floor, not in a former debate to
be sure, (it would be disorderly to refer to it, I suppose I read it
somewhere,) but the noble lord was pleased to say, that he did not
conceive how it could enter into the head of man to impose such taxes as
those of 1767: I mean those taxes which he voted for imposing, and voted
for repealing,--as being taxes, contrary to all the principles of
commerce, laid on _British manufactures_.

I dare say the noble lord is perfectly well read, because the duty of
his particular office requires he should be so, in all our revenue laws,
and in the policy which is to be collected out of them. Now, Sir, when
he had read this act of American revenue, and a little recovered from
his astonishment, I suppose he made one step retrograde (it is but one)
and looked at the act which stands just before in the statute-book. The
American revenue act is the forty-fifth chapter; the other to which I
refer is the forty-fourth of the same session. These two acts are both
to the same purpose: both revenue acts; both taxing out of the kingdom;
and both taxing British manufactures exported. As the forty-fifth is an
act for raising a revenue in America, the forty-fourth is an act for
raising a revenue in the Isle of Man. The two acts perfectly agree in
all respects, except one. In the act for taxing the Isle of Man the
noble lord will find, not, as in the American act, four or fire
articles, but almost the _whole body_ of British manufactures, taxed
from two and a half to fifteen per cent, and some articles, such as that
of spirits, a great deal higher. You did not think it uncommercial to
tax the whole mass of your manufactures, and, let me add, your
agriculture too; for, I now recollect, British corn is there also taxed
up to ten per cent, and this too in the very head-quarters, the very
citadel of smuggling, the Isle of Man. Now will the noble lord
condescend to tell me why he repealed the taxes on your manufactures
sent out to America, and not the taxes on the manufactures exported to
the Isle of Man? The principle was exactly the same, the objects charged
infinitely more extensive, the duties without comparison higher. Why?
Why, notwithstanding all his childish pretexts, because the taxes were
quietly submitted to in the Isle of Man, and because they raised a flame
in America. Your reasons were political, not commercial. The repeal was
made, as Lord Hillsborough's letter well expresses it, to regain "the
confidence and affection of the colonies, on which the glory and safety
of the British empire depend." A wise and just motive, surely, if ever
there was such. But the mischief and dishonor is, that you have not done
what you had given the colonies just cause to expect, when your
ministers disclaimed the idea of taxes for a revenue. There is nothing
simple, nothing manly, nothing ingenuous, open, decisive, or steady, in
the proceeding, with regard either to the continuance or the repeal of
the taxes. The whole has an air of littleness and fraud. The article of
tea is slurred over in the circular letter, as it were by accident:
nothing is said of a resolution either to keep that tax or to give it
up. There is no fair dealing in any part of the transaction.

If you mean to follow your true motive and your public faith, give up
your tax on tea for raising a revenue, the principle of which has, in
effect, been disclaimed in your name, and which produces you no
advantage,--no, not a penny. Or, if you choose to go on with a poor
pretence instead of a solid reason, and will still adhere to your cant
of commerce, you have ten thousand times more strong commercial reasons
for giving up this duty on tea than for abandoning the five others that
you have already renounced.

The American consumption of teas is annually, I believe, worth 300,000_l._
at the least farthing. If you urge the American violence as a
justification of your perseverance in enforcing this tax, you know that
you can never answer this plain question,--Why did you repeal the others
given in the same act, whilst the very same violence subsisted?--But you
did not find the violence cease upon that concession.--No! because the
concession was far short of satisfying the principle which Lord
Hillsborough had abjured, or even the pretence on which the repeal of
the other taxes was announced; and because, by enabling the East India
Company to open a shop for defeating the American resolution not to pay
that specific tax, you manifestly showed a hankering after the principle
of the act which you formerly had renounced. Whatever road you take
leads to a compliance with this motion. It opens to you at the end of
every visto. Your commerce, your policy, your promises, your reasons,
your pretences, your consistency, your inconsistency,--all jointly
oblige you to this repeal.

But still it sticks in our throats, if we go so far, the Americans will
go farther.--We do not know that. We ought, from experience, rather to
presume the contrary. Do we not know for certain, that the Americans are
going on as fast as possible, whilst we refuse to gratify them? Can they
do more, or can they do worse, if we yield this point? I think this
concession will rather fix a turnpike to prevent their further
progress. It is impossible to answer for bodies of men. But I am sure
the natural effect of fidelity, clemency, kindness in governors is
peace, good-will, order, and esteem, on the part of the governed. I
would certainly, at least, give these fair principles a fair trial;
which, since the making of this act to this hour, they never have had.

