EDITOR'S PREFATORY NOTE.

THE origin of the Stamp Act can be best understood by a glance at the previous political relations of the colonies to the mother land.

England, "a shop-keeping nation," 1 gained her riches by the commercial monopoly under the "Navigation Acts," a system invented by Sir George Downing, the one whose name stands second on Harvard College catalogue. These acts were modified as the changes of commerce required, and the "Stamp Act," but one of the series, was intended to retain the old monopoly of American trade, which was greatly endangered by the conquest of Canada. This was its origin and motive.

The dispute resolved itself into this naked question, whether "the king in Parliament 2 had full power to bind the colonies and people of America in all cases whatsoever," or in none.

The colonists argued that, by the feudal system, the king, lord paramount of lands in America, as in England, as such, had disposed of them on certain conditions. James I., in 1621, informed Parliament that "America was not annexed to the realm, and that it was not fitting that Parliament should make laws for those countries;" and Charles I. told them "that the colonies were without the realm and jurisdiction of Parlia

1 This phrase is from a tract, 1766, by Tucker, Dean of Gloucester. At that date he advocated "a separation, parting with the colonies entirely, and then making leagues of friendship with them, as with so many independent states;" but, said he," it was too enlarged an idea for a mind wholly occupied within the narrow circle of trade," and a "stranger to the revolutions of states and empires, thoroughly to comprehend, much less to digest."

2 The answers of the Massachusetts Council, January 25th, and House of Representatives, January 26th, to Governor Hutchinson's speech, January 6th, 1775, are rich in historical illustrations of this point, presented with great force of reason, and are decisive.

ment." The colonists showed that the American charters were compacts between the king and his subjects who "transported themselves out of this kingdom of England into America," by which they owed allegiance to him personally as sovereign, but were to make their own laws and taxes: for instance, a revenue was raised in Virginia by a law "enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the consent of the General Assembly of the Colony of Virginia." They denied the authority of the legislature of Great Britain over them, but acknowledged his Majesty as a part of the several colonial legislatures.

But the colonies, while jealous of their internal self-control, had permitted the British Parliament to "regulate" their foreign trade, and, upon precedent, the latter now claimed authority to bind the colonies "in all cases whatsoever." Relying upon the royal compact in their charters, the spirit of the British constitution, and "their rights as Englishmen," the Americans denied the jurisdiction of their " brethren" in England.

"Nil Desperandum, Christo Duce," was the motto on the flag of New England in 1745, when her Puritan sons conquered Louisburg, the stronghold of Papal France in the New World, and thus gave peace to Europe. This enterprise, in its spirit, was little less a crusade than was that to redeem Palestine from the thraldom of the Mussulman, and the sepulchre of Jesus from the infidels. One of the chaplains carried upon his shoulder a hatchet to destroy the images in the Romish churches. "O," exclaimed a good old deacon, to Pepperell, "O that I could be with you and dear Parson Moody in that church, to destroy the images there set up, and hear the true gospel of our Lord and Saviour there preached! My wife, who is ill and confined to her bed, yet is so spirited in the affair . that she is very willing all her sons should

wait on you, though it is outwardly greatly to our damage. One of them has already enlisted, and I know not but there will be more."1 "Christo Duce!" The extinction of French dominion was quickly completed by the conquest of Canada in 1759-60, and at the same moment ceased the colonial need of the red-cross flag of St. George, whose nationality had been their protection against the aggressions of the French. The French being driven from Canada, New England could stand alone. This was the point "in the course of human events" when the sovereignty of England over the colonies was ended, though their formal "Declaration of American Independence," and of the dissolution of "the political

1 Life of Pepperell, by Usher Parsons, M. D. 3d ed., 1856, p. 52.

bands" with the mother country, was not issued till several years later. The conquest of Canada was the emancipation of the colonies, as the opponents of the war predicted. British parliaments, though backed by British guns, and all the canons of the English church, were powerless against "the laws of nature and nature's God;" and the Stamp Act was merely a touchstone for certain "self-evident truths"- not mere "sounding and glittering generalities”— enunciated on the Fourth of July, 1776. This attempt at despotism resulted in the alienation of the colonists from their brethren in England, the Union, the War of the Revolution, and the birth of a Nation. By it England lost her American dominion, won defeat and dishonor, and added to the national debt one hundred and four million pounds sterling, on which she is now paying interest, the work of George III. and his servile ministers, his " domestics," as they were called. But America saved not only her own liberty, but the liberty of England; the policy of George III. and his government, which the colonies defeated, if attempted at this day, would not only sever every colony, but overthrow the throne itself. In January, 1766, Mr. Pitt himself declared the American controversy to be a great common cause," and that 'America, if she fell, would fall like a strong man. She would embrace the pillars of the state, and pull down the constitution along with her." Hear Lord Camden, also: "I will say, not only as a statesman, politician, and philosopher, but as a common lawyer, you have no right to tax America. The natural rights of man and the immutable laws of nature are all with that people." And General Burgoyne declared in Parliament, in 1781, that he "was now convinced the principle of the American war was wrong, only one part of a system levelled against the constitution and the general rights of mankind." It was equally for the sake of England as of America that Mr. Pitt and the high-minded men of that day "rejoiced" in our resistance to tyranny. "Passive obedience" then became an obsolete gospel.

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One of the most efficient causes of the Revolution in the minds and hearts of the people — an accomplished fact before the war commenced was the controversy begun in 1763 by the Rev. Dr. Mayhew in his attack on the conduct of the "Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts." The most insidious scheme for reducing the colonies to slavery was that of this society, which was known to be only an association for propagating "lords spiritual" in America,1 who should inculcate, in the

1 Mr. Arthur Lee, of Virginia, wrote from London, Sept. 22, 1771: "The com

name of religion, the Church of England principles of "submission and obedience, clear, absolute, and without exception." Dr. Mayhew exposed this pious fraud. The Bishop of Landaff, in his sermon of 1766, before this society, ingenuously declared, that when Episcopacy should be established in America, “then this society will be brought to the happy issue intended"!

This excited general alarm. The hierarchy could be established only by Parliament; and if, they reasoned, Parliament can authorize bishops, tithes, ceremonies, and tests in America, they can tax us; and what can they not do? The question was, really, Does the British Parliament, three thousand miles off, in which we have neither voice nor vote, own us, three million people, souls and bodies? The people considered the matter, and gradually got ready to fight about it, seeing no more divine right" of parliaments than of kings, which last had been "unriddled" by Dr. Mayhew in 1750.

The plot was to annul the charters, reduce the popular assemblies to a manageable size, and increase the royal appointments; revise all the colonial acts, in order to set aside those which provided for the support of the ministers. "But, if the temper of the people makes it necessary, let a new bill for the purpose of supporting them pass the House, and the . Council refuse their concurrence; if that will be improper, then the governor to negative it. If that cannot be done in good policy, then the bill to go home," that is, to England, "and let the king disallow it. Let bishops be introduced, and provision be made for the support of the Episcopal clergy. Let the Congregational and Presbyterian clergy who will receive ordination be supported, and the leading ministers among them be bought off by large salaries. Let the liturgy be revised and altered. Let Episcopacy be accommodated as much as possible to the cast of the people. Let places of power, trust, and honor be conferred only upon Episcopalians, or those that will conform. When Episcopacy is once established, increase its resemblance to the English hierarchy at pleasure"!1

missary of Virginia is now here, with a view of prosecuting the scheme of an American Episcopate. He is an artful, though not an able man. You will consider, sir, in your wisdom, whether any measures on your side may contribute to counteract this dangerous innovation. Regarding it as threatening the subversion of both our civil and religious liberties, it shall meet with all the opposition in my power." To the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Massachusetts. 1 Dr. Stiles, in Gordon's History of the American Revolution, i. 102, 103. ed. 1794.