USA > Maryland > An historical view of the government of Maryland : from its colonization to the present day > Part 34
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There was no colony of English America, in which the claim of the inhabitants, to exemption from all taxation not sanctioned Sentiments the people of by their assent, was more familiar than in Maryland. Maryland as to It was one of the fundamental principles of their the right of tax-
ation. proprietary government, incorporated with it by law in its very infancy ; (1) and it was constantly extended by its Assembly, even to every act of the proprietary administration, the indirect consequence of which was taxation. The vigilance with which its Assemblies guarded this right, and their constant assertion of it against every thing which even indirectly tended to its infringement, gave to it the character of an indisputable privilege. The terms of their charter, to which we have already adverted, in declaring them entitled to all the liberties of English subjects, and exempting their persons and property, by express corenant of the crown, from all taxations or impositions of any
(1) Act of 1650, chap. 25 ; and supra, 160.
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description under its authority, were held by them to be effectual bars to the taxation of England. (2) The encroachments upon this exemption, by the trade acts, were very reluctantly submitted to; and their acquiescence in them, was owing to the circum- stances of the times, and not to their relinquishment of the ex- emption. Still these were not purely and properly acts of taxa- tion. They had, at least, for their cover, the regulation of com- merce; and they were not pressed to such an extent, as to indi- cate, that their sole object was revenue. The sentiments of the people of Maryland, at that very period, are fully exposed, in a letter written by Mr. Nicholson, then governor of Maryland, in August, 169S, to the Council of Trade in England. "I have observed, (says he,) that a great many people, in all these pro- vinces and colonies, especially in those under proprietarics ; and the two others, under Connecticut and Rhode Island, think that no law of England ought to be in force and binding upon them without their consent; for they foolishly say, they have no re- presentatives sent from themselves to the parliament of England; and they look upon all laws made in England, that put any re- straint upon them, as great hardships." (3) During the con- tinuance of the royal government their old institutions were still preserved; and the levies, which the crown asked, were still ob- tained through their Assemblies only. The restoration of the pro- prietary removed them further from the operations of the crown; and the experience of every year, made their claim to exemption more familiar and unquestionable. The very exercise of powers adverse to it, was so antiquated as to have become a novelty. (1)
(2) Supra, 163.
(3) Chalmers, 442, note 56.
(4) It may be true, as is remarked by Judge Marshall, " that the degree of authority, which might be rightfully exercised by the mother country over her colonies, had not been accurately defined before the passage of the stamp act." It may also be true, that the power of parliament had been previously exercised over them, by statutes, introducing regulations of a purely internal character ; and that the distinction, denying to parliament the powers of internal regulation, was not sustained by precedent. Yet it is most certain, that the right now claimed for it, of imposing an internal tax upon the colonics for the mere purpose of revenue, was entirely novel and unprecedented. Mr. Burke has prescuted the proper character of the previous exercises of . the parliamentary power, relied upon as analogous to that attempted by
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'The experiment of parliamentary taxation, which the English government were now about to make, had the usual fig-leaf of Pretexts for the arbitrary power, to conceal its harshness. The ex- Stamp tax. penditures of the late war had added largely to the already overgrown national debt. That war had been prosecut- ed for the protection of the colonies, and had terminated in great advantage to them. They were populous, prosperous, and wealthy, and could well afford to sustain. a portion of the public burdens imposed for their benefit. To hold them exempt from
the stamp act. After passing in review, the tenor and objects of the various statutes relative to the commerce of the colonies, he justly remarks : " This is certainly true, that no act avowedly for the purpose of revenue, and with the ordinary title and recital taken together, is found in the statute book, until the year 1761. All before this period stood on commercial regu- lation and restraint, The scheme of a colony revenue by the British autho- rity appeared, therefore, to the Americans in the light of a great innovation." Speech on American taxation, Ist Burke's Works, 454. The argument from precedent, is also very happily answered by Mr. Dulany, in his celebrated pamphlet against the stamp act, in which he clearly demonstrates, that the statutes relative to the commerce of the colonies, the statute 9th Anne, esta- blishing a general post office ; the statute 5th, George 2d, making lands liable for the payment of debts; and the mutiny act, during the French war, all rested upon, and were justified by considerations very different from those, by which the stamp act was sustained. Dulany's Considerations, &c. 34 to 40.
