Historians have noted the similarities between John Locke's works and the context of the grievances.[2] Historical precedents such as the Magna Carta and The Bill of Rights 1689, had established the principle that the King was not to interfere with the Rights of Englishmen held by the people. In the view of the American colonies, the King had opposed the very purpose of governance by opposing laws deemed necessary for the public good.[2]
Grievance 1
"He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good."
The Colonial assemblies passed various legislation, including ones on governing their slaves, creating colonial currencies, and requesting representatives to be sent to the British Parliament. However, the King withheld his approval. Henry Seymour Conway, the Secretary of State for the Southern Department, informed the Americans that Parliament would not pursue legal action against colonists who had actively protested against the Stamp Acts, provided that the assemblies would pay for any damage to public property. In complying with this demand, the Assembly of Massachusetts stated it would be "wholesome and necessary for the public good" to grant a blanket pardon to all who had been engaged in the protests, and passed the act. However, George III refused to ratify it.[3]
Self-governance was at the heart of the Founding Fathers' concerns, and each time George III refused to ratify Colonial legislation, he intensified that concern.[4][5]
Grievance 2
"He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them."
This is an indictment of the King's appointed governors in the colonies, who had refused to endorse laws colonists viewed as conducive to the public good. The Massachusetts "Neglect" is one of two reasons mentioned by John Locke as a valid reason for a dissolved government.[2]
Grievance 3
"He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only."
Chapter 19 of Two Treatises of Government notes that "when such a single person, or prince, sets up his own arbitrary will, in place of the laws, which are the will of the society, declared by the legislative, then the legislative is changed." Locke lists changing the legislature without the people's knowledge or consent as another situation that justifies reform of government.[2]
Grievance 4
"He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, and also uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures."
On May 20, 1774, Parliament passed the Massachusetts Government Act, which nullified the Massachusetts Charter of 1691[6] and allowed governor Thomas Gage to dissolve the local provincial assembly and force them to meet in Salem.[7]
Grievance 5
"He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people."
The Massachusetts Assembly issued a circular to other Assemblies in 1768 urging mutual co-operation in asserting the principle that Great Britain had no right to tax the colonists without their consent. The King then demanded that the Assembly rescind the resolutions expressed in the circular, and he ordered the governor to dissolve the Massachusetts Assembly immediately if they refused. Other assemblies were warned by the Government not to imitate Massachusetts, and the King dissolved any that refused to yield to their royally appointed governors. The North Carolina General Assembly and Virginia General Assembly were dissolved for denying the right of the King to tax the colonies or to extradite Americans from the colonies to stand trial. Several assemblies discussed forming a general Congress with delegates from all the colonies in 1774, and the King dissolved nearly all those that entertained the idea.[3] The Virginia House of Burgesses had implemented five resolutions, however, attempted to rescind the fifth on the 31st of May, 1765. As the papers had already printed their implementation, Royal Governor Francis Fauquier dissolved the House for adopting the resolutions.[8]
Grievance 6
"He has refused for a long time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and convulsions within."
The Assembly of Massachusetts was dissolved in July 1768, and was not permitted to meet again until the last Wednesday of May 1769; even then, they found a military guard surrounding their meeting location with cannons pointed directly at it.[3]
Grievance 7
"He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands."
There had been a large influx of German immigrants immigrating to America, and the King wanted to discourage such immigration. The Government was concerned over the increasing power of the colonies and the widespread popularity of republican ideals among German immigrants. After the peace of 1763, few people settled west of the Alleghenies due to these restrictions, and immigration had almost ceased by the time of the revolution.[3]
Grievance 8
"He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers."
Parliament deprived the people of Massachusetts the right to elect their judges in 1774. Instead, the King appointed all the colony's judges, and they were dependent on him for their salaries and subject to his directions—and those salaries came from taxes and duties on the colonists. The same act deprived the colonists of the benefit of trial by jury, and the "administration of justice" was obstructed. Other colonies expressed similar grievances concerning the courts of law.[3]
Grievance 9
"He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries."