Sir, the honorable gentleman having spoken what he thought necessary
upon the narrow part of the subject, I have given him, I hope, a
satisfactory answer. He next presses me, by a variety of direct
challenges and oblique reflections, to say something on the historical
part. I shall therefore, Sir, open myself fully on that important and
delicate subject: not for the sake of telling you a long story, (which,
I know, Mr. Speaker, you are not particularly fond of,) but for the sake
of the weighty instruction that, I flatter myself, will necessarily
result from it. It shall not be longer, if I can help it, than so
serious a matter requires.

Permit me then, Sir, to lead your attention very far back,--back to the
Act of Navigation, the cornerstone of the policy of this country with
regard to its colonies. Sir, that policy was, from the beginning, purely
commercial; and the commercial system was wholly restrictive. It was the
system of a monopoly. No trade was let loose from that constraint, but
merely to enable the colonists to dispose of what, in the course of your
trade, you could not take,--or to enable them to dispose of such
articles as we forced upon them, and for which, without some degree of
liberty, they could not pay. Hence all your specific and detailed
enumerations; hence the innumerable checks and counterchecks; hence that
infinite variety of paper chains by which you bind together this
complicated system of the colonies. This principle of commercial
monopoly runs through no less than twenty-nine acts of Parliament, from
the year 1660 to the unfortunate period of 1764.

In all those acts the system of commerce is established as that from
whence alone you proposed to make the colonies contribute (I mean
directly and by the operation of your superintending legislative power)
to the strength of the empire. I venture to say, that, during that whole
period, a Parliamentary revenue from thence was never once in
contemplation. Accordingly, in all the number of laws passed with regard
to the plantations, the words which distinguish revenue laws
specifically as such were, I think, premeditately avoided. I do not say,
Sir, that a form of words alters the nature of the law, or abridges the
power of the lawgiver. It certainly does not. How ever, titles and
formal preambles are not always idle words; and the lawyers frequently
argue from them. I state these facts to show, not what was your right,
but what has been your settled policy. Our revenue laws have usually a
_title_, purporting their being _grants_; and the words "_give and
grant_" usually precede the enacting parts. Although duties were imposed
on America in acts of King Charles the Second, and in acts of King
William, no one title of giving "an aid to his Majesty," or any other of
the usual titles to revenue acts, was to be found in any of them till
1764; nor were the words "give and grant" in any preamble until the
sixth of George the Second. However, the title of this act of George the
Second, notwithstanding the words of donation, considers it merely as a
regulation of trade; "An act for the better securing of the trade of his
Majesty's sugar colonies in America." This act was made on a compromise
of all, and at the express desire of a part, of the colonies themselves.
It was therefore in some measure with their consent; and having a title
directly purporting only a _commercial regulation_, and being in truth
nothing more, the words were passed by, at a time when no jealousy was
entertained, and things were little scrutinized. Even Governor Bernard,
in his second printed letter, dated in 1763, gives it as his opinion,
that "it was an act of _prohibition_, not of revenue." This is certainly
true, that no act avowedly for the purpose of revenue, and with the
ordinary title and recital taken together, is found in the statute-book
until the year I have mentioned: that is, the year 1764. All before this
period stood on commercial regulation and restraint. The scheme of a
colony revenue by British authority appeared, therefore, to the
Americans in the light of a great innovation. The words of Governor
Bernard's ninth letter, written in November, 1765, state this idea very
strongly. "It must," says he, "have been supposed _such an innovation as
a Parliamentary taxation_ would cause a great _alarm_, and meet with
much _opposition_ in most parts of America; it was _quite new_ to the
people, and had no _visible bounds_ set to it." After stating the
weakness of government there, he says, "Was this a time to introduce _so
great a novelty_ as a Parliamentary inland taxation in America?"
Whatever the right might have been, this mode of using it was absolutely
new in policy and practice.

Copyright (c) 2007. bestextbooks.com. All rights reserved.

Oliver Optic - "All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake"

Mrs Mary Spring Corning - "Miss Elliot's Girls"

Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing - "Old Fashioned Fairy Tales"

Various - "Against Home Rule (1912)"

Review: The Dying Game by Melanie King
Articles published by guardian.co.uk Books

Review: Hang the DJ edited by Angus Cargill
Review: The Dying Game: A Curious History of Death by Melanie King

Review: Bait by Nick Brownlee
Review: Hang the DJ: An Alternative Book of Music Lists edited by Angus Cargill