William Pitt's Speech on the Stamp Act
Year: january 14, 1766 American State Papers
Kolbe Library
Kolbe Home
Gentlemen, Sir, I have been charged with giving birth
to sedition in America. They have spoken their sentiments with freedom against
this unhappy act, and that freedom has become their crime. Sorry I am to hear
the libery of speech in this house, imputed as a crime. No gentleman ought to
be afraid to exercise it. It is a libery by which the gentleman who
calumniates it might have profited, nby which he ought to have profited. He
ought to have desisted from this project. The gentleman tells us, America is
obstinate; America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has
resisted. Three million of people so dead to all feelings of liberty, as
voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make
slaves of the rest. I come not here armed at all points, with law cases and
acts of parliament, with the statute book doubled down in dog's-ears, to
defend the cause of liberty: if I had, I myself would have cited the two cases
of Chester and Durham. I would have cited them, to have shown that even under
former arbitrary reigns, parliaments were ashamed of taxing a people without
their consent, and allowed them representatives. Why did the gentleman confine
himself to Chester and Durham ? He might have taken a higher example in Wales;
Wales, that never was taxed by parliament till it was incorporated. I would
not debate a particular point of law with the gentleman. I know his abilities.
I have been obliged to his dilligent researches: but, for the defence of
liberty, upon a general principle, upon a constitutional principle, it is a
ground on which I stand firm; on which I dare meet any man. he gentleman tells
us of many who are taxed, and are not represented.
The India Company,
merchants, stock-holders, manufacturers. Surely many of these are represented
in other capacities, as owners of land, or as freemen of boroughs. It is a
misfortune that more are not equally represented: but they are all inhibitants,
and as such, are they not virtually represented?....they have connections with
those that elect, and they have influence over them. The gentleman mentioned
the stockholders: I hope he does not reckon the debts of the nation as a part
of the national estate. Since the accession of King William, many ministers,
some of great, others of more moderate abilities, have taken the lead of
government.
Omission
2 None of these thought, or ever dreamed, of robbing
the colonies of their constitutional rights. That was to mark the era of the
late administration: not that there were wanting some, when I had the honour
to serve his majesty, to propose to me to burn my fingers with an American
stamp-act. With the enemy at their back, with our bayonets at their breasts,
in the day of their distress, perhaps the Americans would have submitted to
the imposition: but it would have been taking an ungenerous and unjust
advantage. The gentleman boasts of his bounties to America. Are not those
bounties intended finally for the benefit of this kingdom? If they are not, he
has misapplied the national treasures. I am no courtier of America; I stand up
for this kingdom. I maintain, that the parliament has a right to bind, to
restrain America. Our legaislative power over the colonies is soveriegn and
supreme. When it ceases to be sovereign and supreme, I would advise every
gentleman to sell his lands, if he can, and embark for that country. When two
countries are connected together, like England and her colonies, without being
incorporated, the one must necessarily govern; the greater must rule the less;
but so rule it, as not to contradict the fundamental principles that are
common to both. If the gentle- man does not understand the difference between
external and internal taxes, I cannot help it; but there is a plain
distinction between taxes levied for the purpose of raising a revenue, and
duties imposed for the regulation of trade, for the accomodation of the
subject; although, in the consequences, some revenue might incidentally arise
from the latter.
3 The gentleman asks, when were the colonies
emancipated? But I desire to know, when were they made slaves. But I dwell not
upon words. When I had the honour of serving his Majesty, I availed myself of
the means of information which I derived from my office: I speak, therefore,
from knowledge. My materials were good; I was at pains to collect, to digest,
to consider them; and I will be bold to affirm, that the profits to Great
Britain from the trade of the colonies, through all its branches, is two
millions a year. This is the fund that carried you triumphantly through the
last war.... You owe this to America: this is the price America pays you for
her protection. And shall a miserable financier come with a boast, that he can
bring a pepper-corn into the exchequer, to the loss of millions to the nation?
I dare not say, how much higher these profits may be augmented. Omitting the
immense increase of people by natural population, and the emigration from
every part of Europe, I am convinced the whole commercial system of America
may be altered to advantage. You have prohibited where you ought to have
encouraged, encouraged where you ought to have prohibited. Improper restraints
have been laid on the continent, in favour of the islands. You have but two
nations to trade with in America. Would you had twenty! Let acts of parliament
in consequence of treaties remain, but let not an English minister become a
custom-house officer for Spain, or for any foreign power. Much is wrong; much
may be amended for the general good of the whole....
4 The gentleman must not wonder he was not
contradicted, when, as minister, he asserted the right of parliament to tax
America. I know not how it is, but there is a modesty in this House, which
does not choose to contradict a minister. I wish gentlemen would get the
better of this modesty. Even that chair, Sir, sometimes looks towards St.
James's. If they do not, perhaps the collective body may begin to abate of its
respect for the representative...
5 A great deal has been said without doors of the
power, of the strength of America. It is a topic that ought to be cautiously
meddled with. In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force of this country
can crush America to atoms. I know the valour of your troops. I know the skill
of your officers. There is not a company of foot that has served in America
out of which you may not pick a man of sufficient knowledge and experience to
make him governor of a colony there. But on this ground, on the Stamp Act,
when so many here will think a crying injustice, I am one who will lift up my
hands against it.
6 In such a cause, your success would be hazardous.
America, if she fell, would fall like a strong man. She would embrace the
pillars of the state, and pull down the constitution along with her. Is this
your boasted peace? Not to sheathe the sword in it scabbard, but to sheathe it
in the bowels of your countrymen? Will you quarrel with yourselves, now the
whole House of Bourbon is united against you...
7 The Americans have not acted in all things with
prudence and temper. They have been wronged. They have been driven to madness
by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned? Rather
let prudence and temper come first from this side. I will undertake for
America, that she will follow the example. There are two lines in a ballad of
Prior's, of a man's behaviour to hsi wife, so applicable to you and your
colonies, that I cannot help repeating them:-
"Be to her faults a little blind
Be to her virtues very kind."
8 Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the House
what is really my opinion. It is, that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely,
totally, and immediately; that the reason for the repeal should be assigned,
because it was founded on an erroneous principle. At the same time, let the
sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong
terms as can be devised, and be made to extend every point of legislation
whatsoever: that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and
exercise every power whatsoever - except that of taking money out of their
pockets without their consent.
|