Exemption from the taxation of England, for the mere purpose of revenue and not sanctioned by their assent, was therefore a familiar principle in the colonies. It had not as yet been directly violated; and it would therefore seem an idle task, to wade through the colonial records, for explicit denials of a right which had not yet been claimed and exercised. The respective colonial legislatures, were not only the depositaries of the taxing power, under the colonial governments generally, but also the instruments, by which alone, the mother government had ever directly obtained colonial revenue for any of its purposes. The crown had always appealed to them, for the grant of such revenue ; and although its requisitions were frequently disregarded, it had never ventured upon another mode, but continued to weary the refractory Assemblies with its remonstrances and commands. However they might have dilered about the obligations of the Assemblies, to obey implicitly the requisttions of the crown, yet the course, both of the crown and of the Assemblies, seems to have proceeded always upon the notion, that the right of internal taxation resided exclusively with the latter. At least, it planted the conviction of this right in the breasts of the colonists ; and left them without the apprehension, that it was to be attacked. Being thus a constantly exer-
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taxation, was to impair the sovereignty of England, by placing it at the mercy of her colonies. Such was the general tenor of the arguments which paved the way to the design; and they carried with them appeals to the pride and interest of the English nation, admirably calculated to enlist its concurrence.
The mode of making the experiment adopted by the ministry, manifested much sagacity. The associations, which the very
cised and acknowledged power, we would not expect frequent explicit avowals of it to demonstrate its existence, nor rely upon theso as the first indications of the belief of its existence. Yet Judge Marshall has referred to acts of the legis- jature of Massachusetts and New York, passed between 1622 and 1700, as if they were novel assertions of this exclusive right. 2d Marshall's Life of Washington, 71. And Mr. Burke, in his History of Virginia, produces some much earlier recognitions of it in that colony, as if to give the latter prece- dence in this generous rivalry. The fact is, however, that the colonists generally, had brought the idea of the right with them, as a consecrated prin- ciple of English liberty ; had incorporated it with their institutions ; and had generally enjoyed it without interruption from the crown ; and these very avowals of it, instead of being discoveries of political truths, were mere- ly assertions of what were deemed established principles. Hence, in one of the very instances cited by Mr. Burke, which is contained in the representa- tions of the agents of Virginia to the crown, in 1676, whilst the agents assert the right of that colony to be exempt from taxation not sanctioned by their assent, they rely upon it as a then generally acknowledged colonial right. " They state, that neither his majesty, nor any of his ancestors or predeces- sors, have ever offered to impose any tax upon this plantation, without the consent of his subjects there ; nor upon any other plantation, however so much less deserving, or considerable to his crown. New England, Maryland, Barbadoes, &c. are not taxed, but by their own consent." 3d Burke's Virginia, 283.
There is then but little room for rivalry, in contending for the honor of originating or sustaining this principle ; but if there were, there is no colony to which Maryland would yield the palm. The taxation of the crown was excluded, both by the express words of her charter, and the uninterrupted practice of the colony, from the very period of colonization. The taxing power, as granted by the charter, couldbe exercised " only by the advice and assent of the freemen, or a majority of them ;" and that every possible secu- rity might be thrown around this right, it was expressly declared by the law of the province, in 1650, " That no subsidies, aids, customs, taxes, or impo- sitions, shall be laid, assessed, levied, or imposed, upon the freemen of the province, or their merchandise, goods, or chattels, without the consent of the freemen, their deputies, or a majority of them, first had and declared in a General Assembly of the province."
