Tea Act, Stamp Act, Townshend Act and Quartering Act Short Reading S

CRISIS

four. 1767-69: Crisis Deepens

• Colonists reply to the Townshend Acts, 1767-1770 PDFcompilation
• Colonists respond to the Quartering Act, 1766-1767 PDFcompilation
• John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Messages 1 & 2, 1767 PDF
• Artists' depictions of the arrival of British troops in Boston, 1768
  • - Paul Revere, arrival of troops, woodcut, 1770 (Library of Congress: click paradigm for high-resolution tiff)
  • - Christian Remick, arrival of troops, watercolor, ca. 1768 (Massachusetts Historical Society; view loftier-resolution image)
  • - Christian Remick, troops encamped on Boston Common, watercolor, 1768 PDF

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Had Nifty Uk generously repealed the whole [of the Townshend Acts] and forever relinquished all claim to the right, or even the do of the correct of tax, the union of the two countries might have lasted for ages.

David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolution, 1789

In their jubilance over the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766, few Americans heeded an activity taken by Parliament on the aforementioned day. In the innocuously named Declaratory Human action, Parliament firmly asserted its potency to legislate for the colonies and "demark the colonies and people of America . . . in all cases whatever." A clear argument of who's dominate. This "binding" power became clear to Americans with five parliamentary enactments in 1767 and 1768 known every bit the Townshend Acts. To Great britain and many colonists, the acts were a legitimate use of majestic authority to finance and secure the colonies. To many Americans—those who had condemned the Stamp Human action as coercive and unconstitutional—the Townshend Acts were sheer despotism. Starting time, an overview:

TOWNSHEND ACTS
1767	Acquirement Act	· Gear up new import taxes (duties) on British goods—paper, pigment, lead, drinking glass, and tea. · Enacted to fund British troops in America and to pay salaries of some imperial officials. · Affirmed apply of writs of assistance (search warrants) by customs officials without court sanction (i.e., blank warrants) to search ships, warehouses, and other buildings for smuggled goods.
1767	Indemnity Act	· Removed duties on tea shipped to the colonies by the British East Republic of india Co. and so that British tea could compete with (smuggled) Dutch-shipped tea.
1767	New York Restraining Human action	· Ordered the interruption of the New York assembly if it continued to pass up to comply fully with the Quartering Act of 1765, which required colonial legislatures to provide funds for the food, supplies, and housing of British troops stationed in the colonies. The assembly agreed to comply earlier the Human action took outcome.
1767	Commissioners of Customs Act	· Implemented firmer community enforcement and assigned five new community officials—taxation collectors and investigators—headquartered in Boston.
1768	Vice Admiralty Courtroom Deed	· Created new courts in which colonial smugglers would be prosecuted without a jury—verdicts being decided solely past the judge, thus removing a long-valued privilege of Englishmen.

The blandness of this list belies the affect of the acts and the unsaid ultimatum from Parliament—submit or else. Many would charge Parliament (and the male monarch's cabinet) of a conspiracy to subjugate them. "We are therefore—SLAVES," warned John Dickinson in his widely read newspaper essays, published as Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, that laid out the unique dangers within Parliament'due south moves. For in passing the Townshend Acts, stresses historian Forrest MacDonald, "Britain was making the most dangerous of all political blunders: it was stating its position clearly and as an absolute. Until that moment, the imperial system had worked, and it had worked precisely because it had never been conspicuously divers. Now Parliament was declaring, in event, 'This is what the empire is, and this is what it shall be.'"1 This absolutist position, peculiarly in Britain'due south anti-smuggling enforcements, made tempers rise to new levels among New Englanders, particularly Bostonians, who rioted after tax officials confiscated the merchant ship of John Hancock, a high-visibility leader of resistance. When British troops were sent to Boston to enforce order, all felt that a line had been crossed.

Afterwards renewed violence two years later in 1770 (come across Section #6), but primarily due to the demands of strapped British merchants, Parliament repealed the Townshend Acts—except for the taxation on tea, which generated the most revenue and served every bit a symbol of parliamentary potency. Might it be, every bit David Ramsay mused in 1789, that had Parliament repealed the Acts in their entirety, the "wedlock of the 2 countries might have lasted for ages"?

• Colonists answer to the Townshend Acts, 1767-1770. This compilation, one of a series in this Theme Crunch, includes broadsides, poems, declarations, and debates on the Townshend Acts and on the merchants' nonimportation (boycott) agreements. Among the selections are the first call for united resistance (the Massachusetts Round Letter), an essay by Benjamin Franklin explaining Americans' "sick sense of humour" to the British, selections from John Dickinson'due south Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, newspaper accounts of the 1768 "Liberty Riot" and of the resulting dispatch of British troops to Boston, and, equally e'er, the retrospective views of the Patriot historian David Ramsay. As there is ample material for group report and presentation, the selections are designed to exist divided amongst students and not assigned in their entirety. See Word Questions below and Suggestions for Classroom Use of the compilations. (16 pp.)



