The most comprehensive and just appreciation of the character and work of Otis is given us by Francis Bowen in Jared Spark's Library of American Biography. In part he says: "The services which Mr. Otis rendered to this country were so conspicuous and important, that it is difficult to form an estimate of his character with the impartiality that history requires. Gratitude might justly efface the memory of his faults from the minds of those who have profited so largely by his patriotism and his virtues. But it is not necessary thus to seek excuses for his failings, or reasons for covering up the errors that he committed. The defects of his temperament and conduct may be freely mentioned, for they are not such as materially lessen our respect for him as a man. * * * * * * * * * * * "As the vindicator of American rights, during the period of colonial subordination, as the acknowledged leader, in Massachusetts, of the constitutional opposition to ministerial influence and parliamentary usurpation, the services of Mr. Otis cannot be too highly appreciated. * * * * * * * * * * * "He was not permitted to witness the grand result of his labors. He did not live to enjoy the final triumph; he can hardly be said to have survived till the opening of the struggle. But the historian who searches into the causes of this great event, and seeks to determine the comparative merits of the men who achieved it, will dwell long upon the services, and pay a just tribute of admiration and respect to the memory of James Otis."
THE USE AND ABUSE OF ARBITRARY POWER, Including Tracts from
Burke, 0tis and Wilkes. By Charles K. Edmunds, Ph.D.
It is the honor of England that she had deposited in the virgin soil of her colonies the germ of freedom. Nearly all at their foundation, or shortly after, received charters which conferred the franchises of the mother country on the colonists. These charters were neither a vain show nor a dead letter, but really did establish and allow powerful institutions which impelled the colonists to defend their liberty, and to control the power by participating in it as constituted in the grant of supplies, the election of public councils, trial by jury, and the right of assembling to discuss the general affairs. To us of to-day these appear as common-sense or logically necessary rights; but we must remember that in those early days of colonization they were distinct privileges accorded in power to the colonists. And it is in these very privileges that we behold the germinating principle which was ultimately to bring to life the new republic then as yet unborn. For as Thomas Jefferson afterward wrote, "where every man is a sharer in the direction of his town-republic, and feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day; when there shall not be a man in the State who will not be a member of some one of its councils, great or small, he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than allow his power to be wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte. How powerfully did we feel the energy of this organization in the case of the embargo!"
Notwithstanding the widely different origin of the various colonists, the circumstances in which they were placed were so similar, that the same general form of personal character must inevitably have developed itself, and produced a growing consciousness of power and impatience of foreign imposition. The proximate independence of America need not have been a certainty, however, had the eyes of English statesmen not been blinded to the truth of the principles urged by such men as Otis in America and Burke in England. The causes which were to produce a final rupture were, to be sure, already at work (their full operation being delayed by the lack of union among the different provinces), but there was at the same time a warm hereditary attachment to the parent country, under whose wings the provinces had grown up, by whose arms they had been shielded, and by whose commerce, in spite of jealous restrictions, they had been enriched.
Indeed life in the Colonies was so closely related to that in the mother country that in a very marked degree, the history of the Colonies is only the more practical and laborious development of the spirit of liberty flourishing amid the conditions of life in the new country under the standard of the laws and traditions of the old country. As the eminent philosophical historian, M. Guizat, has said, "It might be considered the history of England herself." The resemblance is the more striking when we remember that the majority of the American Colonies and the more important of them were founded or increased the most rapidly at the very epoch when England was preparing to sustain, and in part already sustaining, those fierce conflicts against the pretensions of absolute power which were to obtain for her the honor of giving to the world the first example of a great nation free and well governed.
How similarly the state of affairs appeared, in the eyes of those who were not blinded by self-interest, on both sides of the Atlantic, is shown by the following extracts from Burke and Otis.
In 1770 Burke thus described the social and political conditions both at home and in the Colonies: "That the government is at once dreaded and contemned; that the laws are despoiled of all their respected and salutary terrors; that their inaction is a subject of ridicule and their enforcement of abhorrence; that rank, and office, and title, and all the solemn plausibilities of the world, have lost their reverence and effect; that our foreign politics are as much deranged as our domestic economy; that our dependencies are slackened in their affection and loosened from their obedience; that we know neither how to yield nor how to enforce; that hardly anything above or below, abroad or at home, is sound and entire; but that disconnection and confusion, in office, in parties, in families, in parliament, in the nation, prevail beyond the disorders of any former time, these are facts universally admitted and lamented."
When in 1768 troops were sent to Boston to prevent a repetition of the disturbances which had resulted from the arbitrary and insulting manner in which the commissioners of customs exercised their office, Otis was chosen moderator of the town meeting held in protest, and is reported to have declared "That in case Great Britain was not disposed to redress their grievances after proper applications, the inhabitants had nothing more to do, but to gird the sword to the thigh, and shoulder the musket." Another account presents a somewhat more temperate tone, representing Otis as "strongly recommending peace and good order, and the grievances the people labored under might in time be removed; if not, and we were called on to defend our liberties and privileges, he hoped and believed we should, one and all, resist even unto blood; but at the same time, he prayed Almighty God it might never so happen."
The change from favorable conditions both in England and in the Colonies to the state of unrest depicted by these passages from Burke and Otis, had been brought about by the attempt to use strong measures, enforced with no just regard for the welfare of the whole people. The English Ministry failed to realize that it is of the utmost importance not to make mistakes in the use of strong measures; that firmness is a virtue only when it accompanies the most perfect wisdom. Their course of political conduct, combined with the establishment of a system of favoritism both at home and abroad like that adopted by Henry the Third of France, produced results of the same kind as the latter.
Members of parliament for the most part were practically convinced that they did not depend on the affection or opinion of the people for their political being, and gave themselves over, with scarcely the appearance of reserve, to the influence of the court. There was thus developed both a ministry and parliament unconnected with the people, and we have the deplorable picture of the executive and legislative parts of a government attempting to exist apart from their true foundation—the opinion of the people. How signally such attempts have always failed is a matter of historical record. And the steadfast belief that they always will so fail constitutes the great force of public opinion to-day.
Had the English Ministry and the Colonial Governors, in particular Governor Bernard of Massachusetts, recognized certain cardinal principles of individual and national liberty, which were so strongly advocated by Burke and Otis, the course of events in their dealing with the colonists would in all probability have been greatly different from that actually developed. Burke declared that as long as reputation, the most precious possession of every individual, and as long as opinion, the great support of the state, depend entirely upon the voice of the people, the latter can never be considered as a thing of little consequence either to individuals or to governments. He pointed out that nations are governed by the same methods, and on the same principles, by which an individual without authority is often able to govern those who are his equals or even his superiors, namely, by a knowledge of their temper, and by a judicious management of it; that is, when public affairs are steadily and quietly conducted, not when government descends to a continued scuffle between the magistrate and the multitude, in which sometimes the one and sometimes the other is uppermost; each alternately yielding and prevailing in a series of contemptible victories and scandalous submissions. "The temper of the people amongst whom he presides ought, therefore, to be the first study of a statesman. And the knowledge of this temper it is by no means impossible for him to attain, if he has not an interest in being ignorant of what it is his duty to learn."
