But, Sir, in wishing to put an end to
pernicious
ex-.
Edmund Burke
Our ancient indulgence
has been said to be pursued to a fault. It may be so;
but we know, if feeling is evidence, that our fault was
more tolerable than our attempt to mend it, and our
sin far more salutary than our penitence.
These, Sir, are my reasons for not entertaining that
high opinion of untried force by which many gentlemen, for whose sentiments in other particulars I have great respect, seem to be so greatly captivated. But
there is still behind a third consideration concerning
this object, which serves to determine my opinion on
the sort of policy which ought to be pursued in the
management of America, even more than its popula
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tion and its commerce: I mean its temper and character.
In this character of the Americans a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and
distinguishes the whole: and as an ardent is always
a jealous affection, your colonies become suspicious,
restive, and untractable, whenever they see the least
attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from
them by chicane, what they think the only advantage
worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is
stronger in the English colonies, probably, than in any
other people of the earth, and this from a great variety of powerful causes; which, to understand the
true temper of their minds, and the direction which
this spirit takes, it will not be amiss to lay open somewhat more largely.
First, the people of the colonies are descendants of
Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which still, I
hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The
colonists emigrated from you when this part of your
character was most predominant; and they took this
bias and direction the moment they parted from your
hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas and on
English principles. Abstract liberty, like other mere
abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in
some sensible object; and every nation has formed to
itself some favorite point, which by way of eminence
becomes the criterion of their happiness. It happened, you know, Sir, that the great contests for free. dom in this country were from the earliest times chiefly upon the question of taxing. Most of the contests in the ancient commonwealths turned primarily
on the right of election of magistrates, or on the bal
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ance among the several orders of the state. The question of money was not with them so immediate. But in England it was otherwise. On this point of taxes the ablest pens and most eloquent tongues have been exercised, the greatest spirits have acted and suffered. In order to give the fullest satisfaction concerning the importance of this point, it was not only necessary for those who in argument defended the excellence of the! English Constitution to insist on this privilege'of granting money as a dry point of fact, and to prove that the right had been'acknowledged
in ancient parchments' and blind usages to reside in a'certain body called an House of Commons: they went much further: they attempted to prove, and they succeeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from the particular nature of a House of Commons, as an immediate representative of the people, whether the old records had delivered this oracle or not. They took infinite pains to inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that in all monarchies the people must in effect themselves, mediately or immediately, possess the power of granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty could subsist. The colonies draw from you, as with their life-blood, these ideas and principles. Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and attached on this specific' point of taxing. Liberty might be
safe or might be endangered in twenty other particu.
lars without their being much pleased or alarmed.
Here they felt its pulse; and as they found that beat?
they thought themselves sick or sound. I do not say
whether they were right or wrong in applying your
general arguments to their - own case. It is not easy,
indeed;-to make a moniopoly of theorems and corollaries. : The fact is, that they. did thus apply those gen
? ? ? ? 122 SPEECH'ON CONCILIATION'WITH AMERICA.
eral arguments; and your mode of governing them,
whether through lenity or indolence, through wisdom
or mistake, confirmed them in the imagination, that
they, as well as you, had an interest in these common
principles.
They were further confirmed in this pleasing error
by the form of their provincial legislative assemblies.
Their governments are popular in an high degree:
some are merely popular; in all, the popular representative is the most weighty; and this share of the people in their ordinary government never fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, and with a strong aversion from whatever tends to deprive them of their
chief importance.
If anything were wanting to this necessary operation of the form of government, religion would have given it a complete effect. Religion, always a principle of energy, in this new people is no way worn out or impaired; and their mode of professing it is also
one main cause of this free spirit. The people are
Protestants, and of that kind which is the most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. This is a persuasion not only favorable to liberty, but
built upon it. I do not think, Sir, that the reason of
this averseness in the dissenting churches from all
that looks'like absolute government is so much to be
sought in their religious tenets as ini their history.
Every one knows that the Roman Catholic religion is
at least coeval with most of the governments where it
prevails, that it has generally gone hand in hand
with them, and received great favor and every kind
of support from authority. The Church of England,
too, was formed from her cradle under the nursing
care of regular government. But the dissenting in
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terests have sprung up in direct opposition to all the
ordinary powers of the world, arid could justify that
opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty.
