The primary cause of the American Revolution must be sought in the character of the old colonial system, which was based on political and economic theories generally accepted as valid in the seventeenth century, but which, nevertheless, were the fruit of ignorance and inexperience.
Politically, colonies were then viewed as "dependencies," not as integral and fully privileged members of the expanding parent state. Economically, they were "possessions," subject to exploitation for the benefit of the people who remained at home. These doctrines found partial expression in two ways: politically, in the subjection of the colonies to "prerogative"; and economically, in their subjection to the "laws of navigation and trade." In both ways, the Englishman who became a colonist sank somewhat in the social scale. The enterprising men and women who bravely faced the perils and hardships of the savage wilderness, thereby extending the prestige and wealth of the British nation, were not intentionally rewarded, therefore, by new political and economic privileges. On the contrary, they were looked upon as having expatriated themselves, as having yielded some part of the constitutional and legal rights which they already possessed. If this seems strange to us now, it must not be forgotten that our vision has been sharpened by nearly a century and a half of experience. It is very enlightening to reflect that the present wise colonial policy of Great Britain was adopted only after the bitter discipline of the American War. Furthermore, even now, the "provincial" does not entirely escape the social condescension of his insular kinsman.
Of a truth, to determine what ought to be the relation of colonies to the mother country was not at all an easy problem for the men of the seventeenth century. Practically, the choice seemed to lie between allowing them to set up for themselves as independent communities, after the manner of the daughter colonies of Hellenic cities, or of keeping them in a state of at least partial subordination, following the custom of other European states. To turn them adrift to shift for themselves would have seemed heartless and unjust to the colonists themselves; to recognize them as integral parts of the expanding nation, with the same status, the same rights and duties as before migration, appeared impractical on account of the distance — always a puzzling factor in the problem — while to place them in a position of virtual autonomy, under the merely nominal sovereignty of England, perhaps to be a heavy burden upon the exchequer rather than a source of revenue, though according to modern ideas, would have been deemed a course devoid of common-sense by a generation under the full sway of the mercantile dogma.
The result was an ill-defined policy, confusedly blending two utterly antagonistic principles formed under the influence of Spain, whose experience reached back a hundred years before the first colonies of England were planted. In "the first settlement of America, the conception of a Spanish colony as an extension of Spain was mixed up with a different conception of it as a possession belonging to Spain." But if unconsciously England accepted the Spanish theory, she did not thoroughly imitate the Spanish practice. Politically and economically, her colonies enjoyed far more liberty than did those of either Spain, France, or Holland. "On some points," admits Leroy-Beaulieu, "England showed a liberalism unusual at that epoch."
By the right of discovery, according to legal theory, the title to England's American territories belonged to the crown. From the crown, therefore, the colonists derived their charters and patents. They and their lands were spoken of indiscriminately as the crown's "possessions." They were placed in subjection to the "prerogative," that undefined "sovereign authority" against which already in 1628 Sir Edward Coke had protested; to an authority, that is to say, which for Englishmen at home became more and more clearly recognized as "unconstitutional" with each step forward in the march of parliamentary liberty. All this was unfortunate, but it was not thought of as despotic by the people of that age. To them, it seemed just that, as possessions, the colonies should be made fruitful to their owner. Economic equality, they fancied, might make the colonies a damage rather than a benefit to the mother-country. Such a policy would now be condemned as selfish and short-sighted. In the end, it proved harmful to the colonies. Yet before the advent of the Physiocrats and Adam Smith, it was sanctioned by the best economic thought of Europe. Clearly, the faults of the old restrictive system were due to "unconscious ignorance" and not to "conscious malice."
Aside from the measures providing for its administration, the restrictive colonial system finds expression in three series of laws:(1) the acts of navigation, strictly so-called, intended to protect English shipping against foreign competitors;(2) acts of trade, designed to secure to the English merchants a monopoly of colonial commerce; and (3) acts giving to English manufacturers a monopoly of the colonial market. The first two subjects, navigation and trade, are sometimes dealt with in distinct parts of the statute, as in that of 1660. In its motive, the whole "restrictive system" was class legislation pure and simple, of which the English merchant and the English manufacturer were the beneficiaries. In their interest, the system aimed to control the imports of the colonies from abroad; their exports to other countries; their traffic with each other; their carrying trade; and their manufactures. Indirectly, of course, the English people remaining at home might profit by the monopoly; but the gains were unequally distributed.