Judges and royally appointed governors did not depend upon the colonists for their income; they drew their salaries from the King, and the American colonists saw that this led their officers to sympathize with Parliament but not with the colonies. The Colonial assemblies protested against these measures, leading to the formation of the Committees of correspondence in 1774.[11][12]
When Chief Justice Oliver declared it to be his intention to receive his salary from the crown,[13] the Assembly proceeded to impeach him and petitioned Governor Thomas Hutchinson for his removal.[14] The governor refused compliance and great irritation ensued.[15]
Grievance 10
"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."
After the passage of the Stamp Act, stamp distributors were appointed in ever considerable town. In 1766 and 1767, acts for the collection of duties created "swarms of officers", all of whom received high salaries; and when in 1768, admiralty and vice-admiralty courts were established on a new basis, an increase in the number of officers was made. The high salaries and extensive perquisites of all of these were paid with the people's money, and thus "swarms of officers" "ate out their substance."[3]
Grievance 11
"He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures."
In 1763, Britain and France signed the Treaty of Paris to end the Seven Years' War. Parliament realized they needed to keep a permanent army in the American colonies in order both to keep the French from reasserting their control of their former territories and to prevent open warfare between the colonists and the Native Americans along the frontier. Although the colonists initially welcomed the protection provided by the soldiers[16] by the 1760s and early 1770s they had increasingly come to see the army as a tool for Parliament to enforce various revenue acts—e.g. the Stamp Act and Townshend Acts—that many colonists viewed as illegitimate. The last straw came in 1774 when Parliament passed the Quartering Act in response to the Boston Tea Party. This act allowed army officers to appropriate private property to quarter their troops without the consent of the property's owners. When General Thomas Gage occupied Boston in September 1774, he relied on this act to quarter his troops. It was Gage's military occupation of Boston that led the Second Continental Congress to include this grievance in the Declaration of Independence.
Grievance 12
"He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power."
Upon his arrival at Boston in 1774, Thomas Gage – commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America – assumed control of the civil government as royal governor of Massachusetts. Both offices were held by royal appointment and without the approval of the people or the provincial government of Massachusetts. This was done according to the authority of Parliament (see: Massachusetts Government Act) in which the colonies were not represented. The purpose of this arrangement was to enforce the payment of customs, quell insurrection and resistance, and execute punitive measures. The Continental Congress considered that the police power of the state had been removed from accountability to the people of the province or their local, duly-elected leaders and could thus be used despotically to further the unjust policies imposed by the crown.[3]
Grievance 13
"He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:"
The "others" with whom the King is thus said to have combined were the members of Parliament, the existence of which as a legally constituted body possessing authority over them the Americans thus refused even by implication to recognize.[17] This was due to the establishment of a Board of Trade, to act independently of colonial legislation through its creatures (resident commissioners of customs) in the enforcement of revenue laws. This was altogether foreign to the constitution of any of the colonies and produced great indignation. The establishment of this power and the remodelling of the admiralty courts to exclude trial by jury therein, in most cases rendered the government fully obnoxious to the charge in the text. The people felt their degradation under such petty tyranny and resolved to spurn it. It was effectually done in Boston, and the government, after all its bluster, was obliged to recede. In 1774, the members of the council of Massachusetts (answering to our Senate), were, by a Parliamentary enactment, chosen by the king, to hold the office during his pleasure. Almost unlimited power was also given to the governor, and the people were indeed subjected to "a jurisdiction foreign to their constitution" by these members of royalty.[3]
Grievance 14
"For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:"
In 1765, Parliament passed an amendment to the Mutiny Act commonly referred to as the Quartering Act. It allowed soldiers stationed in the colonies to request shelter from any citizen, and created the punishment for refusal.[3]
Grievance 15
"For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:"
In 1768, two citizens of Annapolis, in Maryland, died in a violent dispute against a group of Marines. The trial was controversial; and in the face of overwhelming evidence against them, the defendants were acquitted.[3]
Grievance 16
"For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world".