Their very existence depended on the powerful and
unremitted assertion of that claim. All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance:
it is the dissidence of dissent, alid the protestantism
of the Protestant religion. This religion, under a
variety of denominations agreeing in nothing but in
the communion of the spirit of liberty, is predominant in most of the northern provinces, where the
Church of England, notwithstanding its legal rights,
is in reality no more than a sort of private sect, not
composing, most probably, the tenth of the people.
The colonists left England when this spirit was high,
and in the emigrants was the highest of all; and even
that stream of foreigners which has been constantly
flowing into these colonies has, for the greatest part,
been composed of dissenters from the establishments
of their several countries, and have brought with them
a temper and character far from alien to that of the
people with whom they mixed.
Sir, I can perceive, by their manner, that some
gentlemen object to the latitude of this description,
because in the southern colonies the Church of England forms a large body, and has a regular establishment. It is certainly true. There is, however, a circumstance attending these colonies, which, in my
opinion, fully counterbalances this difference, and
makes the spirit of liberty still more high and haughty than in those to the northward. It is, that in Virginia and the Carolinas they have a vast multitude of
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slaves. Where this is the case in any part of the
world, those who are'free are by far the most proud
and jealous of their freedom. Freedom is to them
not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank and privilege. -Not seeing there, that freedom, as in countries where it is a common blessing, and as broad and general as the air, may be united with much abject toil, with great misery, with all the exterior of servitude,
liberty looks, amongst them, like something that is
more noble and liberal. I do not mean, Sir, to commend the superior morality of this sentiment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in it; but I cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is so; and these people of the southern colonies are much more
strongly, and with an higher and more stubborn spir
it, attached to liberty, than those to the northward.
Such were all the ancient commonwealths; such were
ouir Gothic ancestors; such in our days were the
Poles; and such will be all masters of slaves, who
are'not slaves themselves. In such a people, the
haughtiness of domination combines with the spirit
-of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible.
Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our.
colonies, which contributes no mean part towards the
growth and effect of this untractable spirit: I mean
their education. In no- country, perhaps, in the world
is the law so general a study. The profession itself
is numeirous and powerful, and in most provinces it
takes the lead. The greater number of the deputies
sent to the Congress were lawyers. But all who read,
and most do read, endeavor to obtain some smattering
in that science. I. have been told by an eminent
bookseller, that in no bralch of his business, after
tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH -AMERICA. 125
those on the law exported to the plantations. The
colonists have now fallen into the way of printing
them for their own use. I liear that they have sold
nearly as many of Blackstone's " Commentaries " in
America as in England. General Gage marks out
this disposition very particularly in a letter on your
table, He states, that all the people in his government are lawyers, or smatterers in law,- and that in Boston they have been enabled, by successful- chicane,
wholly to evade many parts of one of your capital pe
nal constitutions. The smartness of debate will say,
that this knowledge ought to teach them more clearly
the rights of legislature, their obligations to obedience,
and the penalties of rebellion. All this is mighty well.
But my honorable and learned friend,* on the floor,
who condescends to mark what I say for animadversion, will disdain that iground. He has heard, as well as I, that, when great honors and great emoluments do not win over this knowledge to the service of the state, it is a formidable adversary to government. If the spirit be not tamed and broken by these happy methods, it is stubborn and litigious. Abeunt
studia in mores. This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of resources. In other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the.
pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance, and
snuff the approach of tyranny iin evei y tainted breeze.
The last cause of this disobedient! pirit in the colouies. i, hardly less powerful than th( rest, as it is not * The Attorney-General.
? ? ? ? 120 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
merely moral, but laid deep in the natural constitu.
tion of things. Three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. 'No contrivance can prevent
the effect of this distance in weakening government.
Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and the
execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of
a single point is enough to defeat an whole system.
You have, indeed, winged ministers of vengeance,
who carry your bolts'in their pounces to the remotest
verge of the sea: but there a power steps in, that
limits the arrogance of raging passions and furious
elements, and says, "So far shalt thou go, and no
farther. " Who are you, that should fret' and rage,
and bite the chains of Nature? Nothing worse happens to you than does to all nations who have extensive empire; and it happens in all the forms into which empire can be thrown. In large bodies, the circulation of power. must be less vigorous at the extremities. Nature has said it. The Turk cannot govern
Egypt, and Arabia, and Kurdistan, as he governs
Thrace; nor has he the same dominion in Crimea
and Algiers which he has at Brusa and Smyrna.
Despotism itself, is obliged to truck and huckster.