At the Revolution, the three basic statutes of the seventeenth century were still in force. By the Act of 1660,(1)the importation of goods from any part of Asia, Africa, or America, whether British or foreign, is confined to English or colonial ships whereof the masters and at least three-fourths of the mariners must be English. (2) No commodities of foreign growth, production, or manufacture may be brought into England, Ireland, Wales, Guernsey, Jersey, or Berwick, in such English (or colonial) owned and built vessels, unless they come directly from the producing country or from the ports whence they are usually laden for transportation.
(3) Foreign carriers are absolutely excluded from the colonial market, whether shipping their own products or not. "Noe Goods or Commodities whatsoever," the act declares, "shall be Imported into or Exported out of" his majesty's possessions in Asia, Africa, or America except in English ships or ships built and owned in the plantations, "whereof the Master and three fourthes of the Marriners at least are English." (4) The coasting-trade is closed to foreigners, and no alien is permitted to be a factor or merchant in the colonies. (5) Furthermore, certain products are named in the act, later added to from time to time, and known as "enumerated articles," which may not be carried from the colonies, even in English ships, to any place other than to such English plantations or to England or Ireland.
These articles are sugar, tobacco, cotton-wool, indigo, ginger, fustic, and other dyeing woods. "This affected the English sugar islands of the West Indies and the southern colonies, which were obliged to send their products to the overstocked English or colonial markets, more than it affected New England, whose great staples, lumber, fish, oil, ashes, and furs, were free to find their best market, provided only they were sent in English or colonial ships." Naval stores were not yet included. This act, therefore, though by no means generous in its motive, is not intolerable. The colonists share equally with Englishmen at home in the rich monopolies of ship-building and the carrying trade. According to an elaborate tariff of 1660, discriminating against aliens, they may import all foreign goods, and, with the exception of the enumerated articles, export their own products to foreign countries, paying thereon the same import or export duty as when shipped to or from England by subjects of the crown residing in Great Britain.
On the other hand, they have lost the benefit of competition: foreigners are no longer permitted to carry their own products to plantation ports. For a time, at least, Virginians felt it a grievance that they could no longer export their tobacco in Dutch ships; just as in England, the cost of freight on European imports was raised. Throughout the act, colonial ships and colonial seamen are recognized as "English," a statute of 1662 clearing up any doubt which may have existed on that point. Scotchmen, however, were not included until after the union in 1707; and "Ireland" seems to have been put in the law by mistake. Hence, in 1670, the shipment of enumerated goods from the colonies directly to Ireland was forbidden, and between 1696 and 1731, even non-enumerated articles could not be sent to that country except by way of England. Likewise, the navigation laws prohibited the direct exportation of goods from Ireland to the colonies, although in 1704 an exception was made in the case of linen.
The enumeration of colonial products was prompted by a dual motive. The English merchant would thus gain a monopoly in the distribution of these goods, and the English manufacturer would secure a monopoly in the colonial supply of raw materials. Yet neither the merchant nor the manufacturer was satisfied with his advantage under the act of 1660. If now, after the model of the mediaeval "staple" towns, England were made the sole place for supplying the plantations with European goods, a still richer middleman's profit would be put within the merchant's grasp, and the manufacturer would find a greater demand from the colonists for his finished product in exchange for their raw materials.
Such is the aim of the "second" navigation act passed in 1663. The preamble significantly describes the people of his majesty's colonies as "Subjects of this His Kingdome of England"; and naively announces that the law is designed for "maintaining a greater correspondence and kindnesse betweene them and keepeing them in a firmer dependance upon" that kingdom "and rendring them yet more beneficiall and advantagious unto it," by making England the "Staple not onely of the Commodities of those Plantations but alsoe of the Commodities of other Countryes and Places for the support of them." Accordingly, except salt for the fisheries of New England and Newfoundland, wines of the Western Islands, or Azores, servants, horses, and victuals from Ireland and Scotland, the direct import trade of the colonies in European goods is entirely cut off; while, as before, the export trade to all foreign countries is forbidden in the enumerated articles again mentioned in the statute. Other goods the colonist might, indeed, carry directly to Europe, but his vessel must then return empty unless he was willing to transship his cargo by way of an English port.
Some advantages accrued to the colonists in case of such a re-exportation — a part or the whole of the duty was usually returned. Indeed, the people of England complained that Americans could get certain goods, such as German or Dutch linens, cheaper than they themselves could obtain them. Furthermore, it is strongly urged by Ashley, accepting the view of Brougham, that England was the natural entrepot for the exchange of colonial and European products, so that the restrictions on the direct trade imposed by the acts of 1660 and 1663 were not really a hardship. In the case of tobacco transshipped to Europe, he admits that the cost of freight may have been increased, though if so it would be "borne to some extent by the continental consumer." It seems to follow from this argument that the colonial consumer would have to pay the extra cost of freight on goods transshipped to him from Europe.
The intercolonial trade remained free. To appropriate a part of the benefits of this was the next step in the development of the restrictive system. The law regarding the enumerated commodities had been evaded. As early as 1662, it appears that tobacco was being delivered to Dutch vessels at sea, shipped directly to the Dutch plantations, or carried to New England and thence re-exported in Dutch ships to Europe. "Moreover, the products sent through England had paid duties, and the illegal trader was thus enabled to undersell the English merchant in the European markets." In admirable harmony with the spirit of the old colonial policy, the entire people of the plantations, guilty and innocent alike, were now to be punished for this offence. By the act of 1672, creating the famous "acute triangle" of trade, the whole traffic in the enumerated articles between one plantation and another — whether the goods were intended for home consumption or not — is subjected to a penalty. The trader, for instance, who will carry sugar from Jamaica to New England, or tobacco from Virginia to New York, must either render tribute at the place of shipment according to a tariff prescribed in the statute, or else give bond to unlade his cargo in an English port, there paying the usual duty before proceeding to his colonial destination. On some articles, the duties were heavy — tobacco, for instance, paying one penny a pound and white sugar five shillings the hundred-weight. In other cases, the charges seem to have been designed only to secure a record of the clearance, entrance, or destination of cargoes, and as a matter of fact, the colonists did not very seriously object to them.
It is, perhaps, not surprising that the restraint of American manufactures should be the next step in the expansion of the system. Before considering this, however, the enumerated articles demand further attention. The history of these commodities is very enlightening as to the effects of the mercantile theory. According to that doctrine, a monopoly of the colonial exports of raw materials would prove beneficial by encouraging English manufactures. The balance of trade would thus be secured, and the precious metals would come into the kingdom. "If England imported the raw materials from the colonies, she could pay for the same in manufactures; the precious metals would not be drained from England, but might even flow thither from the colonies. The question whether the balance of trade was unfavorable to both England and the colonies, regarded as a unit, affected the economists and statesmen but little. What they sought was a favorable balance for England alone."
New articles, therefore, were enumerated from time to time. Thus, in 1705, rice and molasses were put upon the list. The war of the Spanish Succession was then at hand. Accordingly, naval stores were enumerated and bounties offered for their production. Copper and furs came next in 1722. Tobacco "formed one-half of all the colonial exports." The enumeration with the excessive import duties did not, in the end, prove a serious injury to Virginia. There were compensations. The growth of tobacco in England — which at one time promised to become important — was prohibited; a much higher duty was laid upon the Spanish and Portuguese product; while the greater part of the charge on that of Virginia was returned on re-exportation, "between two-thirds and four-fifths" of the entire crop being thus carried to other countries. Nevertheless, the price fell — partly on account of over-production — and in 1733 the planters protested against the rate.
The first effect of the enumeration of rice, the staple product of South Carolina, was to deprive that colony of its monopoly of the Portuguese market. Consequently, the law was relaxed. In 1730, South Carolina and in 1735 Georgia were allowed to send rice directly to any port south of Cape Finisterre, provided it was exported in ships built or owned in Great Britain. In this instance, apparently, the colonists were excluded from a share in the profits of carrying their own goods. "Immediately, American rice regained control of its former market." The enumeration of furs in 1722, though accompanied by a heavy reduction in the import duty, did not increase the supply for the English market. The trade was already passing rapidly into French hands, and "neither restriction nor favor" had much effect upon a business "bound speedily to disappear." The placing of sugar and molasses on the list did not directly affect the continental colonies. It gave occasion, however, for the Molasses Act of 1733, which will be again referred to.
Equally instructive is the history of the bounty system. By the statute of 1705, already mentioned, renewed and supplemented by later acts, liberal premiums were granted on colonial masts, hemp, tar, pitch, and allied products sent to England; while in 1721, hemp and in 1722 all kinds of lumber were freed from English import duties. A monopoly of these products, which the plantations might thus be stimulated to produce, would, it was hoped, create a steady market for English manufactures. To some extent, the colonies benefited from the experiment. The premium on indigo granted in 1748 was successful. In the southern plantations, tar and pitch were produced and exported in considerable quantities. Between 1714 and 1774, it is alleged, £1,609,345 sterling were paid in premiums on colonial goods carried to British ports.
Yet in the main, the bounty system was a failure. For their staple products — their fish, lumber, and ship-timber — the northern plantations found their best market in Spain, Portugal, and the West Indies. The bounty system proved to be a vain effort to draw them from this lucrative commerce into new industries for the sake of the mother-country. Moreover, the disputes arising with the navy board touching claims for bounty, and with the king's officers regarding the execution of the laws for the protection of the forests, were a constant source of bad feeling. It is impossible, concludes a careful writer, "to determine to what extent the irritation of the New England woodsmen may have laid the foundation for the resentment which culminated in 1776,"; but "so far as one branch of industry is concerned, the economic independence of New England was declared and maintained many years before the final rupture with Great Britain."
Various circumstances favored the early rise of manufactures in the colonies. Everywhere there was plenty of iron, and the supply of fuel for smelting was unlimited. Wool for homespun and, for a time, beaver for hats could be found in abundance. The forests were filled with the best timber in the world for shipbuilding. Moreover, among the people were many skilled artisans from Europe, notably from Ireland, England, and France. But there was another cause more potent than even these natural conditions. The economic policy of Parliament had partially deprived the colonists of the means of importing the manufactures which they needed. The restrictive laws, by interfering with the profitable foreign market, had lessened the supply of ready money with which to make good the unfavorable balance of trade with England; besides, who could say when those laws might be more rigidly enforced?
On the other hand, the corn laws enacted during the reign of Charles II had closed the English market to the staples which the colonists might have exchanged for manufactured goods. In the interest of the land-owner, "prohibitory customs duties were levied on agricultural products, such as rye, barley, peas, beans, oats, and wheat"; the importation of provisions, including beef, pork, bacon, and apparently butter and cheese, was prohibited; and a discriminating duty was laid on oil and blubber imported in colonial ships. "Thus," concludes Beer, "New England, and later the middle colonies, not being allowed to exchange their normal products for England's manufactures, were forced to begin manufacturing for themselves." This unforeseen result was intolerable to the disciples of the mercantile theory. According to that theory, the colonies were useful chiefly as consumers of English goods for which they were expected to supply the raw materials. Accordingly, having forced American manufacturers into existence by one economic blunder, Parliament tried to destroy them by another. The woollen industry was attacked in 1699; the exportation of beaver hats of American production was forbidden in 1732; while in 1750, the manufacture of rolled iron and of steel was restrained.
Such was in character was the old restrictive system. Its triple monopoly of shipping, trade, and manufacture had the full and hearty approval of economic writers. Josiah Child — whose book was written in 1665 and first published in enlarged form in 1668 — frankly lays it down "that all colonies, or plantations, do endanger their mother-kingdoms, of which the trades of such plantations are not confined by severe laws, and good execution of those laws, to the mother-kingdom"; and that in particular "New-England is the most prejudicial plantation to the kingdom of England."
