A Parliamentary Examination: Stamp Act and Assemblies
A. The proceedings of the people in America have been considered too much together. The proceedings of the Assemblies have been very different from those of the mobs, and should be distinguished, as having no connection with each other. The Assemblies have only peaceably resolved what they take to be their rights; they have taken no measures for opposition by force, they have not built a fort, raised a man, or provided a grain of ammunition, in order to such opposition. The ringleaders of riots, they think, ought to be punished; they would punish them themselves, if they could. Every sober, sensible man would wish to see rioters punished, as, otherwise, peaceable people have no security of person or estate; but as to an internal tax, how small soever, laid by the legislature here on the people there, while they have no representatives in this legislature, I think it will never be submitted to; they will oppose it to the last; they do not consider it as at all necessary for you to raise money on them by your taxes; because they are, and always have been, ready to raise money by taxes among themselves, and to grant large sums, equal to their abilities, upon requisition from the crown.
Franklin proceeded to express the opinion that the late war had been conducted by England for her own interests, and that it was not, in a proper sense, a war for the good of the colonies.
127. Q. Is it not necessary to send troops to America to defend the Americans against the Indians?
A. No, by no means; it never was necessary. They defended themselves when they were but a handful, and the Indians much more numerous. They continually gained ground, and have driven the Indians over the mountains, without any troops sent to their assistance from this country. And can it be thought necessary now to send troops for their defence from those diminished Indian tribes, when the colonies have become so populous and so strong? There is not the least occasion for it; they are very able to defend themselves.
132. Q. If the Stamp Act should be repealed, and an act should pass, ordering the Assemblies of the colonies to indemnify the sufferers by the riots, would they obey it?
A. That is a question I cannot answer.
133. Q. Suppose the king should require the colonies to grant a revenue, and the Parliament should be against their doing it, do they think they can grant a revenue to the king, without the consent of the Parliament of Great Britain?
A. That is a deep question. As to my own opinion, I should think myself at liberty to do it, and should do it, if I liked the occasion.
135. Q. If the act should pass requiring the American Assemblies to make compensation to the sufferers, and they should disobey it, and then the Parliament should, by another act, lay an internal tax, would they then obey it?
A. The people will pay no internal tax; and I think an act to oblige the Assemblies to make compensation is unnecessary; for I am of opinion that as soon as the present heats are abated they will take the matter into consideration, and, if it is right to be done, they will do it of themselves.
152. Q. Don't you know that there is in the Pennsylvania charter an express reservation of the right of Parliament to lay taxes there?
A. I know there is a clause in the charter by which the king grants that he will levy no taxes on the inhabitants, unless it be with the consent of the Assembly, or by act of Parliament.
153. Q. How, then, could the Assembly of Pennsylvania assert that laying a tax on them by the Stamp Act was an infringement of their rights?
A. They understand it thus; by the same charter, and otherwise, they are entitled to all the privileges and liberties of Englishmen; they find in the Great Charters, and the Petition and Declaration of Rights, that one of the privileges of English subjects is that they are not to be taxed but by their common consent; they have therefore relied upon it, from the first settlement of the province, that the Parliament never would, nor could, by color of that clause in the charter, assume a right of taxing them, till it had qualified itself to exercise such right, by admitting representatives from the people to be taxed, who ought to make a part of that common consent.
154. Q. Are there any words in the charter that justify that construction?
A. "The common rights of Englishmen," as declared by Magna Charta, and the Petition of Right, all justify it.
166. Q. If the Stamp Act should be repealed, would it induce the Assemblies of America to acknowledge the rights of Parliament to tax them, and would they erase their resolutions?
A. No, never.
167. Q. Are there no means of obliging them to erase those resolutions?
A. None that I know of; they will never do it, unless compelled by force of arms.
168. Q. Is there a power on earth that can force them to erase them?
A. No power, how great soever, can force men to change their opinions.
169. Q. Do they consider the post-office as a tax, or as a regulation?
A. Not as a tax, but as a regulation and conveniency; every Assembly encouraged it, and supported it in its infancy, by grants of money, which they would not otherwise have done; and the people have always paid the postage.
173. Q. What used to be the pride of the Americans?
A. To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain.
174. Q. What is now their pride?
A. To wear their old clothes over again till they can make new ones.