• Colonists reply to the Quartering Act, 1766-1767. This second compilation offers documents illustrating Americans' opposition to (1) the Quartering Human activity of 1765, which required colonial assemblies to provide funds for the food, provisions, and housing (in unoccupied buildings) of British troops, and (two) their response to the threatened suspension of the New York assembly for refusing to fully comply with the act. The selections include New York'southward petition to the royal governor and his reply, two newspaper essays urging opposition to the threatened suspension of the New York assembly, and a letter by Benjamin Franklin on the prospect of renewed conflict between Britain and America. "Every Act of Oppression will sour their Tempers," warned Franklin, " . . . and hasten their final Revolt: For the Seeds of Liberty are universally sown at that place, and nothing tin eradicate them." (v pp.)






• John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Letters ane & 2. In twelve essays published in colonial newspapers in 1767 and 1768, John Dickinson bemoaned the complacency exhibited by Americans after the repeal of the Stamp Act and urged them to wake upwards and resist the encroaching subjugation of Parliament.

  –In Letter of the alphabet One, he calls for more than vocal outrage against Parliament's threat to suspend the New York associates for its failure to comply fully with the Quartering Human action. "If they may be legally deprived . . . of the privilege of legislation, why may they not, with equal reason, be deprived of every other privilege? Or why may not every colony be treated in the same manner, when whatever of them shall dare to deny their assent to any impositions that shall be directed?" Dickinson sees no deviation between such legislative compulsion and the apply of troops.

  –In Alphabetic character Ii, he begins by acknowledging that the colonies are part of the British Empire and that Peachy Britain has authority over them. Every police force passed by Parliament relating to the colonies, including the imposition of taxes, has been based upon its authority to regulate merchandise — every law, that is, except the Stamp Human action, which was passed simply to raise revenue. For many colonists, this distinction was disquisitional: Parliament can legitimately taxation the colonies to regulate merchandise merely not to heighten acquirement. Since the Townshend duties required colonists to purchase the taxed appurtenances from Britain alone, there was no competition, no merchandise to regulate, and thus the duties were unconstitutional. "Here then, my beloved countrymen," Dickinson pleads. "ROUSE yourselves, and behold the ruin hanging over your heads." (half-dozen pp.)

• Artists' depictions of the arrival of British troops in Boston, 1768. The arrival of the soldiers on Oct 1, 1768, dispatched to enforce society afterward the "Liberty riot" and heated unrest in Boston, marked a turning signal in the colonies' dispute with the mother country. Information technology was the get-go fourth dimension the British government had resorted to war machine strength to impose its volition on America. Illustrations of this event are among the few American-created images of the early revolutionary era, then dramatic was the effect on the colonial psyche. This effect is credible (if yous turn on your eighteenth-century eyes) in the three depictions presented hither, ane by Paul Revere and 2 past Christian Remick, a sailor and occasional creative person.

  • Paul Revere, A Prospective View of the Town of Boston . . . and the Landing of—Troops in the year 1768, woodcut, 1770 [Library of Congress: click prototype for high-resolution tiff)]
  • Christian Remick, A Perspective View of the Occludent of Boston Harbour, watercolor, ca. 1768 [Massachusetts Historical Society: view high-resolution image]
  • Christian Remick, A Prospective View of Part of the [Boston] Commons, watercolor, 1768 PDF

  How do Revere and Remick reveal the impact on Americans of British troops in their midst, troops sent to police them and enforce British supremacy? How do they convey the impression of "occupation"? (half-dozen pp.)

