Is no
concession
proper, but that which is made from.
Edmund Burke
For, in order to prove that
the Americans have no right to their liberties, we are. every day endeavoring to subvert the maxims which
preserve the whole spirit of our own. To prove that
the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to
depreciate the value of freedom itself; and we never
seem to gain a paltry advantage over them in debate,
without attacking some of those principles, or deriding
some of those feelings, for which our ancestors have
shed their blood.
But, Sir, in wishing to put an end to pernicious ex-.
periments, I do not mean to preclude the fullest inquiry. Far from it. Far. from deciding-on a sudden
or partial view, I would patiently go round and round
the subject, and survey it minutely in every possible'aspect. Sir, if I were capable of engaging you to an
equal attention, I would state, that, as far as I am
capable of discerning, there are but three ways of proceeding relative to this stubborn spirit which prevails in your colonies and disturbs your government. 'These are, - to change that spirit, as inconvenient, by removing the causes, - to prosecute it, as criininal, -or to'comply with it, as necessary. I would
not be guilty of an imperfect enumeration; I can
think of but these three. Another has, indeed, been
Started,- that of giving up the colonies; but it met
so slight a reception that I do not think myself obliged
to dwell a great while upon it. It is nothing but;a
little sally of anger, like the frowardness of peevish
children, who, when they cannot get all they would
have, are resolved to take nothing.
The first of these plans - to change the spirit, as in
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITIH AMERICA. 131
convenient, by removing the causes- I think is the
most like a systematic proceeding. It is radical in its
principle; but it is attended with great difficulties:
some of them little short, as I conceive, of impossibilities. This will appear by examining into the plans which have been proposed.
As the growing population of the colonies is evidently one cause of their resistance, it was last session mentioned in both Houses, by men of weight,'and received not without applause, that, in order to check this evil, it would be proper for the crown to make no
further grants of land. But to this scheme there are
two objections. The first, that there is already so much unsettled land in private hands as to afford room for an immense future population, although the crown not only withheld its grants,. but annihilated its soil. If this be the case, then the only effect of
this avarice of desolation, this hoarding of a royal
wilderness, would be to raise'the value of the possessions in the hands of the great private monopolists, without any adequate check to the growing and
alarming mischief of population.
But if you stopped your grants, what would be the
consequence? 'The people would occupy without
grants. '. They have already so -occupied in many
places. You cannot station garrisons in every part
of these deserts. If you drive the people from one
place, they will carry on their annual tillage, and remove with their flocks and herds to another. Many
of the people in the back settlements are already little
attached to particular situations. Already they have
topped the Appalachian mountains. From thence they
behold before them an immense plain, one vast, rich,
level meadow: a square of five hundred miles. Over
? ? ? ? 132 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
this they would wander without a possibility of restraint; they would- change their manners With the habits of their life; would soon forget a government
by which they were disowned; would become hordes
of English Tartars, and, pouring down upon your
unfortified frontiers a fierce and irresistible cavalry,
become masters of your governors and your counsellors, your collectors and comptrollers, and of all the slaves that adhered to them. Such would, and, in no
long time, must be, the effect of attempting to forbid
as a crime, and to suppress as an evil, the command
and blessing of Providence, " Increase and multiply. "
Such would be the happy result of an endeavor to
keep as a lair of wild beasts that earth which God
by an express charter has given to the children of
men. Far different, and surely much wiser, has been
our policy hitherto. Hitherto we have invited our
people, by every kind of bounty, to fixed establishments. We have invited the husbandman to look to authority for his title. We have taught him piously
to believe in the mysterious virtue of wax and parchment. We have thrown each tract of land, as it was peopled, into districts, that the ruling power should
never be wholly out of sight. We have settled all we
could; and we have carefully attended every settlement with government.
Adhering, Sir, as I do, to this policy, as well as for
the reasons I have just given, I think this new project of hedging in population to be neither prudent
nor practicable.
To impoverish the colonies in general, and in particular to arrest the noble course of their marine enterprises, would be a more easy task. I freely confess it. We have shown a disposition to a system of
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 133
this kind,- a disposition-even to continue the restraint after the offence, -looking on ourselves as rivals to our colonies, and persuaded that of course we must gain all that they shall lose. Much mischief we
may certainly do. The power inadequate to all other
things is often more than sufficient for this. I do
not look on the direct and immediate power of the
colonies to resist our violence as very formidable. In
this, however, I may be mistaken. But whlen I consider that we have colonies for no purpose but to be
serviceable to us, it seems to my poor understanding
a little preposterous'to make them unserviceable, in
order to keep them obedient. 'It is, in truth, nothing
more than the old, and, as I thought, exploded problem of tyranny, which proposes to beggar its subjects
into submission. But remember, when you have
completed your system of impoverishment, that Nature still proceeds in her ordinary course; that discontent will increase with misery; and that there are critical moments in the fortune of all states, when
they who are too weak to contribute to your prosper
ity may be strong enough to complete your ruin.
Spoliatis arma supersunt.
(The temper and character which prevail in our colonies are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art.
We cannot, I fear, falsify the pedigree of this fierce
people, and persuade them that they are not sprung
from a nation in whose veins the blood of freedom
circulates. The language in which they would hear
you tell them this tale would detect the imposition;
your speech would betray you. An Englishman is
the unfittest person on earth to argue another Englishman into slavery,)
I think it is nearly as little in our power to change
? ? ? ? 134 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
their republican religion as their free descent, or: to
substitute the Roman Catholic as a penalty, or the
Church of England as an improvement. The mode
of inquisition and dragooning is going out of fashion
in the Old World, and I should not confide much to
their efficacy in the New. . The education of the
Americans is also on the same unalterable bottom
with their religion. You cannot persuade them to
burn their books of curious science, to banish their
lawyers from their courts of law, or to quench the
lights of their assemblies by refusing to choose those
persons who are best read in their privileges. It
would be no less impracticable to think of wholly annihilating the popular assemblies in which these lawyers sit. The army, by which we must govern in their place, would be far more chargeable to us, not
quite so. effectual, and perhaps, in the end, full as
difficult to be kept in obedience.
With regard to the high aristocratic spirit of Virginia and the southern colonies, it has been proposed,
I know, to reduce it by declaring a general enfranchisement of their slaves. This project has had its
advocates and panegyrists; yet I never could argue
myself into any opinion of it. Slaves are often much
attached to their masters. A general wild offer of
liberty would not always be accepted. History furnishes few instances of it. It is sometimes as hard
to persuade slaves to be free as it is to compel freemen to be slaves; and in this auspicious scheme we
should have both these pleasing tasks on our hands
at once. But when we talk of enfranchisement, do
we not perceive that the American master may en~franchise,too, and arm servile hands in defence of
freedom? --a measure to which other people have
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH. AMERICA. 135
had recourse more than once, and not without success, in a desperate situation of their affairs.
Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and
dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a
little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation which has sold them to their present masters, -- from that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel
with those masters is their refusal to deal any more
in that inhuman traffic? An offer of freedom from
Englald would come rather oddly, shipped to them
in an African vessel, which is refused an entry into
the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo of
three hundred Angola negroes. It would be curious
to see the Guinea captain attempting at the same instant to publish his proclamation of liberty and to advertise his sale of slaves.
But let us suppose all these moral difficulties got
over. The ocean remains. You cannot pump this
dry; and as long as it continues in its present bed,
so long all the causes which weaken authority by distance will continue.
"Ye Gods! annihilate but space and time,
And make two lovers happy,"
was a pious and passionate prayer,- but just as reasonable as many of the serious wishes of very grave and solemn politicians.
If, then, Sir, it seems almost desperate to think of
any alterative course for changing the moral causes
(and not quite easy to remove the natural) which
produce prejudices irreconcilable to the late exercise
of our authority, but that the spirit ir fallibly will
continue, and, continuing, will produce such effects
as now embarrass us, - the isecond mode'under ccnsideration is, to prosecute that spirit in its overt acts, as criminal.