Of course it will not do to think that the people are never in the wrong. They have frequently been so, both in other countries and in England; but in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favor of the people. History justifies us in going even further, for when popular discontents have been very prevalent something has generally been found amiss in the constitution, or in the conduct of the government. As Burke declares, "the people have no interest in disorder. When they do wrong, it is their error, and not their crime. But with the governing part of the state it is far otherwise. They certainly may act ill by design, as well as by mistake. * * * If this presumption in favor of the subjects against the trustees of power be not the more probable, I am sure it is the more comfortable speculation; because it is more easy to change an administration than to reform a people."
Very much the same ideas are presented by Otis in his article on the "Rights of the Colonists," and the passage bearing on this present topic will be given for comparison with Burke's treatment. The pamphlet is divided into four parts, treating respectively of the origin of government, of colonies in general, of the natural rights of colonists, and of the political and civil rights of the British colonists. The writer maintains, that government is founded not as some had supposed on compact, but as Paley afterwards affirmed, on the will of God. By the divine will, the supreme power is placed "originally and ultimately in the people; and they never did, in fact, freely, nor can they rightfully, make an absolute, unlimited renunciation of this divine right. It is ever in the nature of a thing given in trust; and on a condition the performance of which no mortal can dispense with, namely, that the person or persons, on whom the sovereignty is conferred by the people, shall incessantly consult their good. Tyranny of all kinds is to be abhorred, whether it be in the hands of one, or of the few, or of the many.
The colonies were not at all unwilling to pay revenue to the home government, if the manner of payment was just and right. They were so far from refusing to grant money that the Assembly of Pennsylvania resolved to the following effect: "That they always had, so they always should think it their duty to grant aid to the crown, according to their abilities, whenever required of them in the usual constitutional manner." This resolution was presented by Franklin, who was a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, to the Prime Minister of England, Mr. Grenville, before the latter introduced the Stamp Act into Parliament. Other colonies made similar resolutions, and had Grenville instead of the Stamp Act, applied to the King for proper requisitional letters to be circulated among the colonies by the Secretary of State, it is highly probable that he would have obtained more money from the colonies by their voluntary grants than he himself expected from the stamps. Such at any rate is the claim of Franklin, who was surely in a position to feel the pulse of the colonies better than any other one man. "But he (Grenville) chose compulsion rather than persuasion, and would not receive from their good-will what he thought he could obtain without it. Thus the golden bridge which the Americans were charged with unwisely and unbecomingly refusing to hold out to the minister and parliament, was actually held out to them, but they refused to walk over it."
The action of the English Ministry in the matter of the tea tax in particular, and of the whole question of American taxation in general, is thus spoken of by Burke in his famous address in the House of Commons:
"There is nothing simple, nothing manly, nothing ingenious, open, decisive, or steady, in the proceeding, with regard either to the continuance or the repeal of the taxes. The whole has an air of littleness and fraud. * * * There is no fair dealing in any part of the transaction." * * * * * * * * * * * "No man ever doubted that the commodity of tea could bear an imposition of three-pence. But no commodity will bear three-pence, or will bear a penny, when the general feelings of men are irritated, and two millions of people are resolved not to pay. The feelings of the colonists were formerly the feelings of Great Britain. Theirs were formerly the feelings of Mr. Hampden when called upon for the payment of twenty shillings. Would twenty shillings have ruined Mr. Hampden's fortune? No, but the payment of half twenty shillings, on the principle it was demanded, would have made him a slave. * * * It is then upon the principle of this measure, and nothing else, that we are at issue." * * * * * * * * * * * "I select the obnoxious colony of Massachusetts Bay, which at this time (but without hearing her) is so heavily a culprit before parliament—I will select their proceedings even under circumstances of no small irritation. For, a little imprudently, I must say, Governor Bernard mixed in the administration of the lenitive of the repeal no small acrimony arising from matters of a separate nature. Yet see, Sir, the effect of that lenitive, though mixed with these bitter ingredients; and how this rugged people can express themselves on a measure of concession.
"'If it is not in our power,' (say they in their address to Governor Bernard), "in so full a manner as will be expected, to show our respectful gratitude to the mother country, or to make a dutiful and affectionate return to the indulgence of the king and parliament, it shall be no fault of ours; for this we intend, and hope we shall be able fully to effect.'
"Would to God that this tender had been cultivated, managed, and set in action; other effects than those which we have since felt would have resulted from it. On the requisition for compensation to those who had suffered from the violence of the populace, in the same address they say, 'The recommendation enjoined by Mr. Secretary Conway's letter, and in consequence thereof made to us, we will embrace the first convenient opportunity to consider and act upon.' They did consider; they did act upon, it. They obeyed the requisition. I know the mode has been chicaned upon, but it was substantially obeyed, and much better obeyed than I fear the parliamentary requisition of this session will be, though enforced by all your rigour, and backed with all your power. In a word, the damages of popular fury were compensated by legislative gravity. Almost every other part of America in various ways demonstrated their gratitude. I am bold to say, that so sudden a calm recovered after so violent a storm is without parallel in history. To say that no other disturbance should happen from any other cause, is folly. But as far as appearances went, by the judicious sacrifice of one law, you procured an acquiescence in all that remained. After this experience, nobody shall persuade me, when a whole people are concerned, that acts of lenity are not means of conciliation."
"0PP0SITI0N T0 ARBITRARY POWER," By John Wilkes, 1763.
While Otis and other patriots were opposing the arbitrary measures of the English Ministry in their dealings with the Colonies, certain men in England were equally as ardent in their opposition to such a course whether pursued at home or abroad. Most prominent among these were Edmund Burke and John Wilkes, both members of Parliament. In this connection the following extracts frown Wilkes' article on "Opposition to Arbitrary Power" will be of interest. This article appeared in the famous No. 45 of "The North Briton," edited by Wilkes, who was very clever but somewhat profligate.
* * * "In vain will such a minister (referring to Lord Bute), or the foul dregs of his power, the tools of corruption and despotism, preach up in the speech that spirit of concord, and that obedience to the laws, which is essential to good order. They have sent the spirit of discord through the land, and I will prophesy, that it will never be extinguished, but by the extinction of their power. Is the spirit of concord to go hand in hand with the Peace and Excise, through this nation? Is it to be expected between an insolent Excisemen, and a peer, gentleman, freeholder, or farmer, whose private houses are now made liable to be entered and searched at pleasure? The spirit of concord hath not gone forth among men, but the spirit of liberty has, and a noble opposition has been given to the wicked instruments of oppression. A nation as sensible as the English, will see that a spirit of concord when they are oppressed, means a tame submission to injury, and that a spirit of liberty ought then to arise, and I am sure ever will, in proportion to the weight of the grievance they feel. Every legal attempt of a contrary tendency to the spirit of concord will be deemed a justifiable resistance, warranted by the spirit of the English constitution.