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mention of the stamp tax at this day brings to our Policy in the manner of its minds, have rendered its name as odious as that of Imposition. the excise. Yet it derives this, its odious charac- ter, not from the manner of its operation, but from the oppres- sive designs which it covered. It is identified, in our history, with the first deliberate effort of the English parliament to pros- trate the colonial liberties ; and it is detested, as the first weapon of its tyranny. Yet the tax itself operated indirectly ; and was stripped of all that machinery of collection, which oppresses more than the tax itself. It was a well gilded pill ; but the colo- nists, struggling against the principle, were not to be conciliated by the mode. It was proposed, too, with a degree of caution in- dicating that the English ministry, infatuated as they were, had yet wit enough to see some hazard in the experiment. The minds of the colonists were first to be prepared, and the first burst of indignant opposition suffered to pass by, before the tax was actually imposed. With a view to this, Lord Grenville, under whose ministry the plan was matured, assembled the agents of the colonies, in the winter of 1763-64, and announced to them his intention to propose, at the next session of parlia- ment, a duty on stamps, for the purpose of raising a 'revenue from the colonies. He informed them, that his object in appris- ing them of his intentions at that early period was, to enable them to suggest any other duty, as a substitute, which might be deemed more agreeable ; and he desired, that they would consult the wishes of their respective governments upon that subject. (5)
The session arrived ; and the ministry, not ready for the onset, were content with the passage of a resolution, declaring, "That it might be proper to charge certain stamp duties Preliminary
in the colonies;" and having put forward this, as a IHCamures of the minis- ury. feeler for the sentiments of the colonies, the fur- ther consideration of the subject was postponed, at their own in- stance, until the next session of parliament. Professing the utmost
(5) Ist Franklin's Works, 204 ; 1st Gordon's America, 111; Ist Bissett's Reign of George 3d, 990. Mr. Grenville merely offered them the privilege of finding a substitute, as an object of parliamentary taxation ; and not the privilege of taxing themselves, to raise the sum required. Mr. Burke ex- plains the true nature of the offer, in his celebrated speech on American taxation .- 1st Burke's Works, 462.
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desire to consult the convenience and good will of the colonies, they styled this postponement "an act of complaisance to them, which was intended to give them an opportunity to provide some substitute equally as productive." They did not, however, suffer this session to pass by, without a prelude to their final purposes. An act was now passed, continuing the duties on certain im- ports into the colonies; from the harshness of whose protecting penalties, and the arbitrary prosecutions sanctioned for their re- covery, the system of restrictions upon the commerce of the co- lonics derived new features of oppression. (6) At the same pe- riod, they transmitted instructions to the colonial officers, direct- ing the most rigorous enforcement of the trade laws, to the en- tire destruction of' a lucrative commerce between the English and the French and Spanish colonies, which had grown up by connivance. The colonists had hitherto drawn a discrimination, between the right to regulate their commerce, which they had conceded to parliament, and the right of mere internal taxation, which they denied; but the course of the English ministry at this period, in imparting to the restrictive system every charac- teristic of tyranny, was well calculated to destroy the distinction, and to induce the people to retract even their concession of the legality of the former.
In reviewing the conduct of that ministry, we are almost inclined to believe that they acted upon the maxim " that the accumulation
Influence of of oppression diminishes both the will and the these measures upon the colo- power to resist." Such might have been its effect, nics. upon a people already prepared for their chains, whose craven spirit was willing to avert present suffering, by the surrender of their liberties. It was aimed at a people of a very different cast ; and it fell upon them only to rouse all their ener- gies against the oppressor. It left them no middle course, be- tween unqualified submission, and firm and sturdy opposition. The bare intimation, that the designs already accomplished were to be followed up by a stamp tax, uproused the people of every
(6) See the preamble of this act in Ist Pitkin's U. States, 163. It rests the enactments upon the avowed reason " that it was just and necessary, that a revenue be raised in America for defraying the expenses of defending, pro- tecting, and securing the same."
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colony. Assemblies remonstrated, public meetings denounced. and agents petitioned; but still to no purpose. The measure was resolved upon ; and on the 22d March, 1765, the stamp tax was finally imposed. The interval between the annunciation of the intention to impose it, and its final imposition, had produced an effect very different from that intended or expected by the ministry. Instead of eliciting substitutes, or propositions for a compromise, or wearing away the force of the first burst of in- dignation, it had only given the people of the colonies time to rally for the opposition, and to concert means for the defence. The subject had been fully discussed amongst them in all its va- rious bearings. The resolutions and treatises, which exhibited these, had been borne to every corner of the colonies. The knowledge of his right, and of the free principles by which they were sustained, was brought home to every man's understanding. The passive were roused ; the timid were encouraged ; and the bold and adventurous caught fresh hopes and ardor from the unanimity around them. The opposition to the mere proposi- tion of the tax, led naturally to the consideration of the means by which it was to be frustrated, in the event of its actual im- position. Hence, when the act came, it found them with their lamps trimmed, and ready to go forth to meet it.