? ? ? ? 136 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
At this proposition I must pause a moment. The
thing seems a great deal too big for my ideas of jurisprudence. It should seem, to my way of conceiving
such matters, that there is a very wide difference, in
reason and policy, between the mode of proceeding
on the irregular conduct of scattered individuals, or
even of bands of men, who disturb order within the
state, and the civil dissensions which may, from time
to time, on great questions, agitate the several communities which compose a great empire. It looks to
me to be narrow and pedantic- to apply the ordinary
ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest.
I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against an whole people. I cannot insult and
ridicule the feelings of millions of my fellow-creatures as Sir Edward Coke insulted one excellent individual (Sir Walter Raleigh) at the bar. I am not ripe to pass sentence on the gravest public bodies,
intrusted with magistracies of great authority and
dignity, and charged with the safety of their fellowcitizens, upon the very same title that I am. I really
think that for wise men this is not judicious, for
sober men not decent,'for minds tinctured with
humanity not mild and merciful.
Perhaps, Sir, I am mistaken in my idea of an em,
pire, as distinguished from a single state or kingdom.
But my idea of it is this: that an empire is the aggregate of many states under one common head,
whether this head be a monarch or a presiding republic. It does, in such constitutions, frequently
happen (and nothing but the dismal, cold, dead uniformity of servitude can prevent its happening) that
the subordinate parts have many local privileges and
immunities. Between these privileges and the su.
? ? ? ? :SPEECH'ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 137
preme common authority the line'may be extremely
nice. Of course disputes, often, too, very bitter dis,.
putes, and much ill blood, will arise. But though
every privilege is an exemption (in the case) from
the ordinary exercise of the supreme authority, it
is no denial of it. The claim of a privilege seems
rather, ex vi termini, to imply a superior power: for
to talk of the privileges of a state or of a person who
has no superior is' hardly any better than speaking
nonsense. Now in such unfortunate quarrels among
the component parts of a great political union of communities, I can scarcely conceive anything more completely imprudent than for the head of the empire to insist, that if any privilege is pleaded against his will
or his acts, that his whole authority is denied, - instantly to proclaim rebellion, to beat to arms, and to
put the offending provinces under the ban. Will not
this, Sir, very soon teach the provinces to make no
distinctions on their part? Will it not teach them
that the government against which a claim of liberty
is tantamount to high treason is a government to
which submission is equivalent to slavery 9 It may
not always be quite convenient to impress dependent
communities with such an idea.
We are, indeed, in all disputes with the colonies,
by the necessity of things, the judge. It is true, Sir.
But I confess that the character of judge in my own
cause is a thing that frightens me. Instead of filling
me with pride, I am exceedingly humbled by it. I
cannot proceed with a stern, assured judicial confidence, until I find myself in something more like a
judicial character. I must have these hesitations as
long as I am compelled to recollect, that, in my little
leading upon such contests as these, the sense of
? ? ? ? 138 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. mankind has at least as often decided against the superior as the subordinate power. Sir, let me add, too, that. the opinion of my having some abstract right in my favor would not put me much at my
ease in passing sentence, unless I could be sure that there were no rights which, in their exercise under certain circumstances, were not the most odious of all wrongs and the most vexatious of all injustice. Sir, these considerations have great weight with me, when I find things so circumstanced that I see the same party at once a civil litigant against me in a point of right and a culprit before me, while I sit as criminal judge on acts of his whose moral quality
is to be decided upon the merits of that very litigation. Men are every now and then put, by the complexity of human affairs, into strange situations; but justice is the same, let the judge be in what situation
he will.
There is, Sir, also a circumstance which convinces
me that this mode of criminal proceeding is not (at
least in the present stage of our contest) altogether
expedient,- which is nothing less than the conduct
of those very persons who have seemed to adopt that
mode, by lately declaring a rebellion in Massachusetts
Bay, as they had formerly addressed to have traitors
brought hither, under an act of Henry the Eighth, for
trial. For, though rebellion is declared, it is not proceeded against as such; nor have any steps been taken towards the apprehension or conviction of any
individual offender', either on our late or our former address; but modes of public coercion have been adopted, and such as have much more. resemblance to a sort of qualified hostility towards an independent power than the punishment of rebellious subjects.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILZIATION WITH AMERICA. 139
All this seems rather inconsistent; but it shows how
difficult it is to apply these juridical ideas to our present case.
In this situation, let us seriously and coolly ponrider.
What is it we have got by all our menaces, which
htave been many and ferocious? What advantage
have we derived from the penal laws we have passed,
and whichl, for the time, have been severe and numerous? What advances have we made towards our object, by the sending of a force, which, by land and sea, is no contemptible strength? Has the disorder,abated? Nothing less. - When I see things in this
situation, after such confident hopes, bold promises,
and active exertions, I cannot, for my life, avoid a
suspicion that the plan itself is not correctly right.
If, then, the removal of the causes of this spirit of
American liberty be, for the greater part, or rather
entirely, impracticable, -if the ideas of criminal process be inapplicable, or, if applicable, are in the highest degree inexpedient, what way yet. remains? No. way is open, but the third and last, - to comply with
the American spirit as necessary, or, if you please, to
submit to it as a necessary evil.
If we adopt this mode, if we mean to conciliate and
concede, let us see of what nature the concession
ought to be. To ascertain the nature of our concession, we must look at their complaint. The colonies
complain that they have not'the characteristic mark
and seal of British freedom. They complain that
they are taxed in a Parliament in which they are not
represented. If you mean to satisfy them at all, you
must satisfy them with regard to this complaint. If
you mean to please any people, you must give them
the boon which they ask,. - not what you may think
? ? ? ? 140 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
better for them, but of a kind totally different. Such
an act may be a wise regulation, but it is no conces$sion; whereas our present theme is the mode of giv ing satisfaction.
Sir, I think you must perceive that I am resolve1
this day to have nothing at all to do with the questioni
of the right of taxation. Some gentlemen startle,but it is true: I put it totally out of the question.
It is less than nothing in my consideration. I do
not indeed wonder, nor will you, Sir, that gentlemen
of profound learning are fond of displaying it on this
profound subject. But my consideration is narrow,
confined, and wholly limited to the policy of the question. I do not examine whether the giving away a man's money be a power excepted and reserved out
of the general trust of government, and how far all
mankind, in all forms of polity, are entitled to an
exercise of that right by the charter of Nature,-or
whether, on the contrary, a right of taxation is necessarily involved in the general principle of legislation, and inseparable from' the ordinary supreme power.
These are deep questions, where great names militate
against each other, where reason is perplexed, and
an appeal to authorities only thickens the confusion:
for high and reverend authorities lift up their heads
on both sides, and there is Ino sure footing in the
middle. This point is the great Serbonian bog, betwixt Damiata and Moount Casius old, where armies whole have sunk. I do not intend to,be overwhelmed
in that bog, though in such respectable company.
The question with me is, not whether you have a
right to render your people miserable, but whether
it is not your interest to make them happy. It is
not what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what hu
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 141
~nanity, reason, andjustice tell me I ought to do.
Is a politic act the worse for being a generous one?
Is no concession proper, but that which is made from. your want of right to keep what you grant? Or does
it lessen the grace or dignity of relaxing in the exer-:ise of an odious claim, because you have your evidence-room full of titles, and your magazines stuffed with arms to enforce them? What signify all those
/titles and all those arms? Of what avail are they,
when the reason of the thing tells me that the assertion of my title is -the loss of my suit, and that I
could do nothing but wound myself by the use of my
own weapons?