The Sultan gets such obedience as he can. He gov
erns with a loose rein, that he may govern at all;
and the whole of the force and vigor of his authority
in his centre is derived from a prudent relaxation in
all his borders. Spain, in her provinces, is perhaps
not so well obeyed as you are in yours. She complies, too; she submits; she'watches times. This is
the immutable condition, the eternal law, of extensive
and detached empire.
Then, Sir, from-. these six capital sources, of descent, of form of government, of religion in the
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION: WITH AMERICA. 127
northern provinces, of -manners in the southern, of
education, of the remoteness of situation from the
first mover of government, -from all these causes a
fierce spirit of liberty. has grown up. It has grown
with the growth of the people in your colonies, and
increased with the increase of their wealth: a spirit,
that, unhappily meeting with'an exercise of power in
England, which, however lawful, is not reconcilable
to any ideas of liberty, much less with theirs, has kindiled this flame that is ready to consume us. I do not mean to commend either the spirit in this
excess, or the moral causes which produce it. Perhaps a more smooth and accommodating spirit of freedom in them would be more acceptable to us.
Perhaps ideas of liberty might be desired more reconcilable with an arbitrary and boundless authority. Perhaps we might wish the colonists to be persuaded
that their liberty is more secure when held in trust
for them byus (as their guardians during a perpetnal minority) than with any part of it in their own hands. But the question is not, whether their spirit
deserves praise or blame, -- what, in the name of God,
shall we do with it? You have before you the object, such as it is, -- with all its glories, with all its imperfections on its head. You see the magnitude,
the importance, the temper, the habits, the disorders. By all these considerations we are strongly urged to determine something concerning it. We
are called upon to fix some rule and line for our future conduct, which may give a little stability to our politics, and prevent the return of such unhappy deliberations as the present. Every such return will bring the matter before us in'a still more untractable
form. For what astonishing and incredible things
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have we not seen already! What monsters have
not been generated from this unnatural contention!
Whilst every principle of authority and resistance
has been. pushed, upon both sides, as far as it would
go, there is nothing so solid and certain, either in
reasoning or in practice, that has not been shaken.
Until very lately, all authority in America seemed to
be nothing but an emanation from yours. Even the
popular part of the colony constitution derived all its
activity, and its first vital movement, from the pleasure of the crown. We thought, Sir, tlhat the utmost
which the discontented colonists could do was to disturb authority; we never dreamt they could of themselves supply it, knowing in general what an operose business it is to establish a government absolutely
new. But having, for our purposes in this contention, resolved that none but an obedient assembly should sit, the humors of the. people there, finding all
passage through the legal channel stopped, with great
violence broke out another way. Some provinces
have tried their experiment, as we have tried ours;
and theirs has succeeded. They have formed a government sufficient for its purposes, without the bustle of a revolution, or the troublesome formality of an election. Evidentnecessity and tacit consent have
done the business in an instant. So well they have
done it, that Lord Dunmore (the account is among
the fragments on your table) tells you that the new
institution is infinitely better obeyed than the ancient
government ever was in its most fortunate periods.
Obedience is what makes government, and not the
names by which it is called: not the name of Governor, as formerly; or Committee, as at present. This
new government has originated directly from the peo
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ple, and was not transmitted through any of the
ordinary artificial media of a positive constitution.
It was not a manufacture ready formed, and transmitted to them in that condition from England. The evil arising from hence is this: that the colonists
having once: found the possibility of enjoying the advantages of order in the midst of a struggle for liberty, such struggles will not henceforward seem so terrible to the settled and sober part of mankind as they had appeared before the trial.
Pursuing the same plan of punishing by the denial
of the exercise of government to still greater lengths,
-we wholly abrogated the ancient government of Massachusetts. We were confident that the first feeling,
if not the very prospect of anarchy, would instantly
enforce a complete submission. The' experiment was
tried. A new, strange, unexpected face of things appeared. Anarchy is found tolerable. A vast province has now subsisted, and subsisted in a considerable degree of health and vigor, for near a twelvemonth, without governor, without public council, without
judges, without executive magistrates. How long it
will continue in this state, or what may arise out of
this unheard-of situation, how can the wisest of us
conjecture? Our late experience has taught us that
many of those fundamental principles formerly believed infallible are either not of the importance they
were imagined to be, or that we have not at all adverted to some'other far more important and far
more powerful principles which entirely overrule
those we had considered as omnipotent. I am much
against any further experiments which tend to put
to the proof any more of these allowed opinions which
contribute:so much to the public tranquillity. In
VOL. II. 9
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effect; we suffer as much' at home by this loosening
of all ties, and this concussion of all established opinions, as we do abroad. 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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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~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?
has been said to be pursued to a fault. It may be so;
but we know, if feeling is evidence, that our fault was
more tolerable than our attempt to mend it, and our
sin far more salutary than our penitence.
