Thomas Whately and National Affection in Politics

How strong should our feeling of attachment to a nation and its government be? How does that affection or lack thereof affect public policy? Leading up to the American Revolution Thomas Whately developed an argument in favor of a Stamp Act that strengthened Parliament advanced the interests of the British Empire at the expense of colonists’ liberties. He presumed American colonists’ affection for Great Britain in a manner that anticipates 21st century American arguments for nationalist policies regarding international trade.

Thomas Whately served as a private secretary to the Prime Minister of Great Britain, George Grenville, between April 1963 and July 1765. During this time, Whately participated in drafting the Stamp Act (1765) and wrote justifications of the Acts on Navigation, legislation odious to American colonists and catalytic of the American Revolution.

At the eve of the American Revolution, liberalism as a theory was emerging among philosophers in Scotland, and liberalism in practice was emerging among colonists in the Americas. In 1765 Whately published what has become his most widely read pamphlet, The Regulations Lately Made Concerning the Colonies and the Taxes imposed upon them considered (Regulations). This pamphlet helps us to understand Whately’s attitude toward regulation of the American Colonies and the representation of the colonies’ interests within the British Empire. Whately places attachment to the Empire above the interests of the individual and assumes that colonists will privilege Great Britain in trade relations. In contrast, colonists possessed a strong desire to maintain independent self-governance. More liberal voices within Britain also were concerned for the constitutional implications of the Stamp Act. “No taxation without representation” meant self-governance rather than “virtual” or even ample representation in Parliament.

Whately’s desire for the British Empire to obtain resources and increase economic standing would require colonists to tolerate regulations that would redirect benefits away from the colonists toward Great Britain. In contrast, liberals and colonists gave priority to the individual.

The core of understanding the Regulations is “a concept of the unitary nature of the empire” (Christy 1998). Whately wrote the Regulations in anticipation of Parliamentary debate over the Stamp Act, and in response to an increasing flow of pamphlets arriving from the American Colonies, and pamphlets by Britons concerned about the constitutionality of the Stamp Act.

Whately’s argument in the Regulations resonates in 21st century nationalist rhetoric that clashes with liberal sentiments. Today, some policy advocates propose an approach to diplomacy that promotes centralization of power and American dominance. Like Whately, these advocates expect Americans, from patriotic sentiments, to tolerate increased costs for international goods.

At the time, the population in the American colonies was doubling every 20 years. For Whately population growth is good, not because it leads to the flourishing of the colonists, but because it will increase tariff revenues. “The Benefit which accrues to the Mother-Country from a Colony on the Continent, principally depends on the Number of its Inhabitants” (pp. 5-6). A colony’s capacity to generate industry determines its capacity to produce surplus for trade (p. 7). Larger families can more readily become self-sufficient, and when they do more developed industry that can take place, “[t]o an American therefore a numerous Family is Substance” (p. 5). Combine population growth with colonial ingenuity (p. 8) and the increase in production for trade is sure to generate revenue for Britain (p. 57). The individual, including the distant colonist, exists for the health of the Empire.

Whately neglects the agency of the colonists and argues that the American Colonies exist to promote the good of the Empire. Consider as an analogy a large firm that establishes a branch at some distance from headquarters. The branch may be a loss-leader, not generating profits for itself, but still be beneficial to headquarters. If the branch stops generating benefits for headquarters, support of the branch, such as security services, becomes unsustainable.

To Whately, regulation and taxation of the colonies is simply top-down management from headquarters. If the Empire does not benefit, support of colonies is not in its interests. Whately observes only revenues and expenses. He neglects the economic surpluses that accrue from trade but that are not represented on a balance sheet. Thus, Whatley neglects colonists’ interests in pursuing self-governance. Whatley’s perspective of the colonies is that “[n]o Nation would tolerate Colonies upon any other Conditions: It would be suffering themselves to be exhausted, impoverished, and weakened.” A colony also should only trade with its Empire, lest it “divert their Commerce to the Advantage of another, perhaps of a Rival, and the Mother Country would be ruined by the Prosperity of her Colonies” (90).