Such is steadfastly my opinion of the absolute necessity of keeping up the concord of this empire by a
unity of spirit, though in a diversity of operations.
that, if I were sure the colonists had, at their leaving
this country, sealed a regular compact of servitude,
that they had solemnly abjured all the rights of citizens, that they had made a vow to renounce all ideas
of liberty for them and their posterity to all generations, yet I should hold myself obliged to conform to
the temper I found universally prevalent in my own
day, and to govern two million of men, impatient of
servitude, on the principles of freedom. I am not determining. a point of law; I am restoring tranquillity;'and the general character and situation of a people must determine what sort of government is fitted for
them. That point nothing else can or ought to determine.
My idea, therefore, without considering whether
we yield as matter of right orgrant as matter of
favor, is; to admit the people of our colonies into an interest in the Constitution, and, by recording that ad
? ? ? ? 142 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
mission in the journals of Parliament, to give them
as strong an assurance as the nature of the thing wili
admit thlat we mean forever to-adhere to that solemn
declaration of systematic indulgence.
Some years ago, the repeal of a revenue act, upon
its understood principle, might have served to shows
that we intended an unconditional abatement of the
exercise of a taxing power. Such a measure was
then sufficient to remove all suspicion and to give
perfect content. But unfortunate events since that'
time may make something further necessary, -and
not more necessary for the satisfaction of the colonies
than for the dignity and consistency of our own future proceedings. .
I have taken a very incorrect measure of the disposition of the House, if this proposal in itself would
be received with dislike. I think, Sir, we have few
American financiers. But our misfortune is, we are
too acute, we are too exquisite in our conjectures of
the future, for men oppressed with such great and
present evils. The more moderate among the opposers of Parliamentary concession freely confess that they hope, no good from taxation; but they apprehend the colonists have further views, and if this point were 6onceded, they would instantly attack the
trade laws. These gentlemen are convinced that this
was the intention from the beginning, and the quar. .
rel of the Americans with taxation was no more than
a cloak and cover to this design. Such has been the
language even of a gentleman * of real moderation,
and of a natural temper well adjusted to fair and
equal government. I am, however, Sir, not a little
surprised at this kind of discourse, whenever I hear
* Mr. Rice.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH - AMERICA. 143 it; and I am the more surprised on account of the arguments which I constantly find in company with it, and which are often urged from the same mouths *and on the same day.
For instance, when we allege that it is against reaSon to tax a people under so many restraints in trade as the Americans, the'noble lord * in the blue riband
shall tell you that the restraints on trade are futile
and useless, of no advantage to us, and of no burden
to those on whom they are imposed, - that the trade to America is not secured by the Acts of Navigation, but by the natural and irresistible advantage of a commercial preference.
Such is the merit of the trade laws in this posture
of the debate. But when strong internal circumstances are urged against the taxes, - when the scheme is dissected, - when experience and the nature of
things are. brought to prove, and do prove, the utter
impossibility of obtaining an effective revenue from
the colonies, when these things are pressed, or
rather press themselves, so as to drive the advocates
of colony taxes to a clear admission of the futility of
the scheme, -- then, Sir, the sleeping trade laws revive from their trance, and this useless taxation is to be kept sacred, not for its own sake, but as a counterguard and security of the laws of trade.
Then, Sir, you keep up revenue laws which are
mischievous in order to preserve trade laws that are
useless. Such is the wisdom of our plan in both
its members, They are separately given up as of no
value; and yet one is always to be defended for the
sake of the other. But I cannot agree with the noble
lord, nor with the pamphlet from whence he seems to
* Lord North.
? ? ? ? 144 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
have borrowed these ideas concerning the inutility of
the trade laws. For, without idolizing them, I am
sure they are still, in many ways, of great use to us;
and in former times they have been of the greatest.
They do confine, and they do greatly narrow, the
market for the Americans. But my perfect convic*
tion of this does not help me in the least to discern
how the revenue laws form any security whatsoever
to the commercial regulations, - or that these commercial regulations are the true ground of the quarrel, - or that the giving way, in any one instance, of authority is to lose all that may' remain unconceded.
One fact is clear and indisputable: the public and,
avowed origin'of tliis quarrel was on taxation. This
quarrel has, indeed, brought on new disputes on new
questions, but certainly the least bitter, and the fewest of all, on the trade laws. To judge which of the
two beithe real, radical cause of quarrel, we have to
see whether the commercial dispute did, in order of
time, precede the dispute on taxation. There is not
a shadow of evidence for it. Next, to enable us to
judge whether at this moment a dislike to the trade
laws be the real cause of quarrel, it is absolutely necessary to put the taxes out of the question by a repeal.
See how the Americans act in this position, and then
you will be able to discern correctly what is the true
object of the controversy, or whether any controversy
at all will remain. Unless you consent to remove
this cause of difference, it is impossible, with decency,
to assert that the dispute is not upon what it is avowed
to be. And I would, Sir,'recommend to your serious
consideration, whether it be prudent to form a rule
for punishing people, not on their own acts, but on
your conjectures. Surely it is preposterous, at the.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 145 very best. It is not justifying your anger by their misconduct, but it is converting your ill-will into theor delinquency.
But the colonies will go further. -Alas! alas! when
will this speculating. against fact and reason end?
What will quiet these panic fears which we entertain
of the hostile effect of a conciliatory conduct? Is it
true that no case can exist in which it is proper for
the sovereign to accede to the desires of his discontented subjects? Is there anything peculiar in this case, to make a rule for itself? Is all authority of
course lost, when. it is not pushed to the extreme?
Is it a certain maxim, that, the fewer causes of dissatisfaction are left by government, the more the subject will be inclined to resist and rebely All these objections being in fact no more than suspicions, conjectures, divinations, formed in defiance
of fact and experience, they did not, Sir, discourage
me from entertaining the idea of a conciliatory concession, founded on the principles which I have just
stated.
In forming a plan for this purpose, I endeavored
to put myself in that frame of mind which was the
most natural and the most reasonable, and which
was certainly the most probable means of securing
me from all error. I set out with a perfect distrust
of my own abilities, a total renunciation of every
speculation of my own, and with a profound reverence for the wisdom of our ancestors, who have left
us the inheritance of so happy a Constitution and so
flourishing an empire, and, what is a thousand times
more valuable, the treasury of the maxims and principles which formed the one and obtained the other.
During the reigns of the kings of Spain of the AusVOL. II. 10
? ? ? ? 146 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH A MERICA. trian family, whenever'they were at a loss in the Spanish councils, it was' common for their statesmen to say that they ought to consult the genius of Philip the- Second. ' The genius of Philip the Second might mislead them; and the issue of their affairs' showed that they had' not chosen the most perfect standard. But, Sir, I am sure that I shall not be misled, when, in a case of constitutional difficulty, I consult the genius of the English Constitution. Consulting at that oracle, (it was with all due humility and piety,) I found four capital examples in a similar case before me: those of Ireland, Wales, Chester, and Durham.
Ireland, before the English conquest, though never
-governed by a despotic power, had no -Parliament.
How far the English Parliament itself was at that.
time modelled according to the present form is disputed among antiquarians. But we have all the reason in the world to be assured, that a form of Parliament, such as England then enjoyed, she instantly communicated to Ireland; and we are equally sure
that almost every successive improvement in constitutional liberty, as fast as it was made here, was transmitted thither. The feudal baronage, and the feudal knighthood, the roots of our primitive Constitution,
were early transplanted into that soil, and grew and
flourished there. Magna Charta, if it did not give
us originally the House of Commons, gave us at least
an Houseof Commons of weight and consequence.