These, Sir, are my reasons for not entertaining that
high opinion of untried force by which many gentlemen, for whose sentiments in other particulars I have great respect, seem to be so greatly captivated. But
there is still behind a third consideration concerning
this object, which serves to determine my opinion on
the sort of policy which ought to be pursued in the
management of America, even more than its popula
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tion and its commerce: I mean its temper and character.
In this character of the Americans a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and
distinguishes the whole: and as an ardent is always
a jealous affection, your colonies become suspicious,
restive, and untractable, whenever they see the least
attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from
them by chicane, what they think the only advantage
worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is
stronger in the English colonies, probably, than in any
other people of the earth, and this from a great variety of powerful causes; which, to understand the
true temper of their minds, and the direction which
this spirit takes, it will not be amiss to lay open somewhat more largely.
First, the people of the colonies are descendants of
Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which still, I
hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The
colonists emigrated from you when this part of your
character was most predominant; and they took this
bias and direction the moment they parted from your
hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas and on
English principles. Abstract liberty, like other mere
abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in
some sensible object; and every nation has formed to
itself some favorite point, which by way of eminence
becomes the criterion of their happiness. It happened, you know, Sir, that the great contests for free. dom in this country were from the earliest times chiefly upon the question of taxing. Most of the contests in the ancient commonwealths turned primarily
on the right of election of magistrates, or on the bal
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ance among the several orders of the state. The question of money was not with them so immediate. But in England it was otherwise. On this point of taxes the ablest pens and most eloquent tongues have been exercised, the greatest spirits have acted and suffered. In order to give the fullest satisfaction concerning the importance of this point, it was not only necessary for those who in argument defended the excellence of the! English Constitution to insist on this privilege'of granting money as a dry point of fact, and to prove that the right had been'acknowledged
in ancient parchments' and blind usages to reside in a'certain body called an House of Commons: they went much further: they attempted to prove, and they succeeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from the particular nature of a House of Commons, as an immediate representative of the people, whether the old records had delivered this oracle or not. They took infinite pains to inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that in all monarchies the people must in effect themselves, mediately or immediately, possess the power of granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty could subsist. The colonies draw from you, as with their life-blood, these ideas and principles. Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and attached on this specific' point of taxing. Liberty might be
safe or might be endangered in twenty other particu.
lars without their being much pleased or alarmed.
Here they felt its pulse; and as they found that beat?
they thought themselves sick or sound. I do not say
whether they were right or wrong in applying your
general arguments to their - own case. It is not easy,
indeed;-to make a moniopoly of theorems and corollaries. : The fact is, that they. did thus apply those gen
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eral arguments; and your mode of governing them,
whether through lenity or indolence, through wisdom
or mistake, confirmed them in the imagination, that
they, as well as you, had an interest in these common
principles.
They were further confirmed in this pleasing error
by the form of their provincial legislative assemblies.
Their governments are popular in an high degree:
some are merely popular; in all, the popular representative is the most weighty; and this share of the people in their ordinary government never fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, and with a strong aversion from whatever tends to deprive them of their
chief importance.
If anything were wanting to this necessary operation of the form of government, religion would have given it a complete effect. Religion, always a principle of energy, in this new people is no way worn out or impaired; and their mode of professing it is also
one main cause of this free spirit. The people are
Protestants, and of that kind which is the most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. This is a persuasion not only favorable to liberty, but
built upon it. I do not think, Sir, that the reason of
this averseness in the dissenting churches from all
that looks'like absolute government is so much to be
sought in their religious tenets as ini their history.
Every one knows that the Roman Catholic religion is
at least coeval with most of the governments where it
prevails, that it has generally gone hand in hand
with them, and received great favor and every kind
of support from authority. The Church of England,
too, was formed from her cradle under the nursing
care of regular government. But the dissenting in
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terests have sprung up in direct opposition to all the
ordinary powers of the world, arid could justify that
opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty.
Their very existence depended on the powerful and
unremitted assertion of that claim. All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance:
it is the dissidence of dissent, alid the protestantism
of the Protestant religion. This religion, under a
variety of denominations agreeing in nothing but in
the communion of the spirit of liberty, is predominant in most of the northern provinces, where the
Church of England, notwithstanding its legal rights,
is in reality no more than a sort of private sect, not
composing, most probably, the tenth of the people.
