USA > Maryland > An historical view of the government of Maryland : from its colonization to the present day > Part 39
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In Maryland, there had been previously several county associ- ations of this description ; but it was now deemed necessary, to Its adoption in give them a more imposing character and effective Maryland. operation. At the solicitation of many gentlemen of the different counties, a circular was therefore addressed, on the 9th of May, 1769, by Messrs. Dick and Stewart, M'Cubbin, Wallace, and W. Stewart, merchants of Annapolis, to the people of the several counties, inviting a general meeting of the merchants and others at that place, " for the purpose of consulting on the most effectual means of promoting frugality, and lessening the future importation of goods from Great Britain." The meeting was ac- cordingly held on the 20th June, 1769; and was very fully attended. A non-importation association was then established by that meet- , ing, for the whole province; which was similar, in its general character and objects, to those of the other colonies. It con- tained a general engagement, that the associators would not di- rectly nor indirectly import, nor be concerned in the importation of, any species of merchandise, which then was, or might there- after be, taxed by parliament, for the purpose of raising a reve- nue in America, except where orders for the import had already been given ; and that they would consider such taxation as an absolute prohibition of the article taxed : and also an agreement not to import a great variety of other enumerated articles, which were to be excluded as luxuries or superfluities. The association was formed upon the principle of excluding every thing not ac- tually necessary to subsistence, and of thus assailing vitally the whole commerce of England with the colonies. It forbade also the purchase of any of the prohibited articles, even if imported by others: and was sustained by a moral sanction, carrying with it, at that period, more efficacy than even the penalties of ordinary legislation. All persons contravening the objects of the association, were to be denounced as enemies
(6) Gordon, 163 and 168. Grecu's Gazette of 22d September, 1768, and 25th May, 1769.
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of the liberties of America, and to be held up to public view for reprobation and contempt: and to bring every person within it .. operation, twelve copies of it were printed for and transmitted to cach county for general signature. (7) This association was sustained in vigorous operation, by the same machinery employed to render efficient the similar associations of the other colonies. It was under the care of the whole body of associators, and the particular supervision of special committees, appointed by the associators of each county, and charged with the duty of inquir- ing into, and reporting the facts, of every case of actual or sus- pected violation of the agreement. During its existence, several of such cases arose in Maryland, from the proceedings connected with which we learn, that the association was for a long time kept up with great vigor and unanimity (S) Certain it is, that there was no colony, in which the objects of the system were adhered to with more faithfulness, or infractions of it hunted up and pursued with more rigor.
The association was scarcely adopted in Maryland, before the spirit, which had prompted a resort to it, began to flag in some of the other colonies : and in the course of the year 1769, va-
It& results. rious causes concurred yet further to abate it. In May of that year, a circular was addressed to the colonies, by Lord Hills- borough, still Secretary of State, which gave to them the assurance that the ministry had no design of proposing any further taxes upon America for the purpose of raising revenue : and that it was their intention, at the next session of parliament, to propose a repeal of the duties on glass, paper, and colors, because imposed con- trary to the truc principles of commerce. (9) The cupidity of some of the merchants seized upon this assurance, as a pretext for relaxing the restrictions upon importation. Evasions of them became more frequent: and jealousies soon sprang up amongst
(") Green's Gazette of 11th May, and 29th June, 1769, the last of which numbers publishes the articles of association at large.
(8) Green's Gazette of 28th Sept. and 28th Dec. 1769; 15th Feb. 1st of March, 19th and 26th of April, 3d, 24th, and 31st May, 12th, and 26th of July, and 24, 3th, and 23d August, 1770.
(9) See Mr. Burke's comments upon this circular, in his celebrated speech upon American taxation. Ist Burke's works, 445.
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the merchants of the principal cities, to excite the apprehension, that by their strict adherence to them, they were only throwing the profits of their trade into the hands of less scrupulous rivals.