But your ancestors did not churlishly sit down alone
to the feast of Magna Charta. Ireland was made
immediately a partaker. This benefit of English laws
and liberties, I confess, was not at first extended to
alt Ireland. Mark the consequence. English authority and English liberty had exactly the same
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 147
boundaries. Your standard could never be advanced
an inch before your privileges. Sir John Davies shows
beyond a doubt, that the refusal of a general communication of these rights was the true cause why Ireland was five hundred years in subduing; and after the
vain projects of a military government, attempted in
the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it was soon discovered
that nothing could make that country English, in
civility and allegiance, but your laws and your forms
of legislature. It was not English arms, but the English Constitution, that conquered Ireland. From that
time, Ireland has ever had a general Parliament, as
she had before a partial Parliament. You changed
the people, you altered the religion, but you never
touched the form or tlhe vital substance of free government in that kingdom. You deposed kings; you restored them; you altered the succession to theirs,
as well as to your own crown; but you never altered
their Constitution, the principle of which was respected by usurpation, restored with the restoration
of monarchy, and established, I trust, forever by the
glorious Revolution. This has made Ireland the great
and flourishing kingdom that it is, and, from a disgrace and a burden intolerable to this nation, has rendered her a principal part of our strength and
ornament. This country cannot be said to have ever
formally taxed her. The irregular things done in
the confusion of mighty troubles, and on the hinge
of great revolutions, even if all were done that is said
to have been done, form no e;xample. If they have
any effect in argument, they make, an exception to
prove the rule. None of your own liberties could
stand a moment, if the casual deviations from them,
at such times, were suffered to be used as proofs of
? ? ? ? 148 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITA AMERICA.
their nullity. By the lucrative amount of such casual breaches in the Constitution, judge what the stated and fixed rule of supply has been in that kingdom. Your Irish pensioners would starve, if they had no other fund to live on than taxes granted by
English authority. Turn your eyes to those popular
grants from whence all your great supplies are come,
and learn to respect that only source of public wealth
in the British empire.
My next example is Wales. T~his country was said
to be reduced by Henry the Third. It was said more
truly to be so by Edward the First. But though then
conquered, it was not looked upon as any part of the:realm of England. Its old Constitution, whatever
that might have been, was destroyed; and no good
one was substituted in its place. The care of that
tract was put into the hands -of Lords Marchers:
a form of government of a very singular kind; a
strange, heterogeneous monster, something between
hostility and government: perhaps it has a sort of resemblance, according to the modes of those times, to
that of commander-in-chief at present, to whom all
civil power is granted as secondary. The manners of
the Welsh nation followed the genius of the government:- the people were ferocious, restive, savage, and
uncultivated; sometimes composed, never pacified.
Wales, within itself, was in perpetual disorder; and it
kept the frontier of England in perpetual alarm. Benefits from it to the state there were none. Wales was
only known to England by incursion and invasion.
Sir, during that state of things, Parliament was not
idle. They attempted to subdue the fierce spirit of
the Welsh by all sorts of rigorous laws. They prohibited by statute the sending all sorts of arms into
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 149'Wales, as you prohibit by proclamation (with something more of doubt on the legality) the sending arms to America. They disarmed the Welsh by statute,
as you attempted (but still with more question on the
legality) to disarm New England by an'instruction.
They made an act to drag offenders from Wales into
England for trial, as you have done (but with more
hardship) with regard to America. By another act,
where one of the parties was an Englishman, they ordained that his trial should be always by English. They made acts to restrain trade, as you do; and
they prevented the Welsh from the use of fairs and
markets, as you do the Americans from fisheries and
foreign ports. In short, when the statute-book was
not quite so much swelled as it is now, you find no
less than fifteen acts of penal regulation on the subject of Wales.
Here we rub our hands, -- A fine body of precedents for the authority of Parliament and the use of it! - I admit it fully; and pray add likewise to these
precedents, that all the while Wales rid this kingdom
like an ineubus; that it was an unprofitable and oppressive burden; and that. an Englishman travelling in that country could not go six yards from the highroad without being murdered.
The march of the human mind is slow. Sir, it was
not until after two hundred years discovered, that,
by an eternal law, Providence had decreed vexation
to violence, and poverty to rapine. Your ancestors
did, however, at length open their eyes to the ill husbandry of injustice. They found that the tyranny of a free people could of all tyrannies the least be endured, and that laws made against an whole nation were not the most effectual methods for securing its
? ? ? ? 150 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
obedience. Accordingly, in the twenty-seventh year
of Henry the Eighth the course was entirely altered.
With a preamble stating the entire and perfect rights
of the crown of England, it gave to the Welsh all the
rights and privileges of English subjects. A political
order was established; the military power gave way
to the civil; the marches were turned into counties.
But that a nation should have a right to English liberties, and yet no share at all in the fundamental
security of these liberties, -the grant of their own
property, -- seemed a thing so incongruous, that eight
years after, that is, in the thirty-fifth of that reign, a
complete and not ill-proportioned representation by
counties and boroughs was bestowed upon Wales by
act of Parliament. 'From that moment, as by a charm,
the tumults subsided; obedience was restored; peace,
order, and civilization followed in the train of liberty.
When the day-star of the English Constitution had
arisen in their hearts, all was harmony within and
without: -
Simul alba nautis
Stella refulsit,
Defluit saxis agitatus humor,
Concidunt venti, fugiuntque nubes,
Et minax (quod sic voluere) ponto
Unda recumbit.
The very same year the County Palatine of Chester
received the same relief from its oppressions, and the
same remedy to its disorders. Before this time Chester was little less distempered than Wales. The inhabitants, without rights themselves, were the fittest to destroy the rights of others; and from thence Richard the Second drew the standing army of archers
with which for a time he oppressed England. The
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 151
people of Chester applied to Parliament in a petition
penned as I shall read to you.
" To the king our sovereign lord, in most humble
wise shown unto your most excellent Majesty, the inhabitants of your Grace's County Palatine of Chester: That where the said County Palatine of Chester is and hath been alway hitherto exempt, excluded,
and separated out and from your high court of Parliament, to have any knights and burgesses within the
said court; by reason whereof the said inhabitants
have hitherto sustained manifold disherisons, losses,
alnd damages, as well in their lands, goods, and bodies, as in the good, civil, and politic governance and
maintenance of the common wealth of their said country: And forasmuch as the said inhabitants have
always hitherto been bound by the acts and statutes
made and ordained by your said Highness, and your. most noble progenitors, by authority of the said court,
-as far forth as other counties, cities, and boroughs
~have been, that have had their knights and burgesses. within your said cOurt of Parliament, and yet have
had neither knight ne burgess there for the said
County Palatine; the said inhabitants, for lack thereof, have been oftentimes touched and grieved with acts
and statutes made within the said court, as well derogatory unto the most ancient jurisdictions, liberties,
and privileges of your said County Palatine, as prejudicial unto the common wealth, quietness, rest, and
peace of your Grace's most bounden subjects inhabiting within the same. "
What did Parliament with this audacious address?
-- Reject it as a libel? Treat it as an affront to government? Spurn it as a derogation from the rights
of legislature? Did they toss it over the table? Did
? ? ? ? 152 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
they burn it by the hands of the common hangman?
-They took the petition of grievance, all rugged as
it was, without softening or temperament, unpurged
of the original bitterness and indignation of complaint; they made it the very preamble to their act
of redress, and consecrated its principle to all ages
in the sanctuary of legislation.
Here is my third example. It was attended with
the success of the two former. Chester, civilized as
well as Wales, has demonstrated that freedom, and
not servitude, is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and
not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition. Sir,
this pattern of Chester was followed in the reign of
Charles the Second with regard to the County Palatine of Durham, which is my fourth example. This
county had long lain out of the pale of free legislation. So scrupulously was the example of Chester
followed, that the style of the preamble is nearly the
same with that of the Chester act; and, without affecting the abstract extent of the authority of Parliament, it recognizes the equity of not suffering any considerable district, in which the British subjects may act as a body, to -- be taxed without their own voice
in the grant.
