constitutional power of taxation. The great principle of English law that
taxation was not a right, but a gift of the persons taxed through their
representatives, was claimed also by the colonies. Opinions had repeatedly
been given by the law officers of the Crown that a colony could be taxed
only by its own representatives. The actual amount of money called for was
too small to burden them, but it was to be applied in such a way as to
make the governors and judges independent of the assemblies. The principle
of taxation, once admitted, might be carried farther. As an English
official of the time remarked: "The Stamp Act attacked colonial ideas by
sap; the Townshend scheme was attacking them by storm every day."
28. COLONIAL PROTESTS AND REPEAL (1767-1770).
[Sidenote: Colonial protest.]
[Sidenote: Massachusetts circular.]
[Sidenote: Coercive measures.]
This time the colonies avoided the error of disorderly or riotous
opposition. The leading men resolved to act together through protests by
the colonial legislatures and through non-importation agreements. Public
feeling ran high. In Pennsylvania John Dickinson in his "Letters of a
Farmer" pointed out that "English history affords examples of resistance
by force." Another non-importation scheme was suggested by Virginia, but
was on the whole unsuccessful. In February, 1768, Massachusetts sent out a
circular letter to the other colonies, inviting concerted protests, and
declaring that the new laws were unconstitutional. The protest was
moderate, its purpose legal; but the ministry attempted to destroy its
effect by three new repressive measures. The first of them, April, 1768,
directed the governors, upon any attempt to pass protesting resolutions,
to prorogue their assemblies. The second was the despatch of troops to
Boston: they arrived at the end of September, and remained until the
outbreak of the Revolution. The third coercive step was a proposition to
send American agitators to England for trial, under an obsolete statute of
Henry the Eighth.
[Sidenote: Effect of the tax.]
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