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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO THE ADMINISTRATION'S SOLUTION From the American constitutional perspective, the solution of requisitions demanded by and paid to the Crown was supported- even demanded - by the logic of constitutional tradition. First, it avoided the implications of parliamentary taxation by givingParliament no immediate role to perform. Requisitions that came from Parliament, after all, were not much different from direct parliamentary taxation, especially if the colonies were expected to pay and the expectation could be enforced. Second, royal requisitions, in theory, put the colonial assemblies on a constitutional parity with Parliament. They did so because taxes raised by Parliament in the mother country were not in constitutional theory a taking of the people's property for public purposes, but free gifts granted to the Crown in response to requests that were not much different from requisitions. In that one theoretical respect, therefore, Crown requisitions would have made the assemblies equal to Parliament in their constitutional relationship to the king. Finally, there was constitutional precedent in American history for Crown requisitions. Because requisitions in the past had always been made in the name of the king and not of Parliament, royal requisitions were more constitutionally defensible than were parliamentary requisitions. The difference was custom. Royal requisitions could be justified as a formalization of customary procedure. 247 THE ADMINISTRATION'S SOLUTION Parliamentary requisitions could not, for they, in constitutional parlance, would have been an "innovation." From the British perspective, opposite constitutional considerations were at work. British constitutional liberty was maintained and defined in parliamentary sovereignty. Royal requisitions threatened that sovereignty and, therefore, British liberty, not because they lessened Parliament 's supremacy over the colonies, but because they jeopardized the cornerstone of eighteenth-century British constitutionalism: parliamentary supremacy over the Crown. Parliament was supreme over the king partly because the Glorious Revolution had made the throne an office subject to Parliament's election and partly because Parliament controlled royal revenue. Contemporary constitutional theory explained the relative impotency of the British Crown almost entirely in terms of Parliament's monopoly of the authority to tax. One of the most influential constitutional treatises of the eighteenth century summed up the legal theory when it stated that if we consider the extent of the prerogative of the king of England, and especially the circumstance of his completely uniting in himself all the executive and active powers of the state, we shall find that it is no exaggeration to say, that he has power sufficient to be as arbitrary as the kings of France, were it not for the right of taxation, which, in England, is possessed by the people; and the only constitutional difference between the French and English nations is, that the former can neither confer benefits on their sovereign, nor obstruct his measures; while the latter, how extensive soever the prerogative of their king may be, can deny him the means of exerting it. The American scheme for royal requisitions threatened to upset this carefully structured balance between monarchy and consent by increasing the influence of the Crown at the expense of Parliament. In 1776, when it was apparent there might be war with the colonies, a writer explained to Scottish readers the constitutional danger posed by the colonial solution. The Americans, formerly, declared themselves willing to contribute to the exigencies and expences of the state, provided the demand should come by requisition from the King, and not by an immediate exertion of parliamentary authority. This offer his Majesty declined. . . . Had his Majesty been actuated by those motives of ambition which are not uncommon among princes, he would have eagerly closed with the offers of the Americans. Instead of making himself dependent, for the maintenance of his dignity, upon the grants of one assembly, he might have extricated himself from even the fear THE ADMINISTRATION'S SOLUTION of pecuniary difficulties, by a proper management of many assemblies . The representatives of one province might be gratified into the views of the crown, from the revenue of another; British members might receive the wages of corruption in America; and American representives be sent for the price of their votes to this kingdom.l 249 The predicament was constitutional. American whigs, to protect themselves from what they regarded as unconstitutional parliamentary taxation , favored the constitutional alternative of requisitions paid directly to the Crown. Parliament could not accept that alternative as a solution to the revolutionary controversy because its adoption would jeopardize the current balance of government and the basic safeguard of British liberty .2 The very...

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