In the years leading up to the American Revolution, the Navigation Acts had been passed to control trade with the colonies of Spain and France, hindering significant sources of revenue for the American colonists.[3]
Grievance 17
"For imposing taxes on us without our consent:"
In addition to the revenue taxes imposed from and were attempted to be collected utilizing writs of assistance, the Stamp Act was passed, and duties upon paper, painters' colors, glass, tea, and many other goods, were levied. This worsened tension between the colonists and the government, as most colonists believed that representation was needed as a justification for being taxed, and the Government was continually always trying to pay off debt from the Seven Years' War.[18][3]
Grievance 18
"For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Jury trial:"
After these functionaries were driven from Boston in 1768, an act was passed that placed violations of the revenue laws under the jurisdiction of the admiralty courts, where the offenders were tried, but the prosecutors were biased towards the crown.[3]
Grievance 19
"For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:"
On the fifteenth of April, 1774, Lord North introduced a bill in Parliament, entitled "A bill for the impartial administration of justice in the cases of persons questioned for any acts done by them in the execution of the laws, or for the suppression of riots and tumults in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England." This bill, known as the Administration of Justice Act, provided that in case any person indicted for murder in that province, or any other capital offense, or an indictment for riot, the resistance of the magistrate, or impeding the revenue laws in the smallest degree, he might, at the option of the Governor, or, in his absence, of the Lieutenant Governor, be taken to another colony, or transported from the colonies, for trial.
The bill met violent opposition in parliament. The minister seemed to be actuated more by a spirit of retaliation, than by a conviction of the necessity of such a measure. "We must show the Americans," said he, "that we will no longer sit quietly under their insults; and also, that even when roused, our measures are not cruel or vindictive, but necessary and efficacious." Colonel Barre denounced the bill in unmeasured terms. "This," said he, "is indeed the most extraordinary resolution that was ever heard in the Parliament of England. It offers new encouragement to military insolence, already so insupportable".[19]
The text of the bill contained the following:
In that case, it shall and may be lawful for the governor, or lieutenant-governor, to direct, with the advice and consent of the council, that the inquisition, indictment, or appeal, shall be tried in some other of his Majesty's colonies, or Great Britain.[20]
Grievance 20
"For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:"[3]
This refers to the Quebec Act of 1774 which expanded the use of French civil law in Quebec (as compared to English common law) and expanded Canadian borders into what is now the Midwestern states of the United States.[21]
Grievance 21
"For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:"
This is a reiteration of a charge already considered, and refers to the alteration of the Massachusetts charter, to make judges and other officers independent of the people, and subservient to the crown. The governor was empowered to remove and appoint all inferior judges, the attorney-generals, provost-marshals, and justices of the peace, and to appoint sheriffs independent of the council. As the sheriffs chose jurors, trial by jury became mostly nonexistent. The people had hitherto been allowed, by their charter, to select jurors; now the entire matter was placed in the hands of the government.[3]
Grievance 22
"For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever".
This, too, is another phase of the charge just considered. Suppression occurred of the Legislature of New York, and in several cases, the governors, after dissolving Colonial Assemblies, assumed the right to make proclamations stand in the place of statute law. Lord Dunmore assumed this right in 1775, and so did Sir James Wright of Georgia, and Lord William Campbell of South Carolina.[3]
Grievance 23
"He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us."
In his message to Parliament early in 1775, George III declared the colonists to be in a state of open rebellion; and by sending armies to the Americas, he "abdicated government," by thus declaring them no longer under his protection. Shortly after, the Prohibitory Act was passed by Parliament. He sanctioned the acts of governors in employing Native Americans to quell his rebellion, and negotiated the hiring of German soldiers.[3]
John Adams said of the Prohibitory act: "It throws thirteen colonies out of the royal protection, levels all distinctions, and makes us independent in spite of our supplications and entreaties ... It may be fortunate that the act of independency should come from the British Parliament rather than the American Congress."[22]
Grievance 24
"He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people."
Lord Dunmore ordered the seizure of several American merchant vessels, and several naval assaults were made upon the colonies, disrupting the affected towns.[3][23]
Grievance 25
"He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and unworthy the Head of a civilized nation."
"He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands."
An act of Parliament, passed toward the close of December 1775, authorized the capture of all American vessels, and also directed the treatment of the crews of armed vessels to be impressed and not kept prisoners of war.[25][26] This act was condemned on the floor of Parliament as unworthy of a Christian people, and "a refinement of cruelty unknown among savage nations."[3]
"He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions."