Discussion Questions

1. From these documents, characterize the range of Americans' responses to the Townshend Acts, the Quartering Act, and the arrival of British troops in Boston.
2. In what ways do the responses reflect a continuity with responses to previous parliamentary actions?
3. In what ways exercise they reflect a change? What would explain the modify?
4. What new modes of resistance did Americans employ confronting the Townshend Acts (and against opposition to the Acts)?
5. What were Americans' arguments for and against the non-importation agreements? Did the arguments follow strict Loyalist-vs.-Patriot divisions?
6. How did the colonies answer to the call for unity in Samuel Adams's circular alphabetic character from Massachusetts?
7. From these documents, what do you learn of the British people's reaction to American resistance?
8. Create a dialogue amid two to iv persons represented in these readings. Guide your dialogue to a conclusion among the speakers, or an acknowledgment that no conclusion can be reached.
9. What are the characteristics of the persona John Dickinson assumes in his letters "from a Farmer in Pennsylvania"? Why would he depict the author of the messages in such a way? How does Dickinson'due south farmer seek to establish a rapport with his readers?
10. What goals did Dickinson promise to achieve with his messages?
11. Why did he argue that taxes levied to raise revenues are unjust?
12. Why was he disturbed with the lack of immediate outrage over Britain's threat to suspend the New York assembly?
13. Dickinson refused to sign the Proclamation of Independence because he believed that America could non sustain itself every bit an independent nation. What arguments in his letters might he have used to support this position?
14. What are your first impressions of the three depictions of British troops in America? What might have been the impressions of Americans at the time?
15. How do Revere and Remick differ in depicting the mass arrival of occupying troops in Boston harbor? What similar response did they hope to achieve in the viewer?
16. In the delineation of British troops encamped on Boston Common, how has Remick made the citizens appear marginalized in their own city?
17. How are the depictions acts of protestation in themselves?
18. Do yous agree with David Ramsay that, had Parliament repealed all of the Townshend Acts including the tea tax, the "union of the ii countries might have lasted for ages"?

Framing Questions

• Betwixt 1763 and 1775, what changed many Americans from loyal British subjects to rebellious Patriots?
• Why did many Americans remain loyal to Great Britain and oppose rebellion?
• How did Patriots and Loyalists convey their views through the media outlets of the time?
• Was the American Revolution inevitable? If so, was in that location a "bespeak of no return"?

Printing

COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Townshend Acts
COMPILATION: Colonists reply to the Quartering Act
John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Messages 1-2
Depictions of the arrival of British troops in Boston
Full
16 pp.
5 pp.
6 pp.
half dozen pp.
33 pp.

Supplemental Sites

The American Revolution: A Documentary History (Avalon Project, Yale Police force Library), including

• – The Quartering Human action, 15 May 1765
• – Massachusetts Round Letter to the colonial legislatures, xi Feb. 1768
• – Boston Town Meeting, Resolutions creating Committee of Correspondence, thirteen Sept. 1768

Non-Importation Agreements (Avalon Project, Yale Police force Library)

• – New York, 1765
• – Boston, 1768
• – Charleston, 1769
• – New York, 1773

Non-Importation notice, "A Copy of the Association," Virginia Gazette, 25 May 1769 (Colonial Williamsburg Digital Library)

John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, 1767-68

• – Overview, with brief summaries of the messages (Dickinson College)
• – Total text of the twelve essays (Online Library of Liberty)

John Dickinson, cursory biography (Dickinson Higher)

1902 engraving of Remick'south Prospective View of the Eatables, helpful for analyzing original watercolor (New York Public Library)

The Coming of the American Revolution, 1764-1776 (Massachusetts Historical Society)

• – The Townshend Acts
• – Non-Consumption and Non-Importation

The American Revolution, overviews and primary sources (American Memory, Library of Congress)

• – British Reforms and Colonial Resistance, 1763-1766
• – British Reforms and Colonial Resistance, 1767-1772

The Road to Revolution (American Revolution, Digital History, Gilder Lehrman Constitute of American History et al.)

The Revolutionary War, primary documents (Gilder Lehrman Establish of American History)

"Was the American Revolution Inevitable?," not-to-miss teachable essay by Prof. Francis D. Cogliano, University of Edinburgh (BBC)

Teaching the Revolution, valuable overview essay past Prof. Ballad Berkin, Baruch College (CUNY)

General Online Resources

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i Empire and Nation: Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania (John Dickinson). Letters from the Federal Farmer (Richard Henry Lee), intro. by Forrest McDonald (Prentice Hall, 1962), xii.

Images:
– Alexander Robertson, "To the Publick . . . ," broadside, New York Urban center, 1769 (detail). Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Printed Ephemera Partitioning, Portfolio 103, Folder 23.
– Christian Remick, A Perspective View of the Blockade of Boston Harbour, watercolor, ca. 1768 (item). Reproduced past permission of the Massachusetts Historical Order.
– Paul Revere, A Prospective View of the Town of Boston . . . and the Landing of—Troops in the year 1768, woodcut, 1770 (detail). Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Partition, LC-USZ62-45559.

Banner epitome: Americans Throwing the Cargoes of the Tea Ships into the River, at Boston, engraving (detail), in W. D. Rev. Mr. Cooper, The History of North America (London: East. Newbery, 1789). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-538 (too Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Digital ID us0012_01). Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

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Source: https://americainclass.org/sources/makingrevolution/crisis/text4/text4.htm

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