The colonists left England when this spirit was high,
and in the emigrants was the highest of all; and even
that stream of foreigners which has been constantly
flowing into these colonies has, for the greatest part,
been composed of dissenters from the establishments
of their several countries, and have brought with them
a temper and character far from alien to that of the
people with whom they mixed.
Sir, I can perceive, by their manner, that some
gentlemen object to the latitude of this description,
because in the southern colonies the Church of England forms a large body, and has a regular establishment. It is certainly true. There is, however, a circumstance attending these colonies, which, in my
opinion, fully counterbalances this difference, and
makes the spirit of liberty still more high and haughty than in those to the northward. It is, that in Virginia and the Carolinas they have a vast multitude of
? ? ? ? 124 SPEECHI ON CONCILIATION WITH:AMERICA.
slaves. Where this is the case in any part of the
world, those who are'free are by far the most proud
and jealous of their freedom. Freedom is to them
not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank and privilege. -Not seeing there, that freedom, as in countries where it is a common blessing, and as broad and general as the air, may be united with much abject toil, with great misery, with all the exterior of servitude,
liberty looks, amongst them, like something that is
more noble and liberal. I do not mean, Sir, to commend the superior morality of this sentiment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in it; but I cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is so; and these people of the southern colonies are much more
strongly, and with an higher and more stubborn spir
it, attached to liberty, than those to the northward.
Such were all the ancient commonwealths; such were
ouir Gothic ancestors; such in our days were the
Poles; and such will be all masters of slaves, who
are'not slaves themselves. In such a people, the
haughtiness of domination combines with the spirit
-of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible.
Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our.
colonies, which contributes no mean part towards the
growth and effect of this untractable spirit: I mean
their education. In no- country, perhaps, in the world
is the law so general a study. The profession itself
is numeirous and powerful, and in most provinces it
takes the lead. The greater number of the deputies
sent to the Congress were lawyers. But all who read,
and most do read, endeavor to obtain some smattering
in that science. I. have been told by an eminent
bookseller, that in no bralch of his business, after
tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as
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those on the law exported to the plantations. The
colonists have now fallen into the way of printing
them for their own use. I liear that they have sold
nearly as many of Blackstone's " Commentaries " in
America as in England. General Gage marks out
this disposition very particularly in a letter on your
table, He states, that all the people in his government are lawyers, or smatterers in law,- and that in Boston they have been enabled, by successful- chicane,
wholly to evade many parts of one of your capital pe
nal constitutions. The smartness of debate will say,
that this knowledge ought to teach them more clearly
the rights of legislature, their obligations to obedience,
and the penalties of rebellion. All this is mighty well.
But my honorable and learned friend,* on the floor,
who condescends to mark what I say for animadversion, will disdain that iground. He has heard, as well as I, that, when great honors and great emoluments do not win over this knowledge to the service of the state, it is a formidable adversary to government. If the spirit be not tamed and broken by these happy methods, it is stubborn and litigious. Abeunt
studia in mores. This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of resources. In other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the.
pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance, and
snuff the approach of tyranny iin evei y tainted breeze.
The last cause of this disobedient! pirit in the colouies. i, hardly less powerful than th( rest, as it is not * The Attorney-General.
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merely moral, but laid deep in the natural constitu.
tion of things. Three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. 'No contrivance can prevent
the effect of this distance in weakening government.
Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and the
execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of
a single point is enough to defeat an whole system.
You have, indeed, winged ministers of vengeance,
who carry your bolts'in their pounces to the remotest
verge of the sea: but there a power steps in, that
limits the arrogance of raging passions and furious
elements, and says, "So far shalt thou go, and no
farther. " Who are you, that should fret' and rage,
and bite the chains of Nature? Nothing worse happens to you than does to all nations who have extensive empire; and it happens in all the forms into which empire can be thrown. In large bodies, the circulation of power. must be less vigorous at the extremities. Nature has said it. The Turk cannot govern
Egypt, and Arabia, and Kurdistan, as he governs
Thrace; nor has he the same dominion in Crimea
and Algiers which he has at Brusa and Smyrna.
Despotism itself, is obliged to truck and huckster.
The Sultan gets such obedience as he can. He gov
erns with a loose rein, that he may govern at all;
and the whole of the force and vigor of his authority
in his centre is derived from a prudent relaxation in
all his borders. Spain, in her provinces, is perhaps
not so well obeyed as you are in yours. She complies, too; she submits; she'watches times. This is
the immutable condition, the eternal law, of extensive
and detached empire.