Agreeably to the assurances of Hillsborough, and upon the motion of the ministry, the duties alluded to in the circular were
General acces- finally repealed on the 12th of April, 1770: but the.
sion from in duty upon tea was still retained, as a pepper-corn 1770. rent, (as another has justly remarked,) to denote the tenure by which the colonies held their rights. Before this repeal, several of the New York merchants had seized upon the promise of it, and the mutual distrusts of the cities as to the strict observance, of the system, to sanction a proposition to abandon the latter, so far as it prohibited the importation of articles not subject to duties imposed for re- venue. The proposition was resisted elsewhere, as an abandon- ment of the principles of the association: but it was, neverthe- less, finally adopted by a large body of the New York merchants, in July, 1770. The defection of the New Yorkers now concur- red with the repeal, to render impracticable the effectual main- tenance of the general system. Their secession was accompa- nied by the protest of many of their fellow citizens, and was followed by the severest reprehensions of the sister colonies: but it soon produced results fatal to the system. That unan- imity and cordiality, which had hitherto been its principal support, were now withdrawn : and the other cities found it ru- inous to adhere to an agreement, sustained to their prejudice only. The example of New York was followed, in September, by the partial secession of the merchants of Philadelphia : and the latter, by the general secession of the Bostonians in the en- suing month.
In Maryland, the defection of the New Yorkers was at first re- ceived with general indignation : and by many of the county asso- ciations, the seceders were denounced as enemies of their country, with whom they would no longer hold any correspondence. Yet who can fetter the spirit of which one has said, " Its leger is its bible, and its gold its god ?" The examples of other cities opened the door to escape : and the opportunity was first embraced at a
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meeting of several of the merchants of Baltimore, on the 5th .1 October, 1770. The resolves of that meeting solicited a general convention, for the purpose of determining upon the expediency of rescinding the association, so far as it related to articles not taxed, and avowed the determination to secede from it to that extent, if such convention were not held. Under these resolves, a ge- neral meeting was held at Annapolis, on the 25th of October, at which were present, the committees from several counties, a large majority of the representatives in Assembly, some mem- bers of the council, and many other persons from various parts ยก of the province. The sentiments of that meeting were entirely adverse to the proposition from Baltimore. They not only re- solved to adhere to the prohibitions of the original association, but they also denounced, in the harshest terms, the merchants of Bal- timore proposing the secession, and avowed their determination to hold no commerce with them, in the event of their with- drawal. (10) From the tenor of these resolves it seems manifest, that the general sentiment of the colony was in favor of adher- ence to the original restrictions of the system: but all hopes of sustaining these, were extinguished by the course of the Bosto- nians. The three great marts of America had now cast them off': and their further support in Maryland, was useless and impracticable. The records of that day do not inform us, at what period they were generally abandoned in this colony: but they furnish no evidence of any efforts to sustain them after they were abandoned in Massachusetts.
The controversy with the mother country thus mitigated, was now to be displaced by internal dissensions of a more engross- ing and exciting character. In their resistance to Proclamation and vestry act the impositions of parliament, the people of Mary- curettott.
land had hitherto been struggling for the preserva- tion of an abstract principle of liberty, in opposition to their im- mediate wants and interests. The quantum of these impositions had not even been considered: and they were too limited, both as to their direct objects and their amount, to have produced ac- tual distress by their mere operation. Their oppression con- sisted, not in the payment of the tax, but in the assertion and
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(10) Green's Gazette of HIth October and Ist November, 1770.
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Chap. VI.]
establishment of the parliamentary right of taxation.\ This was one of the remarkable features of that controversy, evincing, more than any other, the general prevalence of rational liberty, and the sagacity of the American people in guarding its out- posts. Men must be thoroughly imbued with principles, familiar with their operation, and endowed with intelligence to estimate the danger of remote encroachments upon them, before they will enter into a contest for them, prompted by no actual suffering. Other nations have risen, in the agony of distress, to shake off oppression : the American people stood erect and vigilant, to repel its approach. The internal administration of Maryland now brought up a controversy, in which its people were to renew their combat for the principle they had been sustaining against England, under circumstances bringing it nearer to their im- ! mediate interests. The advances upon their rights, now came in the shape of actual oppression, extending its operation to every citizen. This controversy related to what were fami- liarly called " the proclamation and the vestry act questions." From this period until the commencement of the revolution, all other subjects gave place to these engrossing topics. They elicited more feeling, and greater displays of talent and research, than any other question of internal polity, which had ever agitated the colony. The published discussions of them, which are pre- served to us, would fill volumes. They have long since lost their intrinsic interest : but their general nature and objects are still worthy of remembrance, not only as illustrative of the go- vernment and character of the people of Maryland at that day, but also for their connexion with the history of some of her most distinguished citizens, whose names yet live to shed a lustre upon the land that gave them birth. Without fatiguing the reader, by spreading before him the many legislative and other docu- ments, relative to the protracted controversy, which grew out of these questions, we shall confine our remarks to its general causes and results.
