JOHN ADAMS: A Burdensome and Unconstitutional Tax Sir, In all the calamities which have ever befallen this country, we have never felt so great a...
JOHN ADAMS: A Burdensome and Unconstitutional Tax
Sir,
In all the calamities which have ever befallen this country, we have never felt so great a concern, or
such alarming apprehensions, as on this occasion. Such is our loyalty to the King, our veneration for
both houses of Parliament, and our affection for all our fellow subjects in Britain that measures which
discover any unkindness in that country toward us are the more sensibly and intimately felt. And we
can no longer forbear complaining that many of the measures of the late Ministry, and some of the late
acts of Parliament, have a tendency, in our apprehension, to divest us of our most essential rights and
liberties. We shall confine ourselves, however, chiefly to the act of Parliament, commonly called the
Stamp Act, by which a very burdensome and, in our opinion, unconstitutional tax is to be laid upon us
all; and we fare to be] subjected to numerous and enormous penalties, to be prosecuted, sued for, and
recovered at the option of an informer in a Court of Admiralty without a jury.
We have called this a burdensome tax, because the duties are so numerous and so high, and the
embarrassments to business in this infant, sparsely settled country so great, that it would be totally
impossible for the people to subsist under It, If we had no controversy at all about the right and
authority of imposing it. Considering the present scarcity of money, we have reason to think the
execution of that act for a short space of time would drain the country of its cash, strip multitudes of all
their property, and reduce them to absolute beggary. And what the consequence would be to the peace
of the province, from so sudden a shock and such a convulsive change in the whole course of our
business and subsistence, we tremble to consider.
We further apprehend this tax to be unconstitutional. We have always understood it to be a grand and
fundamental principle of the constitution that no freeman should be subject to any tax to which lie has
not given his own consent, in person or by proxy. And the maxims of the law, as we have constantly
received them, are to the same effect: that no freeman can be separated from his property but by his
own act or fault. . . .
But the most grievous innovation of all is the alarming extension of the power of Courts of Admiralty.
In these courts one judge presides alone! No juries have any concern there! The law and the fact are
both to be decided by the same single judge, whose commission is only during pleasure, and with
whom, as we are told, the most mischievous of all customs has become established, that of taking
commissions on all condemnations; so that he is under a pecuniary temptation always against the
subject. . . . We have all along thought the acts of trade in this respect a grievance; but the Stamp Act
has opened a vast number of sources of new crimes, which may be committed by any man and cannot
but be committed by multitudes, and prodigious penalties are annexed, and all these are to be tried by
such a judge of such a court! . . .
We cannot help asserting, therefore, that this part of the act will make an essential change in the
constitution of juries, and it is directly repugnant to the Great Charter itself; for, by that charter, "no
amercement shall be assessed, but by the oath of honest and lawful men of the vicinage"; and, "no
freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized of his freehold, or liberties of free customs, nor
passed upon, nor condemned, but by lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land." So that
this act will "make such a distinction, and create such a difference between" the subjects in Great
Britain and those in America as we could not have expected from the guardians of liberty in "both."
As these, sit, are our sentiments of this act, we, the freeholders and other inhabitants, legally assembled
for this purpose, must enjoin it upon you to comply with no measures or proposals for countenancing
the same, or assisting in the execution oil of it but by all lawful means consistent with our allegiance to
the King and relation to Great Britain to oppose the execution of it till we can hear the success of the cries and petitions of America for relief.
We further recommend the most clear and explicit assertion and vindication of our rights and liberties
to be entered on the public records, that the world may know, in the present and all future generations,
that we have a clear knowledge and a just sense of them, and, with submission to Divine Providence,
that we never can be slaves.
Nor can we think it advisable to agree to any steps for the protection of stamped papers or stamp
officers. Good and wholesome laws we have already for the preservation of the peace; and we
apprehend there is no further danger of tumult and disorder, to which we have a well-grounded
aversion; and that any extraordinary and expensive exertions would tend to exasperate the people and
endanger the public tranquillity, rather than the contrary. Indeed, we cannot too often inculcate upon
you our desires, that all extraordinary grants and expensive measures may, upon all occasions, as much
as possible, be avoided. The public money of this country is the toil and labor of the people, who are
under many uncommon difficulties and distresses at this time, so that all reasonable frugality ought to
be observed. And we would recommend, particularly, the strictest care and the utmost firmness to
prevent all unconstitutional drafts upon the public treasury.