Now if the doctrines of policy contained:in these preambles, and the force of these examples in the acts of
Parliament, avail anything, what can be said against
applying them with regard. to America? Are not the
people of America as much Englishmen as the Welsh?
the Americans have no right to their liberties, we are. every day endeavoring to subvert the maxims which
preserve the whole spirit of our own. To prove that
the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to
depreciate the value of freedom itself; and we never
seem to gain a paltry advantage over them in debate,
without attacking some of those principles, or deriding
some of those feelings, for which our ancestors have
shed their blood.
But, Sir, in wishing to put an end to pernicious ex-.
periments, I do not mean to preclude the fullest inquiry. Far from it. Far. from deciding-on a sudden
or partial view, I would patiently go round and round
the subject, and survey it minutely in every possible'aspect. Sir, if I were capable of engaging you to an
equal attention, I would state, that, as far as I am
capable of discerning, there are but three ways of proceeding relative to this stubborn spirit which prevails in your colonies and disturbs your government. 'These are, - to change that spirit, as inconvenient, by removing the causes, - to prosecute it, as criininal, -or to'comply with it, as necessary. I would
not be guilty of an imperfect enumeration; I can
think of but these three. Another has, indeed, been
Started,- that of giving up the colonies; but it met
so slight a reception that I do not think myself obliged
to dwell a great while upon it. It is nothing but;a
little sally of anger, like the frowardness of peevish
children, who, when they cannot get all they would
have, are resolved to take nothing.
The first of these plans - to change the spirit, as in
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITIH AMERICA. 131
convenient, by removing the causes- I think is the
most like a systematic proceeding. It is radical in its
principle; but it is attended with great difficulties:
some of them little short, as I conceive, of impossibilities. This will appear by examining into the plans which have been proposed.
As the growing population of the colonies is evidently one cause of their resistance, it was last session mentioned in both Houses, by men of weight,'and received not without applause, that, in order to check this evil, it would be proper for the crown to make no
further grants of land. But to this scheme there are
two objections. The first, that there is already so much unsettled land in private hands as to afford room for an immense future population, although the crown not only withheld its grants,. but annihilated its soil. If this be the case, then the only effect of
this avarice of desolation, this hoarding of a royal
wilderness, would be to raise'the value of the possessions in the hands of the great private monopolists, without any adequate check to the growing and
alarming mischief of population.
But if you stopped your grants, what would be the
consequence? 'The people would occupy without
grants. '. They have already so -occupied in many
places. You cannot station garrisons in every part
of these deserts. If you drive the people from one
place, they will carry on their annual tillage, and remove with their flocks and herds to another. Many
of the people in the back settlements are already little
attached to particular situations. Already they have
topped the Appalachian mountains. From thence they
behold before them an immense plain, one vast, rich,
level meadow: a square of five hundred miles. Over
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this they would wander without a possibility of restraint; they would- change their manners With the habits of their life; would soon forget a government
by which they were disowned; would become hordes
of English Tartars, and, pouring down upon your
unfortified frontiers a fierce and irresistible cavalry,
become masters of your governors and your counsellors, your collectors and comptrollers, and of all the slaves that adhered to them. Such would, and, in no
long time, must be, the effect of attempting to forbid
as a crime, and to suppress as an evil, the command
and blessing of Providence, " Increase and multiply. "
Such would be the happy result of an endeavor to
keep as a lair of wild beasts that earth which God
by an express charter has given to the children of
men. Far different, and surely much wiser, has been
our policy hitherto. Hitherto we have invited our
people, by every kind of bounty, to fixed establishments. We have invited the husbandman to look to authority for his title. We have taught him piously
to believe in the mysterious virtue of wax and parchment. We have thrown each tract of land, as it was peopled, into districts, that the ruling power should
never be wholly out of sight. We have settled all we
could; and we have carefully attended every settlement with government.
Adhering, Sir, as I do, to this policy, as well as for
the reasons I have just given, I think this new project of hedging in population to be neither prudent
nor practicable.
To impoverish the colonies in general, and in particular to arrest the noble course of their marine enterprises, would be a more easy task. I freely confess it. We have shown a disposition to a system of
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 133
this kind,- a disposition-even to continue the restraint after the offence, -looking on ourselves as rivals to our colonies, and persuaded that of course we must gain all that they shall lose. Much mischief we
may certainly do. The power inadequate to all other
things is often more than sufficient for this. I do
not look on the direct and immediate power of the
colonies to resist our violence as very formidable. In
this, however, I may be mistaken. But whlen I consider that we have colonies for no purpose but to be
serviceable to us, it seems to my poor understanding
a little preposterous'to make them unserviceable, in
order to keep them obedient. 'It is, in truth, nothing
more than the old, and, as I thought, exploded problem of tyranny, which proposes to beggar its subjects
into submission. But remember, when you have
completed your system of impoverishment, that Nature still proceeds in her ordinary course; that discontent will increase with misery; and that there are critical moments in the fortune of all states, when
they who are too weak to contribute to your prosper
ity may be strong enough to complete your ruin.
Spoliatis arma supersunt.
(The temper and character which prevail in our colonies are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art.
We cannot, I fear, falsify the pedigree of this fierce
people, and persuade them that they are not sprung
from a nation in whose veins the blood of freedom
circulates. The language in which they would hear
you tell them this tale would detect the imposition;
your speech would betray you. An Englishman is
the unfittest person on earth to argue another Englishman into slavery,)
I think it is nearly as little in our power to change
? ? ? ? 134 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
their republican religion as their free descent, or: to
substitute the Roman Catholic as a penalty, or the
Church of England as an improvement. The mode
of inquisition and dragooning is going out of fashion
in the Old World, and I should not confide much to
their efficacy in the New. . The education of the
Americans is also on the same unalterable bottom
with their religion. You cannot persuade them to
burn their books of curious science, to banish their
lawyers from their courts of law, or to quench the
lights of their assemblies by refusing to choose those
persons who are best read in their privileges. It
would be no less impracticable to think of wholly annihilating the popular assemblies in which these lawyers sit. The army, by which we must govern in their place, would be far more chargeable to us, not
quite so. effectual, and perhaps, in the end, full as
difficult to be kept in obedience.
With regard to the high aristocratic spirit of Virginia and the southern colonies, it has been proposed,
I know, to reduce it by declaring a general enfranchisement of their slaves. This project has had its
advocates and panegyrists; yet I never could argue
myself into any opinion of it. Slaves are often much
attached to their masters. A general wild offer of
liberty would not always be accepted. History furnishes few instances of it. It is sometimes as hard
to persuade slaves to be free as it is to compel freemen to be slaves; and in this auspicious scheme we
should have both these pleasing tasks on our hands
at once. But when we talk of enfranchisement, do
we not perceive that the American master may en~franchise,too, and arm servile hands in defence of
freedom? --a measure to which other people have
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH. AMERICA. 135
had recourse more than once, and not without success, in a desperate situation of their affairs.
Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and
dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a
little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation which has sold them to their present masters, -- from that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel
with those masters is their refusal to deal any more
in that inhuman traffic? An offer of freedom from
Englald would come rather oddly, shipped to them
in an African vessel, which is refused an entry into
the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo of
three hundred Angola negroes. It would be curious
to see the Guinea captain attempting at the same instant to publish his proclamation of liberty and to advertise his sale of slaves.
But let us suppose all these moral difficulties got
over. The ocean remains. You cannot pump this
dry; and as long as it continues in its present bed,
so long all the causes which weaken authority by distance will continue.
"Ye Gods! annihilate but space and time,
And make two lovers happy,"
was a pious and passionate prayer,- but just as reasonable as many of the serious wishes of very grave and solemn politicians.
If, then, Sir, it seems almost desperate to think of
any alterative course for changing the moral causes
(and not quite easy to remove the natural) which
produce prejudices irreconcilable to the late exercise
of our authority, but that the spirit ir fallibly will
continue, and, continuing, will produce such effects
as now embarrass us, - the isecond mode'under ccnsideration is, to prosecute that spirit in its overt acts, as criminal.