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It has already been remarked, that the General Assembly of Maryland always retained its control over the officers of the pro-
Circumstances vince, by its right to regulate their compensation for which gave rise to the Proclama- tion. official services : and that the fees of office were not only prescribed by law, but also determined by
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temporary acts of short duration, upon the expiration of which the Assembly could withhold or reduce them at pleasure. One of these acts, passed in the year 1763, had been continued, from time to time, until October, 1770: and came up again for renew- al at the session of September, 1770. The system of official com- pensation established by that act, was that which had prevailed in the colony from a very early period. There were no salaries : but the officers were allowed definite fees for each act of service. These fees, as well as the public dues and the taxes for the support of the established clergy, were sent out every year to the sheriff's of the counties for collection. A particular period in each year was assigned, within which the lists of fees were to be delivered to the sheriff, and by him to the party charged for vo- luntary payment. If that period was suffered to elapse, the sheriff' was required to levy them by process of execution, and to account for them to the officers within another assigned period. Such were the general features of this system of collection, which we shall have occasion to examine more particularly hereafter. To the details of the act of 1763, now coming up for re-enact- ment, many objections were made by the lower house : but so far as they related to the essential parts of the controversy about officers' fees alone, they consisted in the exorbitance of the fees attached to some of the principal offices, the abuses in the mode of charging, and the want of a proper system of commutation. The principal complaints about the exorbitance of the fees, re- lated to those of the provincial secretary, the commissary general, and the judges of the land office: and from the reports of that period, which enable us to ascertain the average annual receipts of those offices for several antecedent years, these complaints appear to have been justly founded. (11) The alleged abuses
(11) By many of our citizens, the fees and salaries of the state offices, at the present period, are considered excessive. Yet there is no office in the State, whose emoluments can be considered cqual to those of any one of the above mentioned offices, during the pendency of this controversy. The re- ceipts of the secretary's office, for the seven successive years, from 1763 to 1769 inclusive, were 1,562,862 lbs. of tobacco: and the average annual re- ceipts 223,266 lbs. of tobacco. The annual average value of his fees in the Chancery Court during the same period was 39,326 lbs. of tobacco. His annu- al receipts from these two sources was therefore 262,592 lbs. of tobacco; or,
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Chap. VI.]
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arose principally from a practice, not peculiar to that day, of di- viding one service into several other enumerated services, with a' view to the several fees. . The commutation privilege of the act of 1763, was objected to, as not sufficiently extensive. Tobacco was still the currency of the province. Officers' fees, and all public ducs, were rated in it : and the right to pay these in to- bacco, was, at first, considered a high privilege. To avoid the fluctuations in value, to which such a currency was necessarily subject, it obtained by law, a fixed specie value; and in cer- tain cases, the specie was made receivable, in lieu of it, at the rate so fixed. The right to pay in specie, the lower house now desired to extend to all persons within the period allowed for voluntary payment. Although several of the propositions, grow- ing out of these objections, were at first resisted by the upper house, it seems probable from the tenor of its messages, that it would ultimately have yielded to all but that to reduce the fees. Here, however, was a source of invincible disagreement between the two houses: and unfortunately for the opposition of the upper, it was conducted by those directly interested against the reduction. Daniel Dulany, the provincial secretary, Walter Dulany, the commissary general, and Benedict Calvert and George Steuart, the judges and registers of the land office, were all councillors, and of course members of the upper house. Their opposition was therefore regarded, as that of their own private interests to the general welfare : and all attempts at com- promise proved ineffectual. After much angry discussion, the Assembly was at length prorogued : and the province was left not only without any legal regulation of officers' fees, but also without any public system for the inspection of tobacco, with which the former had for many years been connected.
