To Shake Their Guns in the Tyrant's Face: Libertarian Political Violence and the Origins of the Militia Movement

The Precedent of 1774: The Role of Insurgent Violence in the Political Theory of the Founding

the precedent of 1774: the role of insurgent violence in the political theory of the founding On September 6, 1774, representatives of the towns of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, recommended that the inhabitants of the county “use their utmost diligence to acquaint themselves with the art of war as soon as possible, and do for that purpose, appear under arms at least once a week.” The purpose of this military training was to resist that unparalleled usurpation of unconstitutional power, whereby our capital is robbed of the means of life; whereby the streets of Boston are thronged with military executioners; whereby our coasts are lined and our harbors crowded with ships of war; whereby the Charter of the Colony, that sacred barrier against encroachments of tyranny, is mutilated, and, in effect, annihilated. The people of Suffolk County responded to these resolutions by organizing militia companies, practicing military drill, and providing themselves with arms. They did so largely without recourse to organized government beyond the institutions of their local towns. Inspired by the Suffolk County Resolves, the people of New England took up arms in the fall of 1774 to nullify the Coercive Acts, legislation that they regarded as an all-out assault on their liberty.1 The Suffolk County Resolves ushered in the most radical phase of the American Revolution, a ten-month period in which Americans took up arms and overthrew their lawful governments. Even after the Revolution, the radicalism of this period would hover over American politics into the 1780s, to the dismay of many nationalists who feared the localism and violence of the Revolutionary impulse and its reenactment in Shays’ Rebellion . Two legacies from this period would pass into American political culture and resonate with later insurgent movements. The ‹rst was a set of ideas that legitimated resistance to the tyrannical acts of a lawful government , even a government chosen by the people. The second was the emergence of a popular institution by which that resistance could be organized , a militia created by popular association at the local level. The Precedent of 1774: Two Ideologies of Resistance When the inhabitants of Boston threw a cargo of British East India Company tea into the harbor, they provoked a harsh response from the British Parliament. In the spring of 1774 Parliament retaliated by enacting a package of legislation, the Coercive Acts, designed to force Massachusetts to submit to Parliament’s supreme authority. First, the Boston Port Act effectively closed the port until the town of Boston made restitution for the destroyed tea. The Massachusetts Government Act transformed the previously elected upper house of the colonial legislature into a Crown-appointed body. It also stipulated that judges and sheriffs would henceforth be appointed by the Crown, and would have the power to manipulate local jury selection. Finally, the act restricted the traditional institution of local self-government, the town meeting, to a single annual session unless the governor approved additional meetings. The Administration of Justice Act permitted royal of‹cers accused of murdering colonists in the exercise of their duty to remove their trial to England. A new Quartering Act permitted the governor to requisition privately owned buildings (but not occupied residences) to house British troops. Finally, the colonists learned that the military commander of North America, General Thomas Gage, was to serve as their new royal governor.2 to shake their guns in the tyrant’s face 28 The Coercive Acts and the American response were the culmination of the imperial crisis between Britain and its North American colonies. In popular culture and public memory, that crisis is often portrayed as a con›ict focused on taxation and representation. In fact,American opposition to the Coercive Acts developed along two tracks during the summer of 1774. The ‹rst mode of organized opposition, the nonimportation movement, did focus on taxation and representation. The second mode of opposition, armed organization, did not. Upon hearing of the passage of the Boston Port Act, Americans immediately began to organize an economic boycott against Great Britain. This nonimportation movement drew upon ideas and tactics ‹rst worked out in the 1760s in the colonial protests against the Sugar and Stamp acts. These protests were rooted in a particular strain of English opposition thought dating to the late seventeenth century. Most often referred to as Country or Whig ideology, this set of ideas included demands for actual representation, a stress on the distinction between internal...