Then, Sir, from-. these six capital sources, of descent, of form of government, of religion in the
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northern provinces, of -manners in the southern, of
education, of the remoteness of situation from the
first mover of government, -from all these causes a
fierce spirit of liberty. has grown up. It has grown
with the growth of the people in your colonies, and
increased with the increase of their wealth: a spirit,
that, unhappily meeting with'an exercise of power in
England, which, however lawful, is not reconcilable
to any ideas of liberty, much less with theirs, has kindiled this flame that is ready to consume us. I do not mean to commend either the spirit in this
excess, or the moral causes which produce it. Perhaps a more smooth and accommodating spirit of freedom in them would be more acceptable to us.
Perhaps ideas of liberty might be desired more reconcilable with an arbitrary and boundless authority. Perhaps we might wish the colonists to be persuaded
that their liberty is more secure when held in trust
for them byus (as their guardians during a perpetnal minority) than with any part of it in their own hands. But the question is not, whether their spirit
deserves praise or blame, -- what, in the name of God,
shall we do with it? You have before you the object, such as it is, -- with all its glories, with all its imperfections on its head. You see the magnitude,
the importance, the temper, the habits, the disorders. By all these considerations we are strongly urged to determine something concerning it. We
are called upon to fix some rule and line for our future conduct, which may give a little stability to our politics, and prevent the return of such unhappy deliberations as the present. Every such return will bring the matter before us in'a still more untractable
form. For what astonishing and incredible things
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have we not seen already! What monsters have
not been generated from this unnatural contention!
Whilst every principle of authority and resistance
has been. pushed, upon both sides, as far as it would
go, there is nothing so solid and certain, either in
reasoning or in practice, that has not been shaken.
Until very lately, all authority in America seemed to
be nothing but an emanation from yours. Even the
popular part of the colony constitution derived all its
activity, and its first vital movement, from the pleasure of the crown. We thought, Sir, tlhat the utmost
which the discontented colonists could do was to disturb authority; we never dreamt they could of themselves supply it, knowing in general what an operose business it is to establish a government absolutely
new. But having, for our purposes in this contention, resolved that none but an obedient assembly should sit, the humors of the. people there, finding all
passage through the legal channel stopped, with great
violence broke out another way. Some provinces
have tried their experiment, as we have tried ours;
and theirs has succeeded. They have formed a government sufficient for its purposes, without the bustle of a revolution, or the troublesome formality of an election. Evidentnecessity and tacit consent have
done the business in an instant. So well they have
done it, that Lord Dunmore (the account is among
the fragments on your table) tells you that the new
institution is infinitely better obeyed than the ancient
government ever was in its most fortunate periods.
Obedience is what makes government, and not the
names by which it is called: not the name of Governor, as formerly; or Committee, as at present. This
new government has originated directly from the peo
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ple, and was not transmitted through any of the
ordinary artificial media of a positive constitution.
It was not a manufacture ready formed, and transmitted to them in that condition from England. The evil arising from hence is this: that the colonists
having once: found the possibility of enjoying the advantages of order in the midst of a struggle for liberty, such struggles will not henceforward seem so terrible to the settled and sober part of mankind as they had appeared before the trial.
Pursuing the same plan of punishing by the denial
of the exercise of government to still greater lengths,
-we wholly abrogated the ancient government of Massachusetts. We were confident that the first feeling,
if not the very prospect of anarchy, would instantly
enforce a complete submission. The' experiment was
tried. A new, strange, unexpected face of things appeared. Anarchy is found tolerable. A vast province has now subsisted, and subsisted in a considerable degree of health and vigor, for near a twelvemonth, without governor, without public council, without
judges, without executive magistrates. How long it
will continue in this state, or what may arise out of
this unheard-of situation, how can the wisest of us
conjecture? Our late experience has taught us that
many of those fundamental principles formerly believed infallible are either not of the importance they
were imagined to be, or that we have not at all adverted to some'other far more important and far
more powerful principles which entirely overrule
those we had considered as omnipotent. I am much
against any further experiments which tend to put
to the proof any more of these allowed opinions which
contribute:so much to the public tranquillity. In
VOL. II. 9
? ? ? ? 130 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
effect; we suffer as much' at home by this loosening
of all ties, and this concussion of all established opinions, as we do abroad. 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
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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
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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
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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?