In this emergency, Governor Eden resolved upon the expedient of regulating the fees, under the prerogatives of his office; and accordingly issued his proclamation for that purpose, The Proclama- tion: its object on the 26th of November, 1770. Its avowed object and expedience.
was the prevention of abuses and extortion on the
according to the rate of commutation at that day, 4,376 dollars. The fers of the land office, during the same period, yielded 2,850,934 lbs. of tobacco, or annually, on an average, 407,276 lbs. or 6,876 dollars; and those of the commissary's office, annually, 235,428 lbs. of tobacco, or 3,923 dollars.
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part of the oficers: and to efect this professed purpose, it re-estab- lished the fee bill of 1763, and required the officers to receive their fees in money, at the rate of commutation fixed by it, if tendered at the time of service. The occasion was unfortunate : the mea- sure most unadvised. There never was a period in the history of Maryland, when her people would have fully acquiesced in such an exercise of power. It was not, however, entirely novel; but so far as the opinions and usage of the colony were to be con- sulted, the weight even of early precedent was decidedly against it ; and, in the general opinion, there was no charter power under which it could be sheltered. In the present instance, it defeated all the purposes of the lower house, by adopting the very system which they had refused to sanction. It was, therefore, in general estimation, a measure of arbitrary prerogative, usurping the very right of taxation which the colony had been so long defending against the usurpations of parliament. If the gover- uor had doubted about the reception of such a measure, there was enough to warn him, in some of the transactions of the Assembly, immediately before its adjournment. Whilst the fee bill was under discussion, and after the expiration of the law of 1763, the judges of the land office, treating that office as the private institution of the proprietary, instructed their clerk to charge and secure the fees agreeably to the provisions of the ex- pired law. A case, in which these instructions were pursued, was immediately brought to the notice of the lower house ; by whose order, the clerk was taken into custody and committed to prison. To effect his release, the governor prorogued the Assem- bly for a few days. This interference clicited from the lower house, upon its re-assemblage, an angry remonstrance, contain- ing an expression of public sentiment not to be misunderstood. "The proprietor (they remark,) has no right, either by himself, or with the advice of his council, to establish or regulate the fees of office ; and could we persuade ourselves, that you could possibly entertain a different opinion, we should be bold to tell your excellency, that the people of this province ever will oppose the usurpation of such right. "In venturing upon such a power, after such an admonition, the governor therefore sinned against light and knowledge ; and his measure shared the usual fate of
Chap. VI.]
TO THE REVOLUTION. 385
those which set at naught the opinions, and sport with the liber- ties of a free and intelligent people.
This carnest of opposition was soon redeemed. From the first appearance of the proclamation, it aroused, in hostility to Parties formed it, the great body of the people, with a spirit not to upon it. be seduced from resistance, by the influence of talents, the menaces of power, or the soothings of official pa- tronage. Never was a measure of internal polity more thorough- ly investigated and discussed. Parties were formed upon it, and drew to their aid every man of influence and abilities in the pro- vince. The arrangement of these parties may be deemed sin- gular; yet it was similar to that which generally prevailed, not only in this province, but also in the other colonies, whenever parties were formed upon questions of political liberty. The governor and his courtiers, the officers and their adherents, and the established clergy, were arrayed against the great body of the people, sustained and led on in opposition by the great body of the lawyers.
The fashion of the day is against the ascription, to the latter profession, of purposes and interests, compatible, and naturally Course of the associated with those of the people at large. Point- Lawyers of Ma-
ryland. ed at as a privileged order, for the pursuit of a profes- sion which generally rewards laborious talent with fame and for- tune; and as the hired advocates of right or wrong, because they stand by the landmarks of the law, to give certainty to justice, and to throw over every man its protection, which, falling like the rain from heaven upon the just and the unjust, if it sometimes shelter the guilty, is yet the security of the innocent : it is oft the humor of the times to involve them with the better sex in the common censure,-" there is no living with them, nor without them." Yet this profession is the natural ally of liberty. Its pursuits habituate the mind to respect for the authority of the law, in opposition to prerogative, whether it come in the form of judicial constructions, or in the dispensations of arbitrary power. They form habits of inquiry and research, favorable to the investigation of the principles of government. They inspire independence, and a firm adherence to opinions, by the very habit of opposition which they compel. By their constant re-
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quisitions upon the faculties of the mind, they "fit them for ornament, and whet for use." They throw their followers into frequent association with the people at large, acquaint them with their feelings and interests, and lead them to observe their pocu- liarities; and by being thus drawn near to them, if they become conversant with their vices, they also learn to respect their rights and feelings, and to estimate their virtues. Servility and venali- ty have sometimes prostituted the capacities of such a profession; but its abuses are no argument against its proper and natural use. In the experience of the colonies it was always found, that when this did occur, the cause of the people always drew to it, from the integrity and talents of that profession, an antidote more than sufficient to counteract its influence. These remarks are prompted by a sense of justice to a body of men, so distinguish- ed, at every period of our colonial history, for their firm and fearless support of the constitutional liberties of the people ; and if it be objected, that they spring from one identified with them by his pursuits, let it be remembered that if history awards the culogium, it matters not by whom it is pronounced. In the histories of other colonies, it has already been recorded : in that of this province, it lies prominent in every great controversy which agitated it. It has been seen, that in the long protracted differences with the proprietary about the extension of the English statutes, and in the more recent and dangerous opposi- tion to the stamp act, this class of citizens were active and effi- cient on the side of liberty. In the controversy of which we are now speaking, their agency was so remarkable, as to have brought down upon them and their profession, all the indigna- tion, invective, and raillery of the government party. In looking through the many anonymous publications of that day, on behalf of this party, we are struck with the virulence of their attacks upon the lawyers, to whose factious spirit, as they styled it, they ascribed the indignation of the people against the proclamation ; and with their constant endeavors, in a cant not peculiar to that day, to excite against them the jealousies of the people. In one of these publications, which is a fair specimen of the rest, the writer remarks, "Whence, in your legislative capacity, all this clamor about the officers and clergy, and not a word about the lawyers, a set of men more truly expensive and bur-
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densome to Maryland, than perhaps all the other orders of the community put together. Is not this, as a shrewd planter has remarked, to spare the blackbirds and kill the crows." (12) But all these efforts to sow the seeds of discord by such invidious re- flections, were Jost upon men, too sagacious to reject their adhe- rents upon the advice of their adversaries.
There were, however, on this occasion, two prominent excep- tions to their general course, which strikingly illustrate the feeble- Daniel Dulany, ness of fame and talents, when employed, either to the defender of the proclamation divert the public sentiment from what it deems the unquestionable rights of the citizen, or by the sanction of an im- posing name, to give a tone to the opinions of this profession. The name of Daniel Dulany is already familiar to the reader. It has been associated with recollections of our history, as honor- able to his country as to himself. By his able vindication of co- lonial liberties, "he had gathered golden opinions from all sorts of men ;" and with the most commanding abilities to retain the reputation he had acquired, he stood proudly pre-eminent in the province, at the commencement of this controversy, in all that gave rank and influence. Heretofore distinguished as the cham- pion of the colony against the tyranny of an irresponsible legis- lation ; in an evil hour he now became the defender of an exer- cise of prerogative, minor in its objects, but leading to the same mischievous results. He was, at this period, and had been for several preceding years, a member of the upper house, and the secretary of the province. The office of commissary-general was held by his relative. The reduction of the fees of these offices was one of the prominent objects of the lower house, in its recent difference with the upper; and in the discussions con- nected with that difference, Mr. Dulany was the prominent par- tisan of the upper house. His talents were supposed to con- trol every cause in which they were enlisted; and hence he was, by many, charged with having induced, by his persuasions, the issuing of the proclamation. This he always vehemently denied, with the most solemn assurances, that it was the unbiassed act of the governor, which had received the approbation of the whole council; and the proceedings of that period certainly manifest.
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