"A despotic minister will always endeavor to dazzle his prince with high-flown ideas of the prerogative and honor of the crown, which the minister will make a parade of firmly maintaining. I wish as much as any man in the kingdom to see the honor of the crown maintained in a manner truly becoming Royalty.
* * * * The prerogative of the crown is to exert the constitutional powers entrusted to it in a way not of blind favor and partiality, but of wisdom and judgment. This is the spirit of our constitution. The people too have their prerogative, and I hope the fine words of Dryden will be engraven on our hearts: 'Freedom is the English Subject's Prerogative.'"
JOSEPH WARREN'S OPINION OF GOVERNOR BERNARD, OTIS'S PRINCIPAL ENEMY.
Governor Bernard's bad temper and bad taste in dealing with the legislature may justly be ranked among the principal causes which gradually, but effectually, alienated the affections of the people of Massachusetts, first from the persons immediately charged with the government of the province, and finally, from the royal authority and whole English dominion. "With an arrogant and self-sufficient manner, constantly identifying himself with the authority of which he was merely the representative, and constantly indulging in irritating personal allusions, he entirely lost sight of the courtesy and respect due to a co-ordinate branch of the government, and made himself ridiculous, while he was ruining the interests of the sovereign whom he was most anxious to serve. Even Hutchinson, as we learn from the third volume of his History, though he was attached to the same policy, and favored the same measures, censures the tone of Bernard's messages as ungracious, impolitic, and offensive."
Popular animosity against Governor Bernard waxed exceedingly strong during the controversy concerning the circular letter sent by the Massachusetts Assembly to each House of Representatives in the thirteen Colonies, in which the Colonies were urged to concert a uniform plan for remonstrance against the government policy. Bernard sent advices to England declaring that stringent measures were imperative. Among those who were particularly vehement in their denunciation of Bernard's character and conduct was Joseph Warren, a young physician of twenty-seven years, Otis's brother-in-law, for some time a writer for the papers, who was even more drastic than Otis in his arraignment of Bernard's tactics as governor, and who caused somewhat of a sensation by publishing the following in the "Boston Gazette" of February 29, 1768. (Warren was killed while serving as a volunteer aide at the battle of Bunker Hill.)
"We have for a long time known your enmity to this Province. We have had full proof of your cruelty to a loyal people. No age has, perhaps, furnished a more glaring instance of obstinate perseverance in the path of malice. * * * Could you have reaped any advantage from injuring this people, there would have been some excuse for the manifold abuses with which you have loaded them. But when a diabolical thirst for mischief is the alone motive of your conduct, you must not wonder if you are treated with open dislike; for it is impossible, how much soever we endeavor it, to feel any esteem for a man like you. * * * Nothing has ever been more intolerable than your insolence upon a late occasion when you had, by your jesuitical insinuations, induced a worthy minister of state to form a most unfavorable opinion of the Province in general, and some of the most respectable inhabitants in particular. You had the effrontery to produce a letter from his Lordship as a proof of your success in calumniating us. * * * We never can treat good and patriotic rulers with too great reverence. But it is certain that men totally abandoned to wickedness can never merit our regard, be their stations ever so high.
'If such men are by God appointed, The Devil may be the Lord's anointed.' A TRUE PATRIOT.
Hutchinson tried to induce the grand jury to indict Warren for libel on account of this intemperate attack. The jury, however, returned "ignoramus," and the Governor had to bear the affront, which was but one of a series directed against him during his remaining days in America.
On the other hand, direct attacks were also made against Otis, and some were marked by scurrility and coarseness of language, which could not fail to arouse a man of his temper and fine sense of honor. How he did regard them appears from the following extract from a letter to his sister, Mrs. Warren:
"Tell my dear brother Warren to give himself no concern about the scurrilous piece in Tom Fleet's paper. It has served me as much as the song did last year. The tories are all ashamed of this, as they were of that; the author is not yet certainly known, though I think I am within a week of detecting him for certain. If I should, I shall try to cure him once for all, by stringing him up, not bodily, but in such a way as shall gibbet his memory in terrorem. It lies between Bernard, Waterhouse, and Jonathan Sewall. The first, they say, has not wit enough to write anything; the second swears off; and the third must plead guilty or not guilty as soon as I see him. Till matters are settled in England, I dare not leave this town, as men's minds are in such a situation, that every nerve is requisite to keep them from running to some irregularity and imprudence; and some are yet wishing for an opportunity to hurt the country."
OTIS'S AFFECTION FOR ENGLAND IN SPITE OF HIS OPPOSITION TO THE
ARBITRARY MEASURES OF HER MINISTRY. By Charles K. Edmunds, Ph. D.
Otis defended the rights of his countrymen by vindicating their enjoyment of English liberty, not by asserting the demand for American independence. He, however, sowed the seed without knowing what kind of harvest it was to produce, for his writings and speeches did more than those of any other man toward preparing the minds of others for the final separation from England. That such was his purpose he steadfastly repudiated, and the following quotations from his pen exhibit full well his attachment to the mother country and to the principles of her constitution.
When in January, 1763, the joyful news was received at Boston that the preliminaries of peace between Great Britain and France had been signed, and that Canada was permanently annexed to the former country, the colonists justly rejoiced, and a town meeting was held of which Otis was chosen moderator. In the course of his speech, Otis declared in his usual earnest way that "the true interests of Great Britain and her plantations are mutual, and what God in his providence united, let no man dare attempt to pull asunder." Similar sentiments expressed by other leaders among the various Colonies might be quoted. We give one more from Otis's pamphlet on the "Rights of the Colonies," published in 1765. In speaking of the colonists, he says: "Their loyalty has been abundantly proved, especially in the late war. Their affection and reverence for their mother country are unquestionable. They yield the most cheerful and ready obedience to her laws, particularly to the power of that august body, the Parliament of Great Britain, the supreme legislative of the kingdom and its dominions. These, I declare, are my own sentiments of duty and loyalty." He angrily repels the charge that the Colonies were seeking for independence, insisting that the people had a "natural and almost mechanical affection for Great Britain which they conceive under no other sense, and call by no other name, than that of home. We all think ourselves happy under Great Britain. We love, esteem, and reverence our mother country, and adore our King. And could the choice of independency be offered the colonies or subjection to Great Britain on any terms above absolute slavery, I am convinced they would accept the latter."
