• MAKING THE REVOLUTION

• CRISIS

• 1. 1763: Britain Victorious
• 2. 1764: Loyal Subjects?
• 3. 1765-66: Stamp Act Crisis
• 4. 1767-69: Crisis Deepens
• 5. 1770: Violence—and Pause
• 6. 1772-73: Crisis Renewed
• 7. 1774: Colonies United
• 8. 1775: The Outbreak of War
• 9. How Did We Get Here?
•  
• Using Making the Revolution
• Contents by Theme (PDF)
• Contents by Genre (PDF)
• Site Map

Join Our Mailing List

CRISIS

4. 1767-69: Crisis Deepens

PDF

PDF

PDF

PDF

In their jubilance over the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766, few Americans heeded an action taken by Parliament on the same day. In the innocuously named Declaratory Act, Parliament firmly asserted its authority to legislate for the colonies and "bind the colonies and people of America . . . in all cases whatsoever." A clear statement of who's boss. This "binding" power became clear to Americans with five parliamentary enactments in 1767 and 1768 known as the Townshend Acts. To Britain and many colonists, the acts were a legitimate use of imperial authority to finance and secure the colonies. To many Americans—those who had condemned the Stamp Act as coercive and unconstitutional—the Townshend Acts were sheer despotism. First, an overview:

The blandness of this list belies the impact of the acts and the implied ultimatum from Parliament—submit or else. Many would accuse Parliament (and the king'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's 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 clearly defined. Now Parliament was declaring, in effect, 'This is what the empire is, and this is what it shall be.'"1 This absolutist position, especially in Britain's anti-smuggling enforcements, made tempers rise to new levels among New Englanders, especially 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.

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two years later in 1770 (see Section #6), but primarily due to the demands of strapped British merchants, Parliament repealed the Townshend Acts—except for the tax on tea, which generated the most revenue and served as a symbol of parliamentary authority. Might it be, as David Ramsay mused in 1789, that had Parliament repealed the Acts in their entirety, the "union of the two countries might have lasted for ages"?

• Colonists respond to the Townshend Acts, 1767-1770. This compilation, one of a series in this Theme CRISIS, 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 Circular Letter), an essay by Benjamin Franklin explaining Americans' "ill humor" to the British, selections from John Dickinson's Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, newspaper accounts of the 1768 "Liberty Riot" and of the resulting dispatch of British troops to Boston, and, as always, the retrospective views of the Patriot historian David Ramsay. As there is ample material for group study and presentation, the selections are designed to be divided among students and not assigned in their entirety. See Discussion Questions below and Suggestions for Classroom Use of the compilations. (16 pp.)



• Colonists respond to the Quartering Act, 1766-1767. This second compilation offers documents illustrating Americans' opposition to (1) the Quartering Act of 1765, which required colonial assemblies to provide funds for the food, provisions, and housing (in unoccupied buildings) of British troops, and (2) their response to the threatened suspension of the New York assembly for refusing to fully comply with the act. The selections include New York's 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 there, and nothing can eradicate them." (5 pp.)





• John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Letters 1 & 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 up and resist the encroaching subjugation of Parliament.

  –In Letter One, he calls for more vocal outrage against Parliament's threat to suspend the New York assembly for its failure to comply fully with the Quartering Act. "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 any of them shall dare to deny their assent to any impositions that shall be directed?" Dickinson sees no difference between such legislative compulsion and the use of troops.

  –In Letter Two, he begins by acknowledging that the colonies are part of the British Empire and that Great Britain has authority over them. Every law passed by Parliament relating to the colonies, including the imposition of taxes, has been based upon its authority to regulate trade — every law, that is, except the Stamp Act, which was passed simply to raise revenue. For many colonists, this distinction was critical: Parliament can legitimately tax the colonies to regulate trade but not to raise revenue. Since the Townshend duties required colonists to buy the taxed goods from Britain alone, there was no competition, no trade to regulate, and thus the duties were unconstitutional. "HERE then, my dear countrymen," Dickinson pleads. "ROUSE yourselves, and behold the ruin hanging over your heads." (6 pp.)

• Artists' depictions of the arrival of British troops in Boston, 1768. The arrival of the soldiers on October 1, 1768, dispatched to enforce order after the "Liberty riot" and heated unrest in Boston, marked a turning point in the colonies' dispute with the mother country. It was the first time the British government had resorted to military force to impose its will on America. Illustrations of this event are among the few American-created images of the early revolutionary era, so dramatic was the effect on the colonial psyche. This effect is apparent (if you turn on your eighteenth-century eyes) in the three depictions presented here, one by Paul Revere and two by Christian Remick, a sailor and occasional artist.

  • 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 image for high-resolution tiff)]
    
    
  • Christian Remick, A Perspective View of the Blockade 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"? (6 pp.)

Supplemental Sites