Most American Colonies were established through Royal Charters that afforded them the right of self-governance and were developed not as merely extractive satellites of the Mother Country to capture resources and specie to be returned to Great Britain. Rather, as permanent settlements, the American Colonies existed to provide colonists opportunities to flourish, while still providing reliable trading partners for Great Britain. The benefit to the Empire, without regulation, tariffs, or other taxes, could be described as the surpluses of mutually beneficial exchange. However, Whately and mercantilists like him came to treat the colonies as existing solely for the benefit of the Empire, with less regard for the colonists.

Whatley defends the Act of Navigation as “founded upon Right as well as Policy.” The Empire has the right to limit the colonies’ trade because the colonies exist for the Empire: “The Effects of [the Act of Navigation] have been the Increase of our Trade and Navigation” serving the Empire’s goals. Thus, “all Evasions… are destructive of what every Subject of these Kingdoms should” obey. But such restrictions limit colonists’ opportunities to gain from trading with others.

[F]or tho’ Individuals may gain a Profit, tho’ Consumers may procure at a cheaper Rate the Commodities they want, by the Breach of these Laws, yes the Interests, I do not mean the Revenue only, but the essential Interests of the Commonweal are thereby sacrificed to private, partial, and trifling Emoluments, uncertain in their Nature, temporary in Duration, and ruinous in the End.

Avoidance of regulation such as the Acts of Trade and Navigation through smuggling can benefit consumers, but it is contrary to what Whately considers the Interests of the Commonwealth. The cost of the regulation to colonists is worth it from the perspective of the Empire.

Thomas Whately justifies the Stamp Act and other regulations in the context of payment explicitly for the exercises of the army and navy, for the expenses of what we now call the French and Indian War, for the ongoing expenses of providing national defense for the Colonies, and for the expense of enforcing the Navigation Acts that benefit the Empire. Great Britain’s accumulation of colonies in the new world marked uncharted territory for the Empire, relative to its sudden abundance in access to materials that were long depleted in the homeland. Opportunities in the international market began to grow, revealing their full economic potential to the British Empire. What had started as an extension of the British Empire, quickly began to grow into separated states, stressing different political and economic incentives of both lands.

However, Whately suggests that the colonists owe more than a mere pecuniary tribute to the mother country. They owe a fealty that resembles a child’s affection for his parents. The affection required goes beyond mutually beneficial exchange and encourages monopolistic relationships. For example, the Navigation Acts prohibit import of goods into the colonies from nations other than Britain and require that colonies export certain goods only to Britain. Exceptions are granted to these precepts, but only in such circumstances as would benefit the Empire. Whatley argues that the colonies did not display enough gratitude and understanding of trade and military protections. The common ground that Whately presumes the colonists had with Great Britain was dissolving.

From the perspective of the Empire, the colonists were akin to the bratty teenager refusing to listen to their parents – viz, the British Empire. Similarly, the colonists viewed the Empire as a sort of helicopter parent.

Whatley must defend the Stamp Act, because the legitimacy of “The Acts of Trade and Navigation, and all other Acts that relate either to ourselves or to the Colonies… are not obligatory if a Stamp Act is not. The Constitution knows no Distinction” (105). This becomes the key point of contention in the constitutional moment Great Britain muddles through as observed in the pamphlets produced in that era.

The affection for Great Britain that Whately presumes upon had eroded over generations. By the 1760s some colonists would have been fifth generation Americans, and not all originally from Britain. Colonists dealt extensively with smugglers, and some of them were directly involved in smuggling. John Hancock’s vessel the Liberty was seized upon accusations of smuggling Madeira wine.

The conflict of the colonies’ compliance with British Parliament stems from a new emerging identity that grew within the thirteen colonies. Despite most of the colonists’ having English origins, the colonies saw the British Empire as restricting their liberties to self- government and world relations. The colonies were more than 3,000 miles away from Great Britain and saw Parliament’s policies as not representative of colonial interests.

As individuals, seeking out the cheapest price for purchases and the dearest price for sales is both reasonable and supportive of a robust economy. From the perspective of the Empire such uncontrolled and unsanctioned exchanges represented lost revenues and lost surpluses. An economist would identify these as economic rents (Tullock 1967). Great Britain treated colonial trade as a property that it had paid for by providing national defense. The return to that property is a rent. But the colonists had started to see that property in trade as belonging to the colonies, if any collective entity, and more to the individuals involved in those exchanges alone.

Whately argues that the ongoing expenses incurred by Great Britain justify treating the colonies as a property, “Great Britain has a Right at all Times… to demand their Assistance.” But Whately is not without wisdom. He recommends the revenues of the Stamp Act be used to pay for standing armies in the colonies, on monetary grounds, understanding the likely grumbling that would come from the colonists should revenues from the Stamp Act result in the flow of specie from the colonies to Great Britain.

for by appropriating this Revenue towards the Defence and Security of the Provinces where it is raised, the Produce of it is kept in the Country, the People are not deprived of the Circulation of what Cash they have amongst themselves, and thereby the severest Oppression of an American Tax, that of draining the Plantations of Money which they can so ill spare, is avoided.

Whately is also prudent. He suggests that “What Part they ought to bear of the national Expence, that is necessary for their Protection, must depend upon their Ability, which is not yet sufficiently known (103).”

However, the revenues from the Stamp Act were insufficient to cover the expenses Great Britain incurred for its activities in the colonies. One might claim that Grenville and Whately had done well, and that the policy was reasonable. But that presumes the colonists agreed with the Empire about the subjective value of having so many on the British payroll working in the colonies. The complaint about being taxed was less relevant than the complaint about being restricted from liberties in dealings with others. Great Britain might perceive as a benefit the expenditure of a great deal of money to prevent Portuguese ships from unloading in American harbors. In contrast, colonists might perceive that expense as a cost paid for by taxes that also result in the illegitimate and harmful loss of gains from trade.

Trade restrictions such as tariffs are justified on the grounds that they protect domestic employees and repatriation of industries for nationalist reasons. These policies discount the harm to individuals as consumers, as purchasers of inputs into production, and the corruption of governance by the undemocratic apportioning of exemptions and differentiated rates. The unseen consequences are often understated or unmentioned in political rhetoric.

During the 2024 general election for president, both parties’ candidates had policies favorable to tariffs. Donald Trump proposed a 20% tariff on all foreign imports, a 60% tariff on Chinese imports, and a potential 100% tariff on goods from Mexico. During his presidency, Trump implemented 25% and 10% tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, respectively. Kamala Harris also took a liking to tariffs. While she served as Vice President, the Biden administration largely kept the Trump-era tariffs and even expanded upon them. For example, tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles increased from 25% to 100% during the Biden administration (Bankrate).

Both parties promote the idea of bringing back American manufacturing, each while accusing the other of wanting to destroy American manufacturing (ABC). However, The United States has had a balance of trade deficit since the mid-1970s, spanning across several presidential administrations from both parties. That deficit is due to consumer preference for lower priced goods that is unlikely to change no matter how strong the desire for “the return of American manufacturing” grows.

Whately heard the demands for representation by colonists:

We value the Right of being represented in the national Legislature as the dearest Privilege we enjoy; how justly would the Colonies complain,   if they alone were deprived of it? They acknowledge Dependance upon their Mother Country; but that Dependance would be Slavery not Connection, if they bore no Part in the Government of the whole: they would then indeed be in a worse Situation than the inhabitants of Britain, for these are all of them virtually, tho’ few of them are actually represented in the House of Commons (111).

In response, Whately developed a novel argument that they were so represented, called “virtual representation.” Whether virtual representation was constitutional or even meaningful was a major point of debate in the pamphlets published in Britain that followed.

Whately failed to understand that the American Colonial ethos rejected blind affection for the Empire and prioritized the individual. Virtual representation as proposed by Whately did not answer the liberal colonial complaint. Americans desired to have the liberty to improve their lives through industry and trade with whomever they wished. Virtual representation depended on the supposed affectionate relationship between the colonies and the mother country.

The colonists eventually gave up trying to improve relations with Parliament and saw their only allegiance as toward the Crown, which had initially granted them their Charters. Hence, the Declaration of Independence is a list of grievances directed toward the Crown. Parliament is no longer treated as a legitimate counterparty. (Wood 2021).

Modern American political consensus on practical trade policy presumes a similar affection of Americans for the Federal Government. While there appears to be bipartisan consensus on tariffs, this has not always been the case. The work by Thomas Whately demonstrates this neatly. If the limits and developments of economic science are to be improved, rigorous debate and argument are needed to generate robust policy proposals. The Stamp Act was repealed after many heated discussions, and some name-calling in Parliament. There is still a need for vigorous debate on any policy that might limit the liberties of Americans and people anywhere.