In 1769 he wrote: "The cause of America is, in my humble opinion, the cause of the whole British empire; an empire which, from my youth, I have been taught to love and revere, as founded in the principles of natural reason and justice, and upon the whole, best calculated for general happiness of any yet risen in the world. In this view of the British empire, my Lord, I sincerely pray for its prosperity, and sincerely lament all adverse circumstances. Situated as we are, my Lord, in the wilderness of America, a thousand leagues distant from the fountains of honor and justice, in all our distresses, we pride ourselves in loyalty to the King, and affection to the mother country."
OTIS AS A PROPHET.
Otis was not much given to general speculations upon the future; but there is something very striking in the following language, taken from his pamphlet "The Rights of the Colonies," if we consider how soon after there occurred the two great crises in the world's affairs, the American and French revolutions. "I pretend neither to the spirit of prophecy, nor to any uncommon skill in predicting a crisis; much less to tell when it begins to be nascent, or is fairly midwived into the world. But I should say the world was at the eve of the highest scene of earthly power and grandeur, that has ever yet been displayed to the view of mankind. The cards are shuffling fast through all Europe. Who will win the prize is with God. This, however, I know, detur digniori. The next universal monarchy will be favorable to the human race; for it must be founded on the principles of equity, moderation, and justice."
JAMES OTIS. [1725 - 1783.] By G. Mercer Adam[3]
The character and life-work of few men belonging to the pre-Revolutionary era are better worth studying than are those of James Otis, the patriot-orator of Massachusetts, who took so prominent a part in opposing England's obnoxious Stamp Act and in arousing the American Colonies to a sense of the outrage done them by the issue of the arbitrary Writs of Assistance. Though the records of his personal life are somewhat meagre, sufficient is known of Otis's public career to interest students of his country's history and entitle him to the admiration of all, as one of the most earnest and eloquent advocates of Liberty in the Nation's youth-time, and a sturdy and noble defender of its cause at the critical era of England's injustice and oppression. No man of the period, it may be hazarded, did more yeoman service than Otis did in the cause of American Freedom, or was more sensible of the rights of the Colonists and of the injustice done them by the Motherland in her assaults on their civil and political status in the years preceding the Revolution. Not only was he one of the most fearless asserters of the great principles for which our forefathers fought and bled, but few men better than he saw more clearly the malign character of the arbitrary acts imposed upon the Colonies that brought about separation and laid the foundation of American independence. In resisting the enforcement of these Acts, Otis was actuated not only by disinterested and patriotic motives, but by a statesmanlike discernment of their unconstitutional character and the wrong they would inflict, in being inconsistent with the foundation charter of the Massachusetts Colony. Like many of the Revolutionary fathers, Otis was not at heart a rebel, or from the outset disloyal to the Crown in its administration of the affairs of the Colonies. His occupancy of the Crown post of Advocate-General and his own well-known integrity and conscientiousness forbid that idea, not to speak of his pride in the fact that his ancestors were English and for generations had held high judicial offices and militia appointments in the gift of the King and the ministry of the period. But though by tradition and training, at the outset of his career, a subject of monarchy and a true man in his official relations with England, Otis was at the same time ardent in his interests for the wellbeing of the Colonies and zealous for their rights and privileges. When these came into conflict, the stand he took was staunchly patriotic, even to the sacrifice of his office and its emoluments; while in espousing the popular cause against the King and the ministry he stood forth, as John Adams expressed it, as "a flame of fire," full of consuming zeal for his country and an ardent upholder of its rights and prerogatives. In assuming this attitude, that Otis's zeal and energy were at times unrestrained and his language occasionally unguarded and overvehement, is doubtless true; but this was certainly excusable in a man of his ardent temperament and strength of character; while the situation of affairs was such as to call not only for patriotic enthusiasm, but for righteous indignation and heated denunciation, in a cause that stirred to the depths the heart and brain of an impetuous and commanding orator. Nor do we well to forget what this consuming, patriotic passion and heated vindication of his country's rights cost Otis, in the responsibility he felt and the solicitation he manifested, especially in the middle and later stages of his strenuous career, for the cause he had so keenly at heart. Pathetic is the story of the ailment that clouded his closing years; and only exculpatory can be the judgment now passed upon the man and his work when we consider what the strain was that he had long and anxiously borne and that revealed its effects in periods of sad mental alienation and incipient madness. To speak and write strongly on taxation and its injustice, in the case of the Colonies, might well, however, disturb the mental equilibrium of even a strong man, and the more so when actively protesting, as Otis long continued to protest, against unlawful encroachments upon the liberties of the Colonies and the other arbitrary acts that then characterized the administration of the Crown. Whatever it cost Otis personally to engage in this defence, the result, as we all now know and admit, was only and wholly beneficent—in the defeat of an unrighteous autocracy, and the emancipation of a Continent from a fettering and baleful administration.
This herald of and actor in the great drama of his time was born at West Barnstable, formerly known as the Great Marshes, in Massachusetts, on the 5th of February, 1723. He was one of thirteen children, his father being Colonel James Otis (born in 1702), the son of Judge John Otis, whose immediate ancestor had emigrated from England in the preceding century and settled in New England at the town of Hingham, calling the region after the old home of the family in the Motherland. This John Otis, who was born in A.D. 1657, became a prominent man in the Settlement, was a member of the Council of the Colony, and ultimately became Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas and Probate Court. Otis's own father (Colonel James Otis) likewise became a lawyer and publicist, a colonel in the local militia, and rose to a high post in the judiciary and was a member of the Council of Massachusetts. He married Mary Alleyne and transmitted to the future patriot, the subject of this sketch, the talents and many of the characteristics of his progenitors. A brother of our hero, Samuel Alleyne Otis, rose to prominence in the politics of the State and as Secretary of the Senate administered to Washington the oath of office as President, holding the Bible on which he was sworn as honored chief of the future nation. A sister, Mercy, an ardent and loyal patriot, married the notable republican, James Warren of Plymouth, and lived herself to write a compend of the "History of the American Revolution," together with a collection of patriotic verse.
James Otis, whom we know as one of the most eloquent orators of the Revolutionary era and an ardent promoter of American independence, was educated for his career at Harvard, which institution he entered as a freshman in 1739, having previously been prepared for college by the Rev. Jonathan Russell. His university course, so far as can be gathered from any account of it that has come down to us, was not a notable one, though he had a fair scholastic career and graduated at the age of nineteen in 1743. While popular after a fashion at college, he was a bit of a recluse and a diligent student of literature, with a predilection, it is said, for music, playing well on the violin. After graduating, he wisely spent two years in general reading before entering upon the study of the law, which he did in 1745 under James Gridley, a prominent jurist of Massachusetts and sometime Crown Attorney-General. Three years later, he was admitted to the bar, and in 1748 began to practice his profession at Plymouth, Mass. In 1750, he removed to Boston, and there became known as an advocate of note and high promise, actuated by nice professional instincts, with a fine sense of honor, and keenly appreciating, it is recorded, his responsibilities in his relations with his clients, which led him to accept only such cases as he could conscientiously defend and take retainers from.
