Conceived in Liberty: Volume III: Advance to Revolution
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CONCEIVED IN LIBERTY VOLUME HI The Ludwig von Mises Institute dedicates this volume to all of its generous donors, and in particular wishes to thank these Patrons: Gary G. Schlarbaum Mr. & Mrs. Justin G. Bradburn, Jr. Dr. John Brätland John W.T. Dabbs Stephen W Modzelewski Sir John & Lady Dalhoff John W Deming Dr. & Mrs. George G. Eddy James L. Bailey Roger L. Erickson James Bailey Foundation Dr. Larry J. Eshelman Bill D. Brady Bud Evans Brady Industries Harley-Davidson of Reno Jerome Bruni Mr. & Mrs. Walter A. Frantz, III The Jerome V Bruni Foundation Douglas E. French WW Caruth, III Albert L. Hillman, Jr. Barbara Bullitt Christian Donald L Ifland G. Douglas Collins, Jr. Michael L. Keiser Mr. & Mrs. Willard Fischer Jim Kuden Larry R. Gies Arthur L. Loeb Mr. & Mrs. William W Massey, Jr. Roland Manarin Richard Mclnnis Joseph Edward Paul Melville E.H. Morse Robert A. Moore Mr. & Mrs. Victor Niederhoffer James A. O'Connor Niederhoffer Investments, Inc. James O'Neill Mr. &C Mrs. Mason Pearsall Michael Robb Don Printz, M.D. Mr. & Mrs. John Salvador James M. Rodney Conrad Schneiker Mr. & Mrs. Edward Schoppe, Jr. Sheldon Rose Jack DeBar Smith Menlo Smith Sunmark Capital Corp. Mr. & Mrs. Allan R. Spreen Lawrence Van Someren, Sr. William V Stephens Byron L. Stoeser J. Billy VerPlanck Mark M. Adamo Mr. & Mrs. Quinten E. Ward Maurice Brainard Family Trust Dr. Thomas L. Wenck Richard Bleiberg David Westrate John Hamilton Bolstad Betty K. Wolfe Mr. & Mrs. J.R. Bost Walter Wylie CONCEIVED IN LIBERTY VOLUME III ADVANCE TO REVOLUTION, 1760-1775 MURRAY N. ROTHBARD MISES INSTITUTE AUBURN, ALABAMA Copyright © 1999 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute, 518 West Magnolia Avenue, Auburn, Alabama 36832-4528. The first edition was published in 1976 by Arlington House, Publishers. All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles. ISBN:0-945466-26-9 Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and rec- onciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free; if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending; if we mean not basely to abandon the noble strug- gle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged our- selves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained,—we must fight! I repeat it, sir,—we must fight! An appeal to arms, and to the God of hosts, is all that is left us. Patrick Henry Contents PREFACE 11 PART I The British Army and the Western Lands 15 1. The Stage Is Set 17 2. The Ohio Lands: Pontiac's Rebellion 19 3. The Ohio Lands: The Proclamation Line of 1763 24 4. The British Army and the Grand Design 27 PART II Enforcement of Mercantilism 35 5. Writs of Assistance in Massachusetts 37 6. The White Pine Act 40 7. Molasses and the American Revenue Act 41 8. Reaction in Massachusetts 48 9. Reaction in Rhode Island and Connecticut 51 10. Reaction in New York 55 11. Reaction in Pennsylvania 57 12. Reaction in New Jersey 59 13. Reaction in the South 60 14. Enforcement Troubles 62 15. The Newport Case 64 PART III Ideology and Religion 69 16. The Threat of the Anglican Bishops 71 17. The Parsons' Cause 74 18. Wilkes and Liberty, 1763-1764 80 PART IV Edge of Revolution: The Stamp Act Crisis 87 19. Passage of the Stamp Act 89 20. Initial Reaction to the Stamp Act 96 21. Patrick Henry Intervenes 99 22. Sam Adams Rallies Boston 102 23. Rhode Island Responds 110 24. Response in New York 114 25. Response in Virginia 116 26. Response in Connecticut 118 27. Response in Pennsylvania 120 28. Response in the Carolinas and Georgia 122 29. Official Protests 125 30. The Stamp Act Congress 127 31. Ignoring the Stamp Tax 130 32. Government Replaced by the Sons of Liberty 138 33. Repeal of the Stamp Act 143 34. Aftermath of Repeal 154 PART V The Townshend Crisis, 1766-1770 157 35. The Mutiny Act 159 36. The New York Land Revolt 162 37. Passage of the Townshend Acts 166 38. The Nonimportation Movement Begins 168 39. Conflict in Boston 172 40. Wilkes and Liberty: The Massacre of St. George's Fields 177 41. British Troops Occupy Boston 181 42. Nonimportation in the South 184 43. Rhode Island Joins Nonimportation 188 44. Boycotting the Importers 190 45. The Boston Massacre 196 46. Conflict in New York 203 47. Wilkes and America 206 48. Partial Repeal of the