Opposing the American War

Each of the three pamphlets featured this month was out of step with British public opinion and in opposition to the policies pursued by the British government. Published within a year and a half of each other, I will discuss them in the order in which they were written.

The first pamphlet, Reflections on the American Contest: In Which the Consequences of a Forced Submission, under the Means of a Lasting Reconciliation are pointed Out, was published anonymously, under the initials “A. M.” Perhaps the author was a businessman, or a trader, or a ship’s captain. He had a knowledge of the colonies’ financial and trade relations, gained firsthand. In the advertisement that precedes the document, he stated that he travelled the colonies “through all the country from Virginia northwards” from 1763 to 1768. The pamphlet’s subtitle provides a thumbnail sketch of its history: Communicated by Letter to a Member of Parliament, Some Time Since, and Now Addressed to Edmund Burke, ESQ. Finally published in 1776, it was initially written in 1769. The author wrote in the advertisement that he has made “very few corrections” [v] to the original text, and for contemporary purposes this pamphlet may be most valuable in showing how quickly political attitudes in the colonies changed from 1769 to 1776.

A.M. begins with a brief survey of the social and cultural differences between the colonies: more unequal distribution of property in the South than the North, the use of “droves of negroes” to work rice and tobacco plantations [5], the existence of six colleges from Williamsburg, Virginia (William and Mary), to Cambridge, near Boston (Harvard) [3], and the uneven ethnic distribution of settlers among the colonies [10-14]. He then examines the religious and political foundations of the various colonies, and the possible interconnections between religion and politics. He notes that New England Congregationalists held “each congregation to be a complete church,” with no overarching hierarchy. In each colony, every official below the governor “is a creature of the people” and “their governments are very democratical” [7-8]. He then notes a key difference between democratic politics in Great Britain and in the colonies: “Every householder almost having a vote in elections, and used to be well acquainted with his representative, the idea of virtual representation was entirely estranged from them” [8].

A.M. comes to the heart of his argument in the following paragraph: “Whether we have a right to tax the colonies is now become an idle speculation. The question is, whether it be good policy to force them to submission? I hold it is not . . .” [21].

First, “the opposition of the Americans does not arise from cabal, caprice or pretence of disability to pay . . . but from a persuasion, that they cannot by right be taxed without their actual consent” [21]. If the Empire is on the verge of burning to the ground, we have no one to blame but ourselves, for “we fired [lit] the beacon ourselves” [22].

As A.M. continues this discussion, he touches on one of the major changes in American attitudes between the time he originally wrote his memorandum in 1769 and the time it was published in 1776. He argues, “Though they deny our right to tax them, they do not deny a constitutional supremacy of Parliament” [22]. But Thomas Jefferson, in A Summary View of the Rights of British America, published in 1774, had stated the current American view: “The true ground on which we declare these acts void is because the British parliament has no right to exercise authority over us.”

Second, “the nature of our government is unfit for foreign domination” [26]. Parliament was designed for domestic affairs, and operates on the principle of representation (even if at times virtual), but “in that moment in which the House of Commons exercises as unlimited a right of representation over the colonies as over Britain,” it will become “an oligarchy, in respect of the empire.”

A.M. identifies other problems with an attempt to force the colonies to comply. “To maintain a sovereignty there by force will exhaust our men” [28]. Finally, a captive America would undermine and distort Britain’s foreign policy. “Great Britain must often be at war with her neighbors. If America is to be ruled by force, she will at such time distract our attention; and, instead of assisting, will employ a considerable part of that force which should act against the enemy, or will throw off the yoke” [29].

A.M. has good reason to address his pamphlet to the attention of Edmund Burke. Burke had made clear his sympathy with the North American colonies in two major addresses to Parliament, first on American Taxation on April 19, 1774, and then, on March 22, 1775, his “Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies.”

Burke’s speech on conciliation is held up and studied as a model of political rhetoric. It is a beautifully crafted oration, and it is packed with the themes Burke is well known for. First, an attack on abstract reason and abstract rights [14], unfounded theories [78], and metaphysical speculations [92], and second, a defense of prudence and accommodation [86], and advocacy of the lessons of history. He uses the cases of Ireland [62], Wales [64], Chester [68], and Durham [70], to illustrate how the American colonies could be brought back into the British fold. He says in his discussion of Ireland, “It was not English arms, but the English constitution, that conquered Ireland” [63]. He thought the same could be true for North America.

It must be noted at the outset that no matter how brilliant a display of rhetorical skill, as a work of political analysis and political persuasion, the speech was a failure. In politics, as in comedy, timing is everything. Burke delivered his address on March 22, 1775, well after many leaders in the colonies believed that war was the only possible answer, and less than a month later, on April 19, “the shot heard ’round the world” was fired and the war began in Massachusetts. The speech was published as a pamphlet on May 22, two months after it was delivered in the House of Commons and just a month after the battle at Concord and Lexington. But even before shots were fired, it had been a failure. The speech introduced a set of nine resolutions that Burke thought would bring the American colonies back into the British fold if passed by Parliament and acted on by the Government, but only one of the resolutions was voted on, and it was defeated 270-78.

Ironically, Burke was so absorbed with the plan he thought essential for the well-being of the British Empire and the American colonies that he lost sight of the reality of the political situation. Burke hoped “to restore order and repose to [the] Empire” [9], but not through force of arms. Rather, the heart of his effort was “the absolute necessity of keeping up the concord of his empire by a Unity of Spirit” [55]. Alas, that unity had already been broken.

Burke understands that “the predominating feature” of the American Character was “a love of Freedom.” He states, “This fierce spirit of Liberty is stronger in the English Colonies probably than in any other people on earth” [28]. He notesd that “the people of the Colonies are descendents of Englishmen,” and this, Burke believes, meanst, “They are therefore not only devoted to Liberty, but to Liberty according to English ideas, and on English principles” [29]. Further, Burke believes that in America, “Abstract Liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.” Without developing the argument at this point, I suggest that the “inalienable Rights” highlighted in the Declaration of Independence, which include “Liberty” along with “Life” and “the pursuit of Happiness,” show that an understanding of abstract rights has started to surface in American thought.

Burke continues his discussion by explaining how in Parliament, over an extended period, liberty and taxation were welded together so that taxes were legitimate only when approved by representatives of the people. Somehow this notion crosses the Atlantic Ocean: “The Colonies draw from you as with their life-blood, these ideas and principles. Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and attached on this specific point of taxing” [30]. The fact that Parliament never corrected them, “confirmed them in the imagination, that they, as well as you [Members of the House of Commons], had an interest in these common principles.”

Then (confound it!), “They were further confirmed in this pleasing error by the form of their provincial legislative assemblies. Their governments are popular to a high degree; some are merely popular.” Colonists were beginning to believe they had a share in government, and this was reinforced by their Protestant outlook [32] and the fact that so many of them studied the law [34]. Add to this the fact that they were separated from Britain by “three thousand miles of ocean” [35] which allowed them to act on their own unobserved by British authority. An excess of colonial spirit confronted British power. According to Burke, “The question is, not whether their spirit deserves praise or blame;–what, in the name of God, shall we do with it?” [37]

What happened in the colonies was that spontaneous order erupted. “We thought, Sir, that the utmost which the discontented Colonists could do, was to disturb authority; we never dreamt they could of themselves supply it” [38]. “They have formed a Government sufficient for its purposes, without the bustle of a Revolution, or the troublesome formality of an Election. . . .This new Government had originated directly from the people; and was not transmitted through any of the ordinary artificial media of a positive constitution” [39]. Burke finds “evil arising” from this situation: “the Colonists having once found the possibility of enjoying the advantages of order, in the midst of a struggle for Liberty,” may normalize such activity in the future. Even worse is the example of Massachusetts. The Crown abolished the government of Massachusetts, on the thought that this would shock government-less people into “compleat submission,” but, unfortunately, “Anarchy is found tolerable” [40]. 

History may mislead one if one is reading the wrong history. Burke fails to understand the implications of his description of the American colonies—given their “fierce spirit of Liberty,” they would never be squeezed into the British Constitution as were Ireland, Wales, Chester, and Durham. Jefferson’s Summary View again presented the history Burke discusses from an American perspective. “America was conquered, and her settlements made, and firmly established, at the expense of individuals, and not of the British public.”

While Burke holds out the possibility of a peaceful reconciliation between Britain and its North American colonies, the anonymous author of A Prospect of the Consequences of the Present Conduct of Great Britain Towards America is far more pessimistic. He begins by quoting and then questioning a statement made by George III in his address to both Houses of Parliament on October 27, 1775. The King said, “To be a subject of Great Britain with all its consequences, is to be the freest member of any civil society in the known world” [13-14]. 

Our author’s conclusion is delivered after eighty pages of analysis and reflection. “If, therefore, the Parliament of Great Britain do exercise the power of legislation, and of taxation over the Americans; or, in other words, If the Americans do not make laws for themselves, and do not tax themselves, but are to be subject to have laws made for them by others, and to have taxation imposed on them by others, then the Americans are not a free people” [93].

Where Burke optimistically offers the examples of Ireland and Wales to suggest a happy resolution (for Great Britain, at least) of the crisis, our author offersd a different historical example as a cautionary tale. “Spain was once in possession of the Netherlands; being oppressed, they revolted, and threw off the Spanish yoke; nor could she recover again the dominion of the Netherlands, though Spain was at that time the most powerful monarchy in Europe. If so small, so weak a people, but inspired with liberty, made so glorious an achievement against oppression and the whole force of the Spanish monarchy, we may draw a very rational conclusion from thence, that at the close of the present war, when my countrymen shall become ruined by the weight of taxes exacted from them in support of it, and the nation exhausted of its resources both in men and money, we may then compare notes with the Spanish monarchy” [26-27].

Our author can not decide which would be worse, to fight a lengthy war with America and lose, or fight that war and win. In either case, Britain would be confronted with a mountain of debt, a demoralized army and navy, and potential wars with France and Spain. If Britain should win and retain the colonies, its resources would be drained in policing America’s contraband trade with other nations [31], and this would lead to continual friction with nations engaging in such illicit activity with the Americans. All three authors were united in their concern that Great Britain’s war against American liberty would weaken or undermine its commitment to liberty in Britain itself.