? ? ? ? 136 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
At this proposition I must pause a moment. The
thing seems a great deal too big for my ideas of jurisprudence. It should seem, to my way of conceiving
such matters, that there is a very wide difference, in
reason and policy, between the mode of proceeding
on the irregular conduct of scattered individuals, or
even of bands of men, who disturb order within the
state, and the civil dissensions which may, from time
to time, on great questions, agitate the several communities which compose a great empire. It looks to
me to be narrow and pedantic- to apply the ordinary
ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest.
I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against an whole people. I cannot insult and
ridicule the feelings of millions of my fellow-creatures as Sir Edward Coke insulted one excellent individual (Sir Walter Raleigh) at the bar. I am not ripe to pass sentence on the gravest public bodies,
intrusted with magistracies of great authority and
dignity, and charged with the safety of their fellowcitizens, upon the very same title that I am. I really
think that for wise men this is not judicious, for
sober men not decent,'for minds tinctured with
humanity not mild and merciful.
Perhaps, Sir, I am mistaken in my idea of an em,
pire, as distinguished from a single state or kingdom.
But my idea of it is this: that an empire is the aggregate of many states under one common head,
whether this head be a monarch or a presiding republic. It does, in such constitutions, frequently
happen (and nothing but the dismal, cold, dead uniformity of servitude can prevent its happening) that
the subordinate parts have many local privileges and
immunities. Between these privileges and the su.
? ? ? ? :SPEECH'ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 137
preme common authority the line'may be extremely
nice. Of course disputes, often, too, very bitter dis,.
putes, and much ill blood, will arise. But though
every privilege is an exemption (in the case) from
the ordinary exercise of the supreme authority, it
is no denial of it. The claim of a privilege seems
rather, ex vi termini, to imply a superior power: for
to talk of the privileges of a state or of a person who
has no superior is' hardly any better than speaking
nonsense. Now in such unfortunate quarrels among
the component parts of a great political union of communities, I can scarcely conceive anything more completely imprudent than for the head of the empire to insist, that if any privilege is pleaded against his will
or his acts, that his whole authority is denied, - instantly to proclaim rebellion, to beat to arms, and to
put the offending provinces under the ban. Will not
this, Sir, very soon teach the provinces to make no
distinctions on their part? Will it not teach them
that the government against which a claim of liberty
is tantamount to high treason is a government to
which submission is equivalent to slavery 9 It may
not always be quite convenient to impress dependent
communities with such an idea.
We are, indeed, in all disputes with the colonies,
by the necessity of things, the judge. It is true, Sir.
But I confess that the character of judge in my own
cause is a thing that frightens me. Instead of filling
me with pride, I am exceedingly humbled by it. I
cannot proceed with a stern, assured judicial confidence, until I find myself in something more like a
judicial character. I must have these hesitations as
long as I am compelled to recollect, that, in my little
leading upon such contests as these, the sense of
? ? ? ? 138 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. mankind has at least as often decided against the superior as the subordinate power. Sir, let me add, too, that. the opinion of my having some abstract right in my favor would not put me much at my
ease in passing sentence, unless I could be sure that there were no rights which, in their exercise under certain circumstances, were not the most odious of all wrongs and the most vexatious of all injustice. Sir, these considerations have great weight with me, when I find things so circumstanced that I see the same party at once a civil litigant against me in a point of right and a culprit before me, while I sit as criminal judge on acts of his whose moral quality
is to be decided upon the merits of that very litigation. Men are every now and then put, by the complexity of human affairs, into strange situations; but justice is the same, let the judge be in what situation
he will.
There is, Sir, also a circumstance which convinces
me that this mode of criminal proceeding is not (at
least in the present stage of our contest) altogether
expedient,- which is nothing less than the conduct
of those very persons who have seemed to adopt that
mode, by lately declaring a rebellion in Massachusetts
Bay, as they had formerly addressed to have traitors
brought hither, under an act of Henry the Eighth, for
trial. For, though rebellion is declared, it is not proceeded against as such; nor have any steps been taken towards the apprehension or conviction of any
individual offender', either on our late or our former address; but modes of public coercion have been adopted, and such as have much more. resemblance to a sort of qualified hostility towards an independent power than the punishment of rebellious subjects.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILZIATION WITH AMERICA. 139
All this seems rather inconsistent; but it shows how
difficult it is to apply these juridical ideas to our present case.
In this situation, let us seriously and coolly ponrider.
What is it we have got by all our menaces, which
htave been many and ferocious? What advantage
have we derived from the penal laws we have passed,
and whichl, for the time, have been severe and numerous? What advances have we made towards our object, by the sending of a force, which, by land and sea, is no contemptible strength? Has the disorder,abated? Nothing less. - When I see things in this
situation, after such confident hopes, bold promises,
and active exertions, I cannot, for my life, avoid a
suspicion that the plan itself is not correctly right.
If, then, the removal of the causes of this spirit of
American liberty be, for the greater part, or rather
entirely, impracticable, -if the ideas of criminal process be inapplicable, or, if applicable, are in the highest degree inexpedient, what way yet. remains? No. way is open, but the third and last, - to comply with
the American spirit as necessary, or, if you please, to
submit to it as a necessary evil.
If we adopt this mode, if we mean to conciliate and
concede, let us see of what nature the concession
ought to be. To ascertain the nature of our concession, we must look at their complaint. The colonies
complain that they have not'the characteristic mark
and seal of British freedom. They complain that
they are taxed in a Parliament in which they are not
represented. If you mean to satisfy them at all, you
must satisfy them with regard to this complaint. If
you mean to please any people, you must give them
the boon which they ask,. - not what you may think
? ? ? ? 140 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
better for them, but of a kind totally different. Such
an act may be a wise regulation, but it is no conces$sion; whereas our present theme is the mode of giv ing satisfaction.
Sir, I think you must perceive that I am resolve1
this day to have nothing at all to do with the questioni
of the right of taxation. Some gentlemen startle,but it is true: I put it totally out of the question.
It is less than nothing in my consideration. I do
not indeed wonder, nor will you, Sir, that gentlemen
of profound learning are fond of displaying it on this
profound subject. But my consideration is narrow,
confined, and wholly limited to the policy of the question. I do not examine whether the giving away a man's money be a power excepted and reserved out
of the general trust of government, and how far all
mankind, in all forms of polity, are entitled to an
exercise of that right by the charter of Nature,-or
whether, on the contrary, a right of taxation is necessarily involved in the general principle of legislation, and inseparable from' the ordinary supreme power.
These are deep questions, where great names militate
against each other, where reason is perplexed, and
an appeal to authorities only thickens the confusion:
for high and reverend authorities lift up their heads
on both sides, and there is Ino sure footing in the
middle. This point is the great Serbonian bog, betwixt Damiata and Moount Casius old, where armies whole have sunk. I do not intend to,be overwhelmed
in that bog, though in such respectable company.
The question with me is, not whether you have a
right to render your people miserable, but whether
it is not your interest to make them happy. It is
not what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what hu
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 141
~nanity, reason, andjustice tell me I ought to do.
Is a politic act the worse for being a generous one?
Is no concession proper, but that which is made from. your want of right to keep what you grant? Or does
it lessen the grace or dignity of relaxing in the exer-:ise of an odious claim, because you have your evidence-room full of titles, and your magazines stuffed with arms to enforce them? What signify all those
/titles and all those arms? Of what avail are they,
when the reason of the thing tells me that the assertion of my title is -the loss of my suit, and that I
could do nothing but wound myself by the use of my
own weapons?