Townshend Duties 212 49. New York Breaks Nonimportation 215 PART VI The Regulator Uprisings 225 50. The South Carolina Regulation 227 51. The North Carolina Regulation 233 PART VII Prelude to Revolution, 1770-1775 247 52. The Uneasy Lull, 1770-1772 249 53. The Gaspée Incident 252 54. The Committees of Correspondence 255 55. Tea Launches the Final Crisis 260 56. The Boston Tea Party 265 57. The Other Colonies Resist Tea 269 58. The Coercive Acts 272 59. The Quebec Act 276 60. Boston Calls for the Solemn League and Covenant 279 61. Selecting Delegates to the First Continental Congress 285 62. Resistance in Massachusetts 293 63. The First Continental Congress 296 64. The Continental Association 301 65. The Impact on Britain 311 66. The Tory Press in America 315 67. Massachusetts: Nearing the Final Conflict 318 68. Support from Virginia 323 69. 'The Shot Heard Round the World": The Final Conflict Begins 326 PART VIII Other Forces for Revolution 331 70. The Expansion of Libertarian Thought 333 71. The Vermont Revolution: The Green Mountain Boys 340 72. The Revolutionary Movement: Ideology and Motivation 350 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY 357 INDEX 363 Preface What! Another American history book? The reader may be pardoned for wondering about the point of another addition to the seemingly inexhaustible flow of books and texts on American history. One problem, as pointed out in the bibliographical essay at the end of Volume I, is that the survey studies of American history have squeezed out the actual stuff of history, the narrative facts of the important events of the past. With the true data of history squeezed out, what we have left are compressed summaries and the historian's interpretations and judgments of the data. There is nothing wrong with the historian's having such judgments; indeed, without them, history would be a meaningless and giant almanac listing dates and events with no causal links. But, without the narrative facts, the reader is deprived of the data from which he can himself judge the historian's interpretations and evolve interpretations of his own. A major point of this and the other volumes is to put back the historical narrative into American history. Facts, of course, must be selected and ordered in accordance with judg- ments of importance, and such judgments are necessarily tied into the histori- an's basic world outlook. My own basic perspective on the history of man, and a fortiori on the history of the United States, is to place central impor- tance on the great conflict which is eternally waged between Liberty and Power, a conflict, by the way, which was seen with crystal clarity by the Amer· ican revolutionaries of the eighteenth century. I see the liberty of the individ- ual not only as a great moral good in itself (or, with Lord Acton, as the highest political good), but also as the necessary condition for the flowering of all the other goods that mankind cherishes: moral virtue, civilization, the arts and sciences, economic prosperity. Out of liberty, then, stem the glories 11 of civilized life. But liberty has always been threatened by the encroachments of power, power which seeks to suppress, control, cripple, tax, and exploit the fruits of liberty and production. Power, then, the enemy of liberty, is conse- quently the enemy of all the other goods and fruits of civilization that man- kind holds dear. And power is almost always centered in and focused on that central repository of power and violence: the state. With Albert Jay Nock, the twentieth-century American political philosopher, I see history as centrally a race and conflict betwen "social power"—the productive consequence of vol- untary interactions among men—and state power. In those eras of history when liberty—social power—has managed to race ahead of state power and control, the country and even mankind have flourished. In those eras when state power has managed to catch up with or surpass social power, mankind suffers and declines. For decades, American historians have quarreled about "conflict" or "con- sensus" as the guiding leitmotif of the American past. Clearly, I belong in the "conflict" rather than the "consensus" camp, with the proviso that I see the central conflict as not between classes (social or economic), or between ideolo- gies, but between Power and Liberty, State and Society.