Joshua Gee, an adviser of the board of trade, "who is said to have advised an American Stamp Act by parliament," produced a book in 1729 whose spirit is entirely in harmony with that of the colonial system. To make the plantations more profitable to Great Britain, he would "strengthen" the navigation act and imitate the policy of Spain and other European states in preventing "their natural born Subjects from going upon such Manufactures as doe interfere with theirs at home." In recognition of the soundness of Gee's doctrine, a new edition of his work was brought out in 1767, just as the new revenue acts were being matured. John Ashley, in 1741, pleads for a mitigation of the rigor of some of the laws affecting the colonies. Yet his point of view is the same as that of his predecessors. If he is more humane, it is because lenity will render the plantations — those "junior Branches" of the empire — more profitable to the mother-country. But in the works cited, neither Ashley nor Gee, as sometimes alleged, appears to have advised the taxing of the colonies for revenue; although, had the duty imposed been lowered as Ashley suggested, and the molasses act of 1733 enforced, it would have become, in fact as well as in form, a revenue act.
It may seem strange that for a century, a system so selfish in motive and so false in principle should have been borne without more serious protest. The reasons, however, are not far to seek. The system as actually administered did not prevent the great material prosperity of the colonists; they had a commerce profitable to them, and they had a political relation of great significance. On the one hand, from England they got capital and credit; under the English law their property and civil rights were secured; their commerce was carried on under the protection of the British flag; and in some measure they were partners of Englishmen at home in the very monopolies which they endured. Indeed, it is believed that the exclusion of foreign competition in the carrying trade actually "stimulated ship-building and the shipping interest in the colonies."
Furthermore, the making of England the staple for the exchange of colonial and European goods was not a great hardship, for it is almost certain that the English middleman would have had the bulk of this trade without the aid of restrictive laws. Even the harsh restraint of manufacturers was quietly accepted, because, as it turned out, investments in land and other enterprises were found more lucrative. On the other hand, the colonists enjoyed local self-government and were relieved from contributing directly to the imperial revenues. They were expected to aid in their own defence, but because they "were not a part of the realm of England," they were not taxed to support the army when sent against a foreign foe. They shared more actively in the functions of political life than most of them could have done in the old home.
Why, then, can the old colonial system be regarded as the primary cause of the Revolution? Again, the answer is near at hand. It was wrong in principle and degrading in motive. Such a regime of political and economic paternalism could not long be endured by a robust and liberty-loving people dwelling three thousand miles away from the seat of power. In American history, as elsewhere, the value of sentiments must not be overlooked. Psychic causes are, in the end, more potent than material causes. Besides, the paternal system had always been the source of more or less irritation and discontent. Indeed, something is misleading in representing the privileges permitted by it as "compensations." Were they not rights which, in fuller measure, the colonies, more justly looked upon as integral parts of the British nation, ought to have enjoyed without paying an extra price for them?
It must not be forgotten that in both of its aspects the colonial system was laxly administered. The prerogative was but fitfully enforced. The laws of trade were systematically evaded, although, so far as the European traffic is concerned, the amount of smuggling seems to have been less than is commonly supposed. The failure during a century to make any serious effort to execute these laws in effect established a prescriptive right to such indulgence which could not be denied with safety. The Molasses Act of 1733, whose execution would have destroyed the most lucrative trade of the northern colonies, was a dead letter. It remained, nevertheless, a social menace. Who could say at what moment prerogative and Parliament might unite in its execution, or when it might be made in fact a revenue law?
This moment came at the close of the French and Indian War. Just as the American people were becoming aware of their real strength, faintly perceiving the great destiny which awaited them, the British ministry made the fatal resolve of rigidly enforcing the acts of navigation and trade and of depriving the colonists of those very "compensations" which thus far had enabled them quietly to endure the colonial system. What would be the reply of the American people?