Such is steadfastly my opinion of the absolute necessity of keeping up the concord of this empire by a
unity of spirit, though in a diversity of operations.
that, if I were sure the colonists had, at their leaving
this country, sealed a regular compact of servitude,
that they had solemnly abjured all the rights of citizens, that they had made a vow to renounce all ideas
of liberty for them and their posterity to all generations, yet I should hold myself obliged to conform to
the temper I found universally prevalent in my own
day, and to govern two million of men, impatient of
servitude, on the principles of freedom. I am not determining. a point of law; I am restoring tranquillity;'and the general character and situation of a people must determine what sort of government is fitted for
them. That point nothing else can or ought to determine.
My idea, therefore, without considering whether
we yield as matter of right orgrant as matter of
favor, is; to admit the people of our colonies into an interest in the Constitution, and, by recording that ad
? ? ? ? 142 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
mission in the journals of Parliament, to give them
as strong an assurance as the nature of the thing wili
admit thlat we mean forever to-adhere to that solemn
declaration of systematic indulgence.
Some years ago, the repeal of a revenue act, upon
its understood principle, might have served to shows
that we intended an unconditional abatement of the
exercise of a taxing power. Such a measure was
then sufficient to remove all suspicion and to give
perfect content. But unfortunate events since that'
time may make something further necessary, -and
not more necessary for the satisfaction of the colonies
than for the dignity and consistency of our own future proceedings. .
I have taken a very incorrect measure of the disposition of the House, if this proposal in itself would
be received with dislike. I think, Sir, we have few
American financiers. But our misfortune is, we are
too acute, we are too exquisite in our conjectures of
the future, for men oppressed with such great and
present evils. The more moderate among the opposers of Parliamentary concession freely confess that they hope, no good from taxation; but they apprehend the colonists have further views, and if this point were 6onceded, they would instantly attack the
trade laws. These gentlemen are convinced that this
was the intention from the beginning, and the quar. .
rel of the Americans with taxation was no more than
a cloak and cover to this design. Such has been the
language even of a gentleman * of real moderation,
and of a natural temper well adjusted to fair and
equal government. I am, however, Sir, not a little
surprised at this kind of discourse, whenever I hear
* Mr. Rice.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH - AMERICA. 143 it; and I am the more surprised on account of the arguments which I constantly find in company with it, and which are often urged from the same mouths *and on the same day.
For instance, when we allege that it is against reaSon to tax a people under so many restraints in trade as the Americans, the'noble lord * in the blue riband
shall tell you that the restraints on trade are futile
and useless, of no advantage to us, and of no burden
to those on whom they are imposed, - that the trade to America is not secured by the Acts of Navigation, but by the natural and irresistible advantage of a commercial preference.
Such is the merit of the trade laws in this posture
of the debate. But when strong internal circumstances are urged against the taxes, - when the scheme is dissected, - when experience and the nature of
things are. brought to prove, and do prove, the utter
impossibility of obtaining an effective revenue from
the colonies, when these things are pressed, or
rather press themselves, so as to drive the advocates
of colony taxes to a clear admission of the futility of
the scheme, -- then, Sir, the sleeping trade laws revive from their trance, and this useless taxation is to be kept sacred, not for its own sake, but as a counterguard and security of the laws of trade.
Then, Sir, you keep up revenue laws which are
mischievous in order to preserve trade laws that are
useless. Such is the wisdom of our plan in both
its members, They are separately given up as of no
value; and yet one is always to be defended for the
sake of the other. But I cannot agree with the noble
lord, nor with the pamphlet from whence he seems to
* Lord North.
? ? ? ? 144 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
have borrowed these ideas concerning the inutility of
the trade laws. For, without idolizing them, I am
sure they are still, in many ways, of great use to us;
and in former times they have been of the greatest.
They do confine, and they do greatly narrow, the
market for the Americans. But my perfect convic*
tion of this does not help me in the least to discern
how the revenue laws form any security whatsoever
to the commercial regulations, - or that these commercial regulations are the true ground of the quarrel, - or that the giving way, in any one instance, of authority is to lose all that may' remain unconceded.
One fact is clear and indisputable: the public and,
avowed origin'of tliis quarrel was on taxation. This
quarrel has, indeed, brought on new disputes on new
questions, but certainly the least bitter, and the fewest of all, on the trade laws. To judge which of the
two beithe real, radical cause of quarrel, we have to
see whether the commercial dispute did, in order of
time, precede the dispute on taxation. There is not
a shadow of evidence for it. Next, to enable us to
judge whether at this moment a dislike to the trade
laws be the real cause of quarrel, it is absolutely necessary to put the taxes out of the question by a repeal.
See how the Americans act in this position, and then
you will be able to discern correctly what is the true
object of the controversy, or whether any controversy
at all will remain. Unless you consent to remove
this cause of difference, it is impossible, with decency,
to assert that the dispute is not upon what it is avowed
to be. And I would, Sir,'recommend to your serious
consideration, whether it be prudent to form a rule
for punishing people, not on their own acts, but on
your conjectures. Surely it is preposterous, at the.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 145 very best. It is not justifying your anger by their misconduct, but it is converting your ill-will into theor delinquency.
But the colonies will go further. -Alas! alas! when
will this speculating. against fact and reason end?
What will quiet these panic fears which we entertain
of the hostile effect of a conciliatory conduct? Is it
true that no case can exist in which it is proper for
the sovereign to accede to the desires of his discontented subjects? Is there anything peculiar in this case, to make a rule for itself? Is all authority of
course lost, when. it is not pushed to the extreme?
Is it a certain maxim, that, the fewer causes of dissatisfaction are left by government, the more the subject will be inclined to resist and rebely All these objections being in fact no more than suspicions, conjectures, divinations, formed in defiance
of fact and experience, they did not, Sir, discourage
me from entertaining the idea of a conciliatory concession, founded on the principles which I have just
stated.
In forming a plan for this purpose, I endeavored
to put myself in that frame of mind which was the
most natural and the most reasonable, and which
was certainly the most probable means of securing
me from all error. I set out with a perfect distrust
of my own abilities, a total renunciation of every
speculation of my own, and with a profound reverence for the wisdom of our ancestors, who have left
us the inheritance of so happy a Constitution and so
flourishing an empire, and, what is a thousand times
more valuable, the treasury of the maxims and principles which formed the one and obtained the other.
During the reigns of the kings of Spain of the AusVOL. II. 10
? ? ? ? 146 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH A MERICA. trian family, whenever'they were at a loss in the Spanish councils, it was' common for their statesmen to say that they ought to consult the genius of Philip the- Second. ' The genius of Philip the Second might mislead them; and the issue of their affairs' showed that they had' not chosen the most perfect standard. But, Sir, I am sure that I shall not be misled, when, in a case of constitutional difficulty, I consult the genius of the English Constitution. Consulting at that oracle, (it was with all due humility and piety,) I found four capital examples in a similar case before me: those of Ireland, Wales, Chester, and Durham.
Ireland, before the English conquest, though never
-governed by a despotic power, had no -Parliament.
How far the English Parliament itself was at that.
time modelled according to the present form is disputed among antiquarians. But we have all the reason in the world to be assured, that a form of Parliament, such as England then enjoyed, she instantly communicated to Ireland; and we are equally sure
that almost every successive improvement in constitutional liberty, as fast as it was made here, was transmitted thither. The feudal baronage, and the feudal knighthood, the roots of our primitive Constitution,
were early transplanted into that soil, and grew and
flourished there. Magna Charta, if it did not give
us originally the House of Commons, gave us at least
an Houseof Commons of weight and consequence.