This was done in several instances. Dunmore was charged with a design to employ Native Americans (derogatorily called "savages") against the Virginians as early as 1774. Dunmore's Proclamation in November, 1775, encouraged a slave rebellion against colonial masters. He was also concerned with Governor Gage and others, and under instructions from the Government Ministry, ordered the Shawnee and other native inhabitants of the Ohio country to fight against the colonists. Emissaries were also sent among the Cherokee and Muscogee for the same purpose; and all of the tribes of the Six Nations, except the Oneida, fought against the colonists when the war began.[3]
The Continental Congress was a series of legislative bodies, with some executive function, for the thirteen colonies of Great Britain in North America, and the newly declared United States before, during, and after the American Revolutionary War. The Continental Congress refers to both the First and Second Congresses of 1774–1781 and at the time, also described the Congress of the Confederation of 1781–1789. The Confederation Congress operated as the first federal government until being replaced following ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Until 1785, the Congress met predominantly at what is today Independence Hall in Philadelphia, though it was relocated temporarily on several occasions during the Revolutionary War and the fall of Philadelphia.
The Stamp Act 1765, also known as the Duties in American Colonies Act 1765, was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which imposed a direct tax on the British colonies in America and required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper from London which included an embossed revenue stamp. Printed materials included legal documents, magazines, playing cards, newspapers, and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies, and it had to be paid in British currency, not in colonial paper money.
The Intolerable Acts, sometimes referred to as the Insufferable Acts or Coercive Acts, were a series of five punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws aimed to punish Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest of the Tea Act, a tax measure enacted by Parliament in May 1773. In Great Britain, these laws were referred to as the Coercive Acts. They were a key development leading to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in April 1775.
The Quartering Acts were two or more Acts of British Parliament requiring local governments of Britain's North American colonies to provide the British soldiers with housing and food. Each of the Quartering Acts was an amendment to the Mutiny Act and required annual renewal by Parliament. They were originally intended as a response to issues that arose during the French and Indian War and soon became a source of tensions between the inhabitants of the Thirteen Colonies and the government in London. These tensions would later lead toward the American Revolution.
The Massachusetts Government Act was passed by the Parliament of Great Britain, receiving royal assent on 20 May 1774. The act effectively abrogated the 1691 charter of the Province of Massachusetts Bay and gave its royally-appointed governor wide-ranging powers. The colonists declared that it altered, by parliamentary fiat, the basic structure of colonial government, and vowed to block its implementation. The act was a major step on the road to the start of the American Revolution in 1775.
The Administration of Justice Act, or An Act for the Impartial Administration of Justice, also popularly called the Monkey Act or Murder Act, was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. It covered the treatment of British officials in the Massachusetts Bay colony and became law on 20 May 1774.
The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in New England which became one of the thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III and Mary II, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and was based in the merging of several earlier British colonies in New England. The charter took effect on May 14, 1692, and included the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Plymouth Colony, the Province of Maine, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick; the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the direct successor. Maine has been a separate state since 1820, and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are now Canadian provinces, having been part of the colony only until 1697.
The Stamp Act Congress, also known as the Continental Congress of 1765, was a meeting held in New York City in the colonial Province of New York. It included representatives from some of the British colonies in North America. It was the second gathering of elected representatives from British American colonies after the Albany Convention of 1754. The Congress sought to devise a unified protest against new British taxes by the British Parliament, which passed the Stamp Act, requiring the use of specialty stamped British paper for legal documents, playing cards, calendars, newspapers, and dice for virtually all business in the colonies starting on November 1, 1765.
"No taxation without representation" is a political slogan that originated in the American Revolution and which expressed one of the primary grievances of the American colonists for Great Britain. In short, many colonists believed that as they were not represented in the distant British parliament, any taxes it imposed on the colonists were unconstitutional and were a denial of the colonists' rights as Englishmen.
In response to the Stamp and Tea Acts, the Declaration of Rights and Grievances was a document written by the Stamp Act Congress and passed on October 14, 1765. American colonists opposed the acts because they were passed without the consideration of the colonists' opinion, violating their belief that there should be "no taxation without Representation". The Declaration of Rights raised fourteen points of colonial protest but was not directed exclusively at the Stamp Act of 1765, which required that documents, newspapers, and playing cards be printed on special stamped and taxed paper. In addition to the specific protests of the Stamp Act taxes, it made the assertions which follow:
The Massachusetts Circular Letter was a statement written by Samuel Adams and James Otis Jr., and passed by the Massachusetts House of Representatives in February 1768 in response to the Townshend Acts. Reactions to the letter brought heightened tensions between the British Parliament and Massachusetts, and resulted in the military occupation of Boston by the British Army, which contributed to the coming of the American Revolution.
Vice Admiralty Courts were juryless courts located in British colonies that were granted jurisdiction over local legal matters related to maritime activities, such as disputes between merchants and seamen.
The Prohibitory Act was British legislation in late 1775 that cut off all trade between the Thirteen Colonies and England and removed the colonies from the King's protection. In essence, it was a declaration of economic warfare by Britain as punishment to the American colonies for the rebellion against the King and British rule that became known as the American Revolutionary War.
Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania is a series of essays written by the Pennsylvania lawyer and legislator John Dickinson (1732–1808) and published under the pseudonym "A Farmer" from 1767 to 1768. The twelve letters were widely read and reprinted throughout the Thirteen Colonies, and were important in uniting the colonists against the Townshend Acts in the run-up to the American Revolution. According to many historians, the impact of the Letters on the colonies was unmatched until the publication of Thomas Paine's Common Sense in 1776. The success of the letters earned Dickinson considerable fame.
Samuel Adams was an American statesman, political philosopher, and a Founding Father of the United States. He was a politician in colonial Massachusetts, a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and other founding documents, and one of the architects of the principles of American republicanism that shaped the political culture of the United States. He was a second cousin to his fellow Founding Father, President John Adams.
The Massachusetts Provincial Congress (1774–1780) was a provisional government created in the Province of Massachusetts Bay early in the American Revolution. Based on the terms of the colonial charter, it exercised de facto control over the rebellious portions of the province, and after the British withdrawal from Boston in March 1776, the entire province. When Massachusetts Bay declared its independence in 1776, the Congress continued to govern under this arrangement for several years. Increasing calls for constitutional change led to a failed proposal for a constitution produced by the Congress in 1778, and then a successful constitutional convention that produced a constitution for the state in 1780. The Provincial Congress came to an end with elections in October 1780.
The Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress was a statement adopted by the First Continental Congress on October 14, 1774, in response to the Intolerable Acts passed by the British Parliament. The Declaration outlined colonial objections to the Intolerable Acts, listed a colonial bill of rights, and provided a detailed list of grievances. It was similar to the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, passed by the Stamp Act Congress a decade earlier.
The Petition to the King was a petition sent to King George III by the First Continental Congress in 1774, calling for the repeal of the Intolerable Acts. The King's rejection of the Petition, was one of the causes of the later United States Declaration of Independence and American Revolutionary War. The Continental Congress had hoped to resolve conflict without a war.
The Massachusetts Convention of Towns was an extralegal assembly held in Boston in response to the news that British troops would soon be arriving to crack down on anti-British rioting. Delegates from 96 Massachusetts towns gathered in Faneuil Hall to discuss their options. The more militant faction, led by James Otis Jr., Samuel Adams, and John Hancock, wanted to organize an armed resistance. The more conservative faction, led by convention chairman Thomas Cushing, preferred to lodge a written complaint. The conservatives won out, and the delegates endorsed a series of mild resolutions before disbanding.
The First North Carolina Provincial Congress was the first of five extra-legal unicameral bodies that met beginning in the summer of 1774. They were modeled after the colonial lower house. These congresses created a government structure, issued bills of credit to pay for the movement, and organized an army for defense, in preparation for the state of North Carolina. This First Congress met in New Bern from August 25 to August 27, 1774. John Harvey served as president. These Provincial congresses paved the way for the first meeting of the North Carolina General Assembly on April 7, 1777 in New Bern, North Carolina.
1 2 3 4 Jayne, Allen (2015). Jefferson's Declaration of Independence: Origins, Philosophy, and Theology. University Press of Kentucky. pp.48 ff. ISBN9780813148366.
↑ Murrin, John M.; Johnson, Paul E.; McPherson, James M.; Fahs, Alice; Gerstle, Gary (2013). Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People, Volume I: To 1877, Concise Edition. Cengage Learning. p.121. ISBN9781285657516.
↑ Kollen, Richard (2004). Lexington: From Liberty's Birthplace to Progressive Suburb. Arcadia Publishing. p.27. ISBN9780738524658.
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