This characteristic scruple in the lawyer gave him a high standing in his profession, and naturally led to success at the bar, besides winning for him the respect and admiration of troops of warm and attached friends.
About this time he appears to have developed uncommon gifts as an orator, and his rather irascible nature gave scope to his keen wit and powers of sarcasm. His extensive reading and ultimate study of good literary models naturally bore fruit in the practice of the forensic art and gave him prestige at the bar, as well as, later on, in taking to public life and to the advocacy of the rights of the Colonists in the controversy with the Crown.
In 1755, when he had attained his thirtieth year, Otis married Ruth Cunningham, the daughter of an influential Boston merchant. The lady, from all accounts, was undemonstrative and devoid of her husband's patriotic ardor, traits that did not tend to domestic felicity or lead, on the wife's part, to a commanding influence over her vehement and somewhat eccentric husband. The fruit of the union was one son and two daughters. The son entered the navy, but unhappily died in his eighteenth year. One of the daughters, the elder of the two, probably under the mother's influence, angered her father by espousing the English cause and marrying a Captain Brown, a British officer on duty at Boston. The marriage was a source of irritation and unhappiness to Otis, who, after his son-in-law had fought and been wounded at Bunker Hill, withdrew with his wife to England, and was there disowned and cut off by the irate patriot, whose affection was also dried up for the erring daughter. The younger daughter, on the other hand, was a devoted and patriotic woman, who shared her father's enthusiasm for the popular cause. She married Benjamin Lincoln of Boston, but early became a widow.
By this time, Otis had become not only a man eminent in his profession in Boston, but a powerful factor in the public life of the city. The New England commonwealth was then beginning to be greatly exercised over the aggressions of the Motherland, and this was keenly watched by Otis, who took a lively and patriotic interest in Colonial affairs. Beyond his profession, which had closely engrossed him, he had heretofore taken little part in public life; his leisure, indeed, he had employed more as a student of books rather than of national affairs, as his work on the "Rudiments of Latin Prosody," published in 1760, bears witness. As the era of a conflict with England neared, he however altered in this respect, and became a zealous advocate of non-interference on the part of the Crown in the affairs of the Colonies and an ardent protester against English oppression and injustice. Soon grievances arose in the relations between the Colonies and England which gave Otis the right to denounce the Motherland and excite dissaffection among the people of the New World. These grievances arose out of the strained commercial relations between the two countries and the attempt of England to devise and enforce irritating schemes of Colonial control. Of these causes of outcry in the New World the two chief were the revival and rigid execution of the English Navigation Acts, designed to limit the freedom of the American Colonies in trading with West Indian ports in American built vessels, and the insistence, on the part of the Crown and the British government, that the Colonies should be taxed for the partial support of English garrisons in the country. In the development of trade in the New World, the Colonies reasonably felt that they should not be harassed by the mother country, and so they permitted commerce to expand as it would; and when this was enjoined by England they naturally resented interference by her and began to evade the laws which she imposed upon the young country and bid defiance to the Crown customs officers in the measures resorted to in the way of restriction and imposed penalty. This attitude of the Colonists in ignoring or defying English laws was soon now specially emphasized when the Crown resorted to more stringent measures to curb Colonial trade and impose heavy customs duties on articles entering New World ports. Flagrant acts of evasion followed, and defiant smuggling at length brought its legal consequences—in the issue by the English Court of Exchequer of search warrants, or Writs of Assistance, as they were called, by which it was sought to put a stop to smuggling, by resorting to humiliating arbitrary measures sure to be resented by the Colonies. These Writs of Assistance empowered the King's officers, or others delegated by them, to board vessels in port and enter and search warehouses, and even the private homes of the Colonists, for contraband goods and all importations that had not paid toll to His Majesty's customs. This attempted rigid execution of the Acts of Trade, together with other arbitrary measures on the part of the Crown which followed, such as the imposition of the Stamp Act, and the coercive levy of taxes to pay part of the cost of maintaining English troops in the Colonies, was soon to cost England dear and end in the loss of her possessions in America and the rise of the New World Republic.
One of the most active men in the Colonies to oppose this Colonial policy of England was, as we know, the patriot James Otis, at the time Advocate-General of the Crown, who took strong ground against the Writs of Assistance, arguing that they were not only arbitrary and despotic in their operation, but unconstitutional in their imposition on the Colony, since they were irreconcilable with the Colonial charters and a violation of the rights and prerogatives of the people. Rather than uphold them as a Crown officer, Otis resigned his post of Advocate-General, and became a fervent pleader of the popular cause and denouncer of the legal processes by which the Crown sought to impose, with its authority, its obnoxious trammellings and restrictions without the consent of and in defiance of the inalienable rights of the American people. Otis not only resisted the enforcement by the King's officers of the odious warrants and denounced their arbitrary character, but inveighed hotly against English oppression and all attempts of the Crown and its deputy in the province, the Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts, to restrict the liberties of the people and impose unconstitutional laws upon the Colony. The Writs of Assistance were, of course, defended by the representatives of the Crown in the Colony, and on the plea that without some such legal process the laws could not be executed, and that similar writs were in existence in England and made use of there on the authority of English statutes. The pleas against them advanced by Otis took cognizance of the fact that the Writs were irreconcilable with the charter of the Massachusetts Colony, that English precedent for their enforcement had no application in America, and that taxation by the Motherland and compulsory acts of the nature of the Writs did open violence to the rights and liberties of the people and were inherently arbitrary and despotic, being imposed without the consent of the Colonies and to their grave hurt and detriment. In pleading the Colonial cause against the Writs, Otis struck a chord in the heart of the people which tingled and vibrated, while stirring up such opposition to them that the authorities were fain to hold their hand and await instructions from the English ministry as to their withdrawal or enforcement. The response of the home government was that they should be enforced, but little advantage was taken of this mandate in the Colonies, since opposition to the Writs had, thanks to the patriot Otis's denunciation of them, became almost universal; while the people had been roused to a sharp sense of their situation, in view of the tyrannous attitude of England towards the Colonies, and the next step taken by the Crown, under Prime Minister Grenville, in threatening them with the no less hated Stamp Tax. This new fiscal infatuation on the part-of the English ministry strained the relations of the Colonies toward the Crown to almost the point of rupture. It was, moreover, an unwise exhibition of English stubbornness and impolicy, since it revealed the mistake which England fell into at the time of considering the Settlements of the New World as Colonial possessions to be held solely for the financial benefit of the mother country, rather than for their own advancement and material well-being. It is true, that the Seven Years' War, which had been waged chiefly for the protection of the American dependencies of the Crown, had left a heavy burden of debt upon England which she naturally looked to the Colonies in some measure to repay. But the Colonies had ready their argument— they objected to being taxed without their consent, and without representation in the British Parliament, besides being, as they thought, sufficiently oppressed by the burden of customs' duties already imposed upon them. The spirit of resistance therefore grew, and was ere long to take a more determined and, to England, fatal form, for the Stamp Act, though later on repealed, was passed, in spite of the protests of the Colonial Assemblies and the increasing soreness of feeling in America against the mother country.