But your ancestors did not churlishly sit down alone
to the feast of Magna Charta. Ireland was made
immediately a partaker. This benefit of English laws
and liberties, I confess, was not at first extended to
alt Ireland. Mark the consequence. English authority and English liberty had exactly the same
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 147
boundaries. Your standard could never be advanced
an inch before your privileges. Sir John Davies shows
beyond a doubt, that the refusal of a general communication of these rights was the true cause why Ireland was five hundred years in subduing; and after the
vain projects of a military government, attempted in
the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it was soon discovered
that nothing could make that country English, in
civility and allegiance, but your laws and your forms
of legislature. It was not English arms, but the English Constitution, that conquered Ireland. From that
time, Ireland has ever had a general Parliament, as
she had before a partial Parliament. You changed
the people, you altered the religion, but you never
touched the form or tlhe vital substance of free government in that kingdom. You deposed kings; you restored them; you altered the succession to theirs,
as well as to your own crown; but you never altered
their Constitution, the principle of which was respected by usurpation, restored with the restoration
of monarchy, and established, I trust, forever by the
glorious Revolution. This has made Ireland the great
and flourishing kingdom that it is, and, from a disgrace and a burden intolerable to this nation, has rendered her a principal part of our strength and
ornament. This country cannot be said to have ever
formally taxed her. The irregular things done in
the confusion of mighty troubles, and on the hinge
of great revolutions, even if all were done that is said
to have been done, form no e;xample. If they have
any effect in argument, they make, an exception to
prove the rule. None of your own liberties could
stand a moment, if the casual deviations from them,
at such times, were suffered to be used as proofs of
? ? ? ? 148 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITA AMERICA.
their nullity. By the lucrative amount of such casual breaches in the Constitution, judge what the stated and fixed rule of supply has been in that kingdom. Your Irish pensioners would starve, if they had no other fund to live on than taxes granted by
English authority. Turn your eyes to those popular
grants from whence all your great supplies are come,
and learn to respect that only source of public wealth
in the British empire.
My next example is Wales. T~his country was said
to be reduced by Henry the Third. It was said more
truly to be so by Edward the First. But though then
conquered, it was not looked upon as any part of the:realm of England. Its old Constitution, whatever
that might have been, was destroyed; and no good
one was substituted in its place. The care of that
tract was put into the hands -of Lords Marchers:
a form of government of a very singular kind; a
strange, heterogeneous monster, something between
hostility and government: perhaps it has a sort of resemblance, according to the modes of those times, to
that of commander-in-chief at present, to whom all
civil power is granted as secondary. The manners of
the Welsh nation followed the genius of the government:- the people were ferocious, restive, savage, and
uncultivated; sometimes composed, never pacified.
Wales, within itself, was in perpetual disorder; and it
kept the frontier of England in perpetual alarm. Benefits from it to the state there were none. Wales was
only known to England by incursion and invasion.
Sir, during that state of things, Parliament was not
idle. They attempted to subdue the fierce spirit of
the Welsh by all sorts of rigorous laws. They prohibited by statute the sending all sorts of arms into
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 149'Wales, as you prohibit by proclamation (with something more of doubt on the legality) the sending arms to America. They disarmed the Welsh by statute,
as you attempted (but still with more question on the
legality) to disarm New England by an'instruction.
They made an act to drag offenders from Wales into
England for trial, as you have done (but with more
hardship) with regard to America. By another act,
where one of the parties was an Englishman, they ordained that his trial should be always by English. They made acts to restrain trade, as you do; and
they prevented the Welsh from the use of fairs and
markets, as you do the Americans from fisheries and
foreign ports. In short, when the statute-book was
not quite so much swelled as it is now, you find no
less than fifteen acts of penal regulation on the subject of Wales.
Here we rub our hands, -- A fine body of precedents for the authority of Parliament and the use of it! - I admit it fully; and pray add likewise to these
precedents, that all the while Wales rid this kingdom
like an ineubus; that it was an unprofitable and oppressive burden; and that. an Englishman travelling in that country could not go six yards from the highroad without being murdered.
The march of the human mind is slow. Sir, it was
not until after two hundred years discovered, that,
by an eternal law, Providence had decreed vexation
to violence, and poverty to rapine. Your ancestors
did, however, at length open their eyes to the ill husbandry of injustice. They found that the tyranny of a free people could of all tyrannies the least be endured, and that laws made against an whole nation were not the most effectual methods for securing its
? ? ? ? 150 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
obedience. Accordingly, in the twenty-seventh year
of Henry the Eighth the course was entirely altered.
With a preamble stating the entire and perfect rights
of the crown of England, it gave to the Welsh all the
rights and privileges of English subjects. A political
order was established; the military power gave way
to the civil; the marches were turned into counties.
But that a nation should have a right to English liberties, and yet no share at all in the fundamental
security of these liberties, -the grant of their own
property, -- seemed a thing so incongruous, that eight
years after, that is, in the thirty-fifth of that reign, a
complete and not ill-proportioned representation by
counties and boroughs was bestowed upon Wales by
act of Parliament. 'From that moment, as by a charm,
the tumults subsided; obedience was restored; peace,
order, and civilization followed in the train of liberty.
When the day-star of the English Constitution had
arisen in their hearts, all was harmony within and
without: -
Simul alba nautis
Stella refulsit,
Defluit saxis agitatus humor,
Concidunt venti, fugiuntque nubes,
Et minax (quod sic voluere) ponto
Unda recumbit.
The very same year the County Palatine of Chester
received the same relief from its oppressions, and the
same remedy to its disorders. Before this time Chester was little less distempered than Wales. The inhabitants, without rights themselves, were the fittest to destroy the rights of others; and from thence Richard the Second drew the standing army of archers
with which for a time he oppressed England. The
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 151
people of Chester applied to Parliament in a petition
penned as I shall read to you.
" To the king our sovereign lord, in most humble
wise shown unto your most excellent Majesty, the inhabitants of your Grace's County Palatine of Chester: That where the said County Palatine of Chester is and hath been alway hitherto exempt, excluded,
and separated out and from your high court of Parliament, to have any knights and burgesses within the
said court; by reason whereof the said inhabitants
have hitherto sustained manifold disherisons, losses,
alnd damages, as well in their lands, goods, and bodies, as in the good, civil, and politic governance and
maintenance of the common wealth of their said country: And forasmuch as the said inhabitants have
always hitherto been bound by the acts and statutes
made and ordained by your said Highness, and your. most noble progenitors, by authority of the said court,
-as far forth as other counties, cities, and boroughs
~have been, that have had their knights and burgesses. within your said cOurt of Parliament, and yet have
had neither knight ne burgess there for the said
County Palatine; the said inhabitants, for lack thereof, have been oftentimes touched and grieved with acts
and statutes made within the said court, as well derogatory unto the most ancient jurisdictions, liberties,
and privileges of your said County Palatine, as prejudicial unto the common wealth, quietness, rest, and
peace of your Grace's most bounden subjects inhabiting within the same. "
What did Parliament with this audacious address?
-- Reject it as a libel? Treat it as an affront to government? Spurn it as a derogation from the rights
of legislature? Did they toss it over the table? Did
? ? ? ? 152 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
they burn it by the hands of the common hangman?
-They took the petition of grievance, all rugged as
it was, without softening or temperament, unpurged
of the original bitterness and indignation of complaint; they made it the very preamble to their act
of redress, and consecrated its principle to all ages
in the sanctuary of legislation.
Here is my third example. It was attended with
the success of the two former. Chester, civilized as
well as Wales, has demonstrated that freedom, and
not servitude, is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and
not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition. Sir,
this pattern of Chester was followed in the reign of
Charles the Second with regard to the County Palatine of Durham, which is my fourth example. This
county had long lain out of the pale of free legislation. So scrupulously was the example of Chester
followed, that the style of the preamble is nearly the
same with that of the Chester act; and, without affecting the abstract extent of the authority of Parliament, it recognizes the equity of not suffering any considerable district, in which the British subjects may act as a body, to -- be taxed without their own voice
in the grant.
Now if the doctrines of policy contained:in these preambles, and the force of these examples in the acts of
Parliament, avail anything, what can be said against
applying them with regard. to America? Are not the
people of America as much Englishmen as the Welsh?