In investigating the history of this act, much talent has been employed, and much time and research have been expended, in determining to which of the colonies belongs the high honor of having given the first impulse to colonial resistance. Relative merits of the colonies In originating the resistance to the stamp act. If such honor attaches peculiarly to any one of the colonies, the effort to establish its claims is worthy of all research. To have been the advance guard of liberty, in the first great effort which opened the way to the establishment of the first republic upon earth, is enough for immortality ; and generous rivalry will accord it, where it is due. Yet it may well be questioned, whether such merit can be pro- perly ascribed to any man or any colony. Such pretensions must assume, as the foundation of the claim, the origination either of the principles of opposition, or of the determination to resist, or of the means of resistance. If the carly movements in some of the colonies, in opposition to this act, were but the outbreakings of a common fecling and a common sentiment,
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pervading the whole, and waiting every where but for opportu- nities of manifesting themselves; instead of being impulses to public sentiment, they were but the results of it. If these move- ments were early, merely because accidental circumstances gave to the colony, in which they were made, the first opportunity of venting that common feeling, they were but the first conductors of already concentrated public indignation. Such was the caso in these colonies. The punctared veins only gave out the blood that pervaded the whole system. The tyrant, who wishes to strike the blow in security, should not apprise the victim of its coming; unless he intends it for the passive slave. When the act is resolved upon, to alarm is folly. Yet such was the imbe- cile policy of the English ministry, and the colonies improved well the interval between the annunciation and the blow. Speech- es, resolves, addresses, essays, had brought the public mind to contemplate all the consequences of the proposed measure; and the spirit of resistance was already up, in the formidable shape of combinations. However suppressed that spirit might seem, and ready to submit, when there remained no alternative but open rebellion against the act, the "master spirits" in the colo- nies knew full well, that its rest was but the couching of the lion, and its silence the portentous silence that precedes the storm. Such were Henry of Virginia, and Otis of Massachusetts, in the two great colonies ; whose movements against the stamp act, stand first in order and importance upon the page of history. They touched the chord of public feeling, already tremblingly alive; and they knew its response. Their colonies went in ad- vance of the others, in the expression of these sentiments, through their Assemblies ; but by the carly convention of the lat- ter, after the passage of the act, accident cast upon them the first opportunity of taking the lead in opposition to it. They sounded the first notes of defiance ; but these were soon echoed back by colonies, as ready, energetic, and determined in resis- tance, as they.
It is not our purpose, nor our wish, to say aught in derogation of the high claims of those patriotic colonies, to be cherished in our remembrance as the foremost champions of colonial liberty. The course of Their honor is reflected upon us; and the virtues, Maryland.
and noble bearing of their distinguished sons, adorn
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our common history. To have been found firm and faithful by their side "is enough for honor." Yet in the histories of the colonial transactions connected with the stamp act, the course of Maryland seems to have been but little known or understood; and she has been thrown into the rear of the other colonies, as if she had been, by them, stimulated to, and led on, in opposition. Yet her transactions prove, that she wanted no teacher, either to - instruct in her rights, or to prompt them to preserve them; and they exhibit a character and unanimity of opposition, that is with- out a parallel in the history of any colony.
Circumstances of the moment, over which she had no control, prevented this colony from expressing, through her Assembly, her opposition to this measure, not only before the act passed, Causes which but also for a long period after its passage. The pow- of er to convene the Assembly resided wholly with the prevented action
her Awembly. governor ; and upon the prorogation of it, in Novem- ber, 1763, its session was postponed, by repeated prorogations, until September, 1765. The Assembly was thus disabled from de- claring its decided hostility to the measure, at an earlier period ; but its eagerness in the common cause, is displayed not only by the spirited and unanimous declaration then made, but still more forcibly, by its remonstrance to the governor, for his delay in con- vening it at a period, when its members were desirous to unite with their brethren in the other colonies, in the protection of their common liberties. Their message is the best commentary upon the subject. "We are truly concerned (say they in this message, 13th December, 1765,) that the duty we owe to our constituents, lays us under the indispensable necessity of observ- ing, that every power lodged in the hands of government is there entrusted by the constitution, to be exercised for the common good. To this end hath your excellency, as supreme magistrate, the power of convening and proroguing ; which, we need not remark, according to the bill of rights, confirmed at the happy revolution, ought, for redress of all grievances, and for amend- ing, strengthening, and preserving of laws, to be held frequently. The unhappy prevalence of the small pox, from the month of March to that of September last, rendered a convention of Assembly within that time impracticable ; but we are ignorant of any reasons, that could occasion the long intervention from No-
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vember, 1763, to last March ; within which time, circumstances of a peculiar nature, required a meeting of Assembly, which was prevented by prorogation. It is incumbent on us, as the repre- sentatives of a free people, to remonstrate against that measure ; especially, as it prevailed at a time, so very critical to the rights of America; at a time, when the good people of this province ardently wished for an opportunity to express, by their represen- tatives in Assembly, their sense of a scheme, then entertained by the British House of Commons, of imposing stamp duties on the colonies ; and for want of which, their involuntary silence, on a subject so interesting and important, has been construed by a late political writer of Great Britain, as an acquiescence in that intended project." " We cannot help expressing our apprehen- sion, (they remark in conclusion) that if we should be now silent, at some future time, when it may be the unhappiness of this province to be under the government of a gentleman less favora- ble in his inclinations to the interest of America than yourself, the occasion, which has laid us under the disagreeable necessity of troubling your excellency with this assertion of our rights, might be made use of, as a precedent for promoting measures prejudi- cial to the rights and privileges of the good people of this pro- vince." (7) Previously to this, and at the first moment of their assemblage in September, 1765, they had passed resolves against the stamp act, and had deputed commissioners to the general Congress ; and this remonstrance is here adverted to, only for the purpose of attesting, that the same spirit, which characteri- sed their first Assembly proceedings after the passage of the stamp act, had prevailed in the colony, from the first moment the tax was proposed.
There were, however, other indications of public feeling, which: went in advance of all the Assembly transactions, to demon- Early and deci- strate the general detestation of the measure by sive indications the people of Maryland. They had amongst them of the sentiments of her people. that admirable reflector of public sentiment, an established and well regulated press, in the paper then conduct-
(7) This remonstrance was submitted by Thomas Ringgold, Esq., a dele- gato from Kent county ; who was also one of the commissioners from this colony to the Stamp Act Congress.
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ed by Mr. Jonas Green, of Annapolis, under the name of " The Maryland Gazette." It was established in the year 1715, and has ever since been conducted by his descendants, under that name. Venerable for its antiquity, in which, it is believed, it * outranks every existing paper in these United States, it is render- ed still more so by its devotion to the cause of liberty, from the very origin of our struggle for emancipation. Yet flourishing in . the hands of his descendant, and sustained by his worth, it has been, truly, "an evergreen." The influence of the press, even at this day, is known and felt by all, notwithstanding the many causes which have conspired to diminish it; and it may still, in some degree, be relied upon, for its indications of the prevailing temper and sentiments. There were, however, many circum- stances, peculiar to that day and the establishment of that paper, which would induce us to look to it, and to rely upon it, for the faithful delineation of the public feeling. It was the only paper of the province; it was the government paper; it had uniformly been conducted with a firmness and moderation, as far removed from the intemperance of passion, as the servility of submission ; and its columns were open to free and temperate discussion on all sides. Yet, whilst we find, at every step, continued evi- dences of the universal opposition to the stamp tax; we look in vain to it, as the only record of the times, for the slightest indi- cations of faltering on the part of any of the people of Mary- : land. The course of the paper itself was one of determined opposition. The intimation of the ministry's intention to tax the colonies, was first communicated in its number of 17th May, 1261; and from that period, the tenor of its publications con- tinually indicated its hostility to the measure. Its number of the 18th of April, 1765, announced the intention to suspend its publication, if the melancholy and alarming accounts, which had just been received, of the probable passage of the stamp act, should prove truc. (8) Its actual passage was communicated in
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