The like service James Otis did for the community of the New World in opposing the Writs of Assistance he also did in opposing the enforcement of the Stamp Act—remonstrances suggested by the patriot's love of independence, and which, besides numberless letters, speeches and addresses, drew from the pre-Revolutionist's trenchant pen several able pamphlets, one vindicating the action of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, of which Otis was now a member, in protesting against England's intolerance in laying grievous taxation on the Colonies, and the others upholding the rights of the Colonies in resisting the Crown's misgovernment, as well as its purpose to tax the Colonies to defray some of the cost England had incurred in prosecuting the French and Indian war. In these patriotic services and labors, Otis, as a public man, took an active and zealous part, besides conducting a large correspondence as chairman of the House Committee of the Legislature on subjects relating to the weal of the whole country. Nor were his duties confined to these matters alone, for we find him at this period engaged in controversies first with Governor Hutchinson, and then with his successor, Governor Bernard, both of whom deemed Otis an arch-rebel and incendiary—a man not only without the pale of considerate treatment by lawfully constituted authority in the Colonies, but the object of contumely and loathing by the obsequious loyalists of the Motherland and all who desired her continued dominance and supremacy in the country. History has happily long since done justice to James Otis and seen him in a fairer and far more worthy light—the light not only of a patriot lover of liberty, but an ardent and invincible defender of his country against autocratic encroachment, and a fearless asserter of the principles which have become the foundation stone of the American nation. In his masterful way, Otis was at times heedlessly bitter and inveterate in his prejudices against the mother country and the King's officers in the Colony; but we must remember the strength as well as the ardor of his affection for his native land and the righteousness of the cause he lovingly espoused and so nobly advocated. We must remember also the antagonisms he naturally aroused, and the hatreds of which he was the object, on the part of loyal authority in the Colony which feared while it traduced him. This is shown in the mishap that befell him in a British coffeehouse in Boston, where he was roughly assaulted by a man named Robinson, an ally of the revenue officers whom he had denounced in an article in the Boston Gazette, an attack that left its traces in the mental ailment which afterwards distressingly incapacitated him and shortened his bright public career. He nevertheless lived to see the fruition of his hopes, in the throwing off by the Colonies of all allegiance to Britain and take part himself in the battle of Bunker Hill. The harvest reaped by his country from the seeds of liberty he had planted in his day was such as might well cheer him in the period of mental darkness which fell upon him and regretfully clouded his closing years. Nor was he, in his own era, without regard and honor among those who delighted in his splendid patriotism, in the days of his manly strength, mental as well as physical, and who held him in high esteem as a patriot orator and the staunchly loyal tribune of the New World peoples. In these days of flaccid patriotism and moral declension in public life, his example may well stimulate and inspire. In his wholehearted devotion to the hopes as well as to the interests of the Colonies most notable was the polemical fervor with which he espoused their cause and noble the stand he took for liberty and independence.
Like many men who have attained eminence in public life, James Otis was the victim in his day of detraction and envy. A specially malignant slander was current with reference to him and his father at the period of the patriot's resigning his Crown post of Advocate-General. The motive for throwing up his appointment and pleading the people's cause against the Writs of Assistance, it was at the time said, was the disappointment of the Otis family at the Chief-Justiceship, then vacant, going to Governor Hutchinson instead of to Colonel James Otis of Barnstable, father of our hero. This aspersion of the fair name of the Otises as patriots and high-minded gentlemen, and the lying assertion that it was this disappointment that led the Otises, father and son, to abandon the Crown's side for that of the people, was cruelly false, and especially so as Hutchinson, who got the post, repeats the falsehood in his "History of Massachusetts" in explanation of the Otises turning their coats and becoming partisans of the popular cause. Nothing could well be more unjust and untrue, for both men were of far too honorable a character and too ardently patriotic to justify the slander and give even the slightest color to the misrepresentation. Were it necessary more emphatically to characterize the slander as false, one might confidently point to the happy relations of the Otises with the other patriots of the time—to men of the stamp of the two Adams statesmen, to Hancock, Randolph, Warren, and other leaders of the Revolutionary era, as well as to the contemporary repute and influence of both men in the heroic annals of the Colonial period. The times were indeed trying and critical, and at the outset of the movement for independence and relief from the irritating aggressions of the Crown, the attitude, we may be sure, was closely watched and not over truthfully reported, of men of influence who took the patriot side and helped on the great cause which was afterwards to be gloriously and triumphantly crowned.
But we pass on to relate, in a few brief words, what remains yet to be told of James Otis's career, and of the pathetic declining days of the hero and his tragic end. While mind and body were intact and working perfectly in unison, Otis continued to give himself heart and soul to the cause he had so patriotically and zealously espoused. Even when his malady showed itself, there were brief returns of useful activity and old-time mental alertness, only, however, to be followed by sad relapses into the eclipse-period of his powers. At periods of respite from his ailment, Otis took part fitfully in his duties as member of the Massachusetts Legislature, of which body he had been Speaker, and did what he could to further the work of legislation. He also at this time appeared once or twice as an advocate in Court, and also continued his correspondence in Committee of the General Assembly with prominent men in the other Colonies, seeking successfully cooperation with them in the great drama of the time. But for the most part we now find him a considerately cared-for guest of his old-time friend, Colonel Samuel Osgood, at the latter's farmhouse at Andover. Here the distinguished pre-Revolutionist had phenomenal premonitions of the coming manner of his death, related to his sister, Mrs. Warren, to whom the patriot on more than one occasion said, that when God in his Providence should take him hence into the eternal world, he hoped it would be by a stroke of lightning! This tragic fate was ere long to be his, for on the afternoon of May 23rd, 1783, when Otis was standing amid a family group at the door of the Osgood homestead at Andover, a bolt from the blue flashed down from aloft and felled the hero to the ground. Death was instantaneous, and happily it left no mark or contortion on his body, while his features had the repose and placidity of seeming sleep. Thus passed the hero from the scenes of earth, and in a sense fitly, for the period was that which saw the close of the drama of the Revolution he had been instrumental in bringing about, and the departure from the soil of the new-born Republic of the last of the English soldiery.
[3]Historian, Biographer, Essayist, Author of a "Precis of English History," a "Continuation of Grecian History," etc., and for many years Editor of Self-Culture Magazine.—The Publishers.
JAMES 0TIS ON THE WRITS 0F ASSISTANCE February, 1761.
May it please your Honours: I was desired by one of the court to look into the (law) books, and consider the question now before them concerning Writs of Assistance. I have accordingly considered it, and now appear not only in obedience to your order, but likewise in behalf of the inhabitants of this town, who have presented another petition, and out of regard to the liberties of the subject. And I take this opportunity to declare that whether under a fee or not (for in such a cause as this I despise a fee) I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand and villainly on the other, as this Writ of Assistance is.
It appears to me the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles of law that ever was found in an English lawbook. I must therefore beg your Honours' patience and attention to the whole range of an argument that may perhaps appear uncommon in many things, as well as to points of learning that are more remote and unusual, that the whole tendency of my design may the more easily be perceived, the conclusions better descend, and the force of them be better felt. I shall not think much of my pains in this cause, as I engaged in it from principle. I was solicited to argue this case as Advocate-General; and, because I would not, I have been charged with desertion from my office. To this charge I can give a very sufficient answer. I renounced that office and I argue this cause from the same principle; and I argue it with the greatest pleasure, as it is in favour of British liberty, at a time when we hear the greatest monarch upon earth declaring from his throne that he glories in the name of Briton and that the privileges of his people are dearer to him than the most valuable prerogatives of his crown; and as it is in opposition to a kind of power, the exercise of which in former periods of history cost one king of England his head and another his crown, I have taken more pains in this cause than I ever will take again, although my engaging in this and another popular cause has raised much resentment. But I think I can sincerely declare that I cheerfully submit myself to every odious name for conscience' sake; and from my soul I despise all those whose guilt, malice, or folly has made them my foes. Let the consequences be what they will, I am determined to proceed. The only principles of public conduct that are worthy of a gentleman or a man are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of his country. These manly sentiments, in private life, make good citizens; in public life, the patriot and the hero. I do not say that, when brought to the test, I shall be invincible. I pray God I may never be brought to the melancholy trial; but if ever I should, it will then be known how far I can reduce to practice principles which I know to be founded in truth. In the meantime, I will proceed to the subject of this writ.
In the first place, may it please your honours, I will admit that writs of one kind may be legal; that is, special writs, directed to special officers, and to search certain houses, etc., specially set forth in the writ, may be granted by the Court of Exchequer at home, upon oath made before the Lord Treasurer by the person who asks it, that he suspects such goods to be concealed in those very places he desires to search. The Act of 14 Charles II., which Mr. Gridley[4] mentions, proves this. And in this light the writ appears like a warrant from a Justice of the Peace to search for stolen goods. Your honours will find in the old books concerning the office of a Justice of the Peace, precedents of general warrants to search suspected houses. But in more modern books you will find only special warrants to search such and such houses, specially named, in which the complainant has before sworn that he suspects his goods are concealed; and will find it adjudged that special warrants only are legal. In the same manner I rely on it, that the writ prayed for in this petition is illegal. It is a power that places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer. I say, I admit that special Writs of Assistance, to search special places, may be granted to certain persons on oath; but I deny that the writ now prayed for can be granted, for I beg leave to make some observations on the writ itself, before I proceed to other Acts of Parliament. In the first place, the writ is universal, being directed "to all and singular justices, sheriffs, constables, and all other officers and subjects"; so that, in short, it is directed to every subject in the King's domains. Every one with this writ may be a tyrant; if this commission be legal, a tyrant in a legal manner, also, may control, imprison, or murder any one within the realm. In the next place, it is perpetual; there is no return. A man is accountable to no person for his doings. Every man may reign secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror and desolation around him [until the trump of the Archangel shall excite different emotions in his soul]. In the third place, a person with this writ, in the daytime, may enter all houses, shops, etc., at will, and command all to assist him. Fourthly, by this writ not only deputies, etc., but even their menial servants, are allowed to lord it over us. [What is this but to have the curse of Canaan with a witness on us: t o be the servants of servants, the most despicable of God's creation?] Now one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they please; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and whether they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court can inquire. Bare suspicion without oath is sufficient. This wanton exercise of this power is not a chimerical suggestion of a heated brain. I will mention some facts. Mr. Pew had one of these writs, and when Mr. Ware succeeded him, he endorsed this writ over to Mr. Ware, so that these writs are negotiable from one officer to another; and so your Honours have no opportunity of judging the persons to whom this vast power is delegated. Another instance is this: Mr. Justice Walley had called this same Mr. Ware before him, by a constable, for a breach of the Sabbath-day Acts, or that of profane swearing. As soon as he had finished, Mr. Ware asked him if he had done. He replied, "Yes." "Well, then," said Mr. Ware, "I will show you a little of my power. I command you to permit me to search your house for uncustomed goods," and went on to search the house from garret to cellar; and then served the constable in the same manner! But to show another absurdity in this writ, if it should be established, I insist upon it every person, by the 14 Charles II., has this power as well as the Custom-house officers. The words are, "it shall be lawful for any person or persons authorized, etc." What a scene does this open! Every man prompted by revenge, ill-humor or wantonness to inspect the inside of his neighbour's house, may get a Writ of Assistance. Others will ask it from self defence; one arbitrary exertion will provoke another, until society be involved in tumult and in blood!
Again, these writs are not returned. Writs, in their nature, are temporary things. When the purposes for which they are issued are answered, they exist no more; but these live forever; no one can be called to account. Thus reason and the constitution are both against this writ. Let us see what authority there is for it. Not more than one instance can be found of it in all our law-books; and that was in the zenith of arbitrary power, namely, in the reign of Charles II., when star-chamber powers were pushed to extremity by some ignorant clerk of the exchequer. But had this writ been in any book whatever, it would have been illegal. All precedents are under the control of the principles of law. Lord Talbot (the Earl of Shrewsbury, an English peer of the era of William and Mary) says it is better to observe these than any precedents, though in the House of Lords the last resort of the subject. No Acts of Parliament can establish such a writ; though it should be made in the very words of the petition, it would be void. An act against the constitution is void. But this proves no more than what I before observed, that special writs may be granted on oath and probable suspicion. The act of 7 and 8 William III. that the officers of the plantations shall have the same powers, etc., is confined to this sense; that an officer should show probable ground; should take his oath of it; should do this before a magistrate; and that such magistrate, if he think proper, should issue a special warrant to a constable to search the places. That of 6 Anne can prove no more.
[4] Otis's opponent—his legal preceptor—who argued in favor of the Writs.
JAMES OTIS ON THE STAMP ACT. An Oration Delivered Before the
Governor and Council In Boston, December 20, 1765.
It is with great grief that I appear before your Excellency (Governor Hutchinson) and Honours (of the City Council) on this occasion. A wicked and unfeeling minister (Earl Grenville) has caused a people, the most loyal and affectionate that ever king was blest with, to groan under the most insupportable oppression.
But I think, Sir, that he now stands upon the brink of inevitable destruction; and trust that soon, very soon, he will feel the full weight of his injured sovereign's righteous indignation. I have no doubt, Sir, but that the loyal and dutiful representations of nine provinces, the cries and supplications of a distressed people, the united voice of all his Majesty's most loyal and affectionate British-American subjects, will obtain all that ample redress which they have a right to expect; and that erelong they will see their cruel and insidious enemies, both at home and abroad, put to shame and confusion.
My brother Adams has entered so largely into the validity of the act, that I shall not enlarge on that head. Indeed, what has been observed is sufficient to convince the most illiterate savage that the Parliament of England had no regard to the very first principles of their own liberties.
Only the preamble of that oppressive act is enough to rouse the blood of every generous Briton.—"We your Majesty's subjects, the commons of Great Britain, etc., do give and grant"—What? Their own property? No! The treasure, the heart's blood of all your Majesty's dutiful and affectionate British-American subjects.
But the time is far spent. I will not tire your patience. It was once a fundamental maxim that every subject had the same right to his life, liberty, property, and the law that the King had to his crown; and 'tis yet, I venture to say, as much as a crown is worth, to deny the subject his law, which is his birthright. 'Tis a first principle "that Majesty should not only shine in arms, but be armed with the laws." The administration of justice is necessary to the very existence of governments. Nothing can warrant the stopping the course of justice but the impossibility of holding courts, by reason of war, invasion, rebellion, or insurrection. This was law at a time when the whole island of Great Britain was divided into an infinite number of petty baronies and principalities; as Germany is, at this day.
Insurrections then, and even invasions, put the whole nation into such confusion that justice could not have her equal course; especially as the kings in ancient times frequently sat as judges. But war has now become so much of a science, and gives so little disturbance to a nation engaged, that no war, foreign or domestic, is a sufficient reason for shutting up the courts. But if it were, we are not in such a state, but far otherwise, the whole people being willing and demanding the full administration of justice. The shutting up of the courts is an abdication, a total dissolution of government. Whoever takes from the king his executive power, takes from the king his kingship. "The laws which forbid a man to pursue his right one way, ought to be understood with this equitable restriction, that one finds judges to whom he may apply."
I can't but observe that cruel and unheard-of neglect of that enemy to his king and country, the author of this Act, that, when all business, the very life and being of a commercial state, was to be carried on by the use of stamps, that wicked and execrable minister never paid the least regard to the miseries of this extensive continent, but suffered the time for the taking place of the Act to elapse months before a single stamp was received. Though this was a high piece of infidelity to the interest of his royal master, yet it makes it evident that it could never be intended, that if stamps were not to be had, it should put a stop to all justice, which is, ipse facto, a dissolution of society.
It is a strange kind of law which we hear advanced nowadays, that because one unpopular Act can't be carried into execution, that therefore there shall be an end of all law. We are not the first people who have risen to prevent the execution of a law; the very people of England themselves rose in opposition to the famous Jew-bill, and got that immediately repealed. And lawyers know that there are limits, beyond which, if parliaments go, their acts bind not.
The king is always presumed to be present in his courts, holding out the law to his subjects; and when he shuts his courts, he unkings himself in the most essential point. Magna Charter and the other statutes are full, "that they will not defer, delay, nor deny any man justice"; "that it shall not be commanded by the Great Seal, or in any other way, to disturb or delay common right." The judges of England are "not to counsel, or assent to anything which may turn to the damage or disherison of the crown." They are sworn not to deny to any man common right, by the king's letters, nor none other man's, nor for none other cause. Is not the dissolution of society a disherison of the crown? The "justices are commanded that they shall do even law and execution of right to all our subjects, rich and poor, without having regard to any person, without letting to do right for any letters or commandment which may come to them, or by any other cause."
ANECDOTES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF OTIS, ETC. OTIS AND HIS FELLOW PATRIOTS.
Professor Hosmer draws the following pictures of Otis and his contemporaries:
"The splendid Otis, whose leadership was at first unquestioned, was like the huge cannon on the man-of-war, in Victor Hugo's story, that had broken from its moorings in the storm, and become a terror to those whom it formerly defended. He was indeed a great gun, from whom in the time of the Stamp Act had been sent the most powerful bolts against unconstitutional oppression. With lashings parted, however, as the storm grew violent he plunged dangerously from side to side, almost sinking the ship, all the more an object to dread from the calibre that had once made him so serviceable. It was a melancholy sight, and yet a great relief, when his friends saw him at last bound hand and foot, and carried into retirement.
"Bowdoin, also, was not firm in health, and though most active and useful in the Council, had thus far done little elsewhere. Hawley, far in the interior, was often absent from the centre in critical times, and somewhat unreliable through a strange moodiness. Cushing was weak. Hancock was hampered by foibles that some times quite canceled his merits. Quincy was a brilliant youth, and, like a youth, sometimes fickle. We have seen him ready to temporize, when to falter was destruction, as at the time of the casting over of the tea; again in unwise fervor, he would counsel assassination as a proper expedient. Warren, too, could rush into extremes of rashness and ferocity, wishing that he might wade to the knees in blood, and had just reached sober, self-reliant manhood when he was taken off.
"John Adams showed only an intermittent zeal in the public cause until the preliminary work was done, and Benjamin Church, half-hearted and venal, early began the double-dealing which was to bring him to a traitor's end. There was need in this group of a man of sufficient ascendency, thorough intellect and character, to win deference from all—wise enough to see always the supreme end, to know what each instrument was fit for, and to bring all forces to bear in the right way—a man of consummate adroitness, to sail in torpedo-sown waters without exciting an explosion, though conducting wires of local prejudice, class sensitiveness, and personal foible on every hand led straight down to magazines of wrath which might shatter the cause in a moment—a man having resources of his own to such an extent that he could supplement from himself what was wanting in others—always awake, though others might want to sleep, always at work though others might be tired—a man devoted, without thought of personal gain or fame, simply and solely to the public cause. Such a man there was, and his name was Samuel Adams."
OTIS AND ADAMS.
Professor Hosmer thus compares Otis and Adams:
"Otis' power was so magnetic that a Boston town meeting, upon his mere entering, would break out into shouts and clapping, and if he spoke he produced effects which may be compared with the sway exercised by Chatham, whom as an orator he much resembled. Long after disease had made him utterly untrustworthy, his spell remained. He brought the American cause to the brink of ruin, because the people would follow him, though he was shattered.
"Of this gift Samuel Adams possessed little. He was always in speech, straightforward and sensible, and upon occasion could be impressive, but his endowment was not that of the mouth of gold.
"While Otis was fitful, vacillating and morbid, Samuel Adams was persistent, undeviating, and sanity itself. While Samuel Adams never abated by a hair his opposition to the British policy, James Otis, who at the outset had given the watch-word to the patriots, later, after Parliament had passed the Stamp Act, said:
"'It is the duty of all humbly and silently to acquiesce in all the decisions of the supreme legