The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams

3. INSTRUCTIONS OF THE TOWN OF BRAINTREE TO THEIR REPRESENTATIVE

Write_001-051.indd 37 3/30/12 1:11 PM INSTRUCTIONS OF THE TowN OF BRAINTREE TO THEIR REPRESENTATIVE Write_001-051.indd 38 3/30/12 1:11 PM IN SEPTEMBER 1765, JoHN ADAMS called for a town meeting in order to instruct its representative to the General Court on how the colony should respond to Parliament and the Stamp Act. A committee of five, including Adams, was chosen by the townspeople to compose a set of instructions. The committee slightly revised Adams's prepared draft and sent it to the town meeting where it was unanimously accepted. The Braintree Instructions are a succinct and forthright defense of colonial rights and liberties. They argue against the Stamp Act on two general counts. First, that it is objectionable because unwise. The tax on stamped paper and other goods would necessarily inflict economic hardship in Massachusetts that would ultimately redound to England. Second, and most important, the Stamp Act is unconstitutional and therefore void because it deprives Americans of their traditional English rights to taxation by consent and trial by jury. In fact, it was the extension of the power of juryless courts of admiralty into America that most alarmed Adams. Undercutting the authority of colonial common law courts, admiralty court justices were to sit during the pleasure of the king and they would be granted commissions on all confiscated goods. In other words, they would have a pecuniary incentive to convict. The Braintree Instructions are unique in the Revolutionary literature because they argue very early in the controversy that, though unwritten, the "essential fundamental principles ofthe British constitution" retain the status of a higher law impervious to Parliamentary legislation. Write_001-051.indd 39 3/30/12 1:11 PM 3 INSTRUCTIONS OF THE TowN oF BRAINTREE To THEIR REPRESENTATIVE, I765 Boston, I4 October To EBENEZER THAYER, EsQ. SIR, - In all the calamities which have ever befallen this country, we have never felt so great a concern, or such alarming apprehensions, as on this occasion. Such is our loyalty to the King, our veneration for both houses of Parliament, and our affection for all our fellow-subjects in Britain, that measures which discover any unkindness in that country towards us are the more sensibly and intimately felt. And we can no longer forbear complaining, that many of the measures of the late ministry, and some of the late acts of Parliament, have a tendency, in our apprehension, to divest us of our most essential rights and liberties. We shall confine ourselves, however, chiefly to the act of Parliament, commonly called the Stamp Act, by which a very burthensome, and, in our opinion, unconstitutional tax, is to be laid upon us all; and we subjected to numerous and enormous penalties, to be prosecuted , sued for, and recovered, at the option of an informer, in a court of admiralty, without a jury. We have called this a burthensome tax, because the duties are so numerous and so high, and the embarrassments to business in this infant, sparsely-settled country so great, that it would be totally impossible for the people to subsist under it, ifwe had no controversy at all about the right and authority of imposing it. Considering the present scarcity of money, we have reason to think, the execution of that act for a short space of time would drain the country ofits cash, strip multitudes ofall their property, and reduce them to absolute beggary. And what the consequence would be to the peace of the province, from so sudden a shock and such a convulsive change in the whole course of our business and subsistence, we tremble to consider. We 39 Write_001-051.indd 40 3/30/12 1:11 PM INSTRUCTIONS OF THE TowN OF BRAINTREE further apprehend this tax to be unconstitutional. We have always understood it to be a grand and fundamental principle of the constitution, that no freeman should be subject to any tax to which he has not given his own consent, in person or by proxy. And the maxims of the law, as we have constantly received them, are to the same effect, that no freeman can be separated from his property but by his own act or fault. We take it clearly, therefore, to be inconsistent with the spirit of the common law, and of the essential fundamental principles of the British constitution, that we should be subject to any tax imposed...