Алистер Смит - The Spoils of War - Greed, Power, and the Conflicts That Made Our Greatest Presidents

In addition to these constraints, the king decided to fundamentally alter the economic circumstances in his American colonies. He did so in large measure to get the colonists, especially the wealthiest among them, to pay their share in their own defense. He was, after all, presiding over a government that was nearly bankrupted by the French and Indian War and the larger and largely concurrent Seven Years’ War.

The colonies had variously begun issuing their own currency in 1690. Now, at the behest of George III, Parliament passed the Currency Act in 1764. The act stated simply and clearly enough the problem created as a consequence of the colonies’ undisciplined printing of money, reminiscent of modern-day debates over whether such issuance makes currency cheap. And it stated an equally simple and clear remedy. It is useful to quote the text of the act so that there is no confusion over Parliament’s stated intent:

WHEREAS great quantities of paper bills of credit have been created and issued in his Majesty’s colonies or plantations in America, by virtue of acts, orders, resolutions, or votes of assembly, making and declaring such bills of credit to be legal tender in payment of money: and whereas such bills of credit have greatly depreciated in their value, by means whereof debts have been discharged with a much less value than was contracted for . . . for remedy whereof . . . may [it] be enacted . . . by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, . . . no act, order, resolution, or vote of assembly, in any of his Majesty’s colonies or plantations in America, shall be made, for creating or issuing any paper bills, or bills of credit of any kind . . . and every clause or provision which shall hereafter be inserted in any act, order, resolution, or vote of assembly, contrary to this act, shall be null and void.

Parliament, with the king’s acquiescence, forbade the colonies from printing their own currency or using it to pay for pretty much anything. In doing so, Parliament was seeking to restrain runaway inflation—resulting from the excessive production of currency—so as to prevent the value of debts from being wiped out. To do otherwise would have damaged the English economy. Now, of course, this was a devastating economic blow to those who relied on bills of credit or other means of settling debts, public or private. Suddenly such colonists found their debts expensive rather than cheap; the price of goods and services much costlier as they had to pay with “real” money, meaning English money, which was in short supply; and the credit they had given others had become unrepayable.

Imagine how any of us would react today if we were told that by order of Congress and the president, all of our money was no longer legal tender. Imagine, instead, that we would have to pay for goods and services with some other currency of which we have little or none. Surely there would be outrage, with protests against the policy led by the richest among us whose wealth was being wiped out. Having failed to convert their now useless paper bills or bills of credit into real money, they would be faced with economic disaster. It is not hard to imagine that some among them would start to whisper about rebellion to overthrow the government.

The Currency Act had been in force but one year when the British government issued another economic affront to the (wealthiest) colonists: the Stamp Act of 1765. This act was the first direct tax levied by the Crown on the colonists. Although it was a broad tax that required every legal document, every piece of paper, even playing cards and dice to have a government stamp, the burden of the tax fell much more heavily on “men of wealth and standing in the community and some of the most influential people in society.”22 Once again, the wealthiest members of colonial society—large landowners and successful lawyers—found their personal economies imposed upon by the Crown. Now, the Crown had a perfectly sensible reason for issuing this tax. The French and Indian War had been fought to defend the English settlements in America from the threat of being overrun by the French with the help of Indian tribes whose own lands were put at the greatest risk by the spread of colonial ambitions. Defense was a heavy economic burden and Parliament saw fit to have the colonists share in that burden.

The colonists—again, the wealthy colonists at the forefront—did not take the tax lightly. Such men as George Washington, George Mason, and many others put together a plan to boycott British goods, much as Mahatma Gandhi was to do in another English colony nearly two hundred years later following the introduction, in that case, of a tax on salt. The colonial resistance proved effective. The tax was repealed one year later but its issuance was the occasion for some colonists, assembled in the Stamp Act Congress in 1765, to make clear their objections. Further, they made clear that, in their view, the only possible remedy to their objections was to remove any tax on them, regardless of the heavy financial burden suffered in England in defense of the colonies. The participants in the Stamp Act Congress were seemingly unconcerned that Britain’s defense of the colonies, as in the French and Indian War, may have been necessitated by the actions of the colonists themselves. They set out a set of detailed points of such import in understanding the origins of the American Revolution that we repeat them here. The Stamp Act Congress’s grievances were to reverberate over the next decade, leading to specific arguments in the Declaration of Independence and to war:

The members of this Congress, sincerely devoted, with the warmest sentiments of affection and duty to His Majesty’s Person and Government . . . and with minds deeply impressed by a sense of the present and impending misfortunes of the British colonies on this continent; having considered as maturely as time will permit the circumstances of the said colonies, esteem it our indispensable duty to make the following declarations of our humble opinion, respecting the most essential rights and liberties of the colonists, and of the grievances under which they labour, by reason of several late Acts of Parliament.

I.

That His Majesty’s subjects in these colonies, owe the same allegiance to the Crown of Great-Britain, that is owing from his subjects born within the realm, and all due subordination to that august body the Parliament of Great-Britain.

II.

That His Majesty’s liege subjects in these colonies, are entitled to all the inherent rights and liberties of his natural born subjects within the kingdom of Great-Britain.

III.

That it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people, and the undoubted right of Englishmen, that no taxes be imposed on them, but with their own consent, given personally, or by their representatives.

IV.

That the people of these colonies are not, and from their local circumstances cannot be, represented in the House of Commons in Great-Britain.

V.

That the only representatives of the people of these colonies, are persons chosen therein by themselves, and that no taxes ever have been, or can be constitutionally imposed on them, but by their respective legislatures.

VI.

That all supplies to the Crown, being free gifts of the people, it is unreasonable and inconsistent with the principles and spirit of the British Constitution, for the people of Great-Britain to grant to His Majesty the property of the colonists.

VII.

That trial by jury is the inherent and invaluable right of every British subject in these colonies.

VIII.

That the late Act of Parliament, entitled, An Act for granting and applying certain Stamp Duties, and other Duties, in the British colonies and plantations in America, etc., by imposing taxes on the inhabitants of these colonies, and the said Act, and several other Acts, by extending the jurisdiction of the courts of Admiralty beyond its ancient limits, have a manifest tendency to subvert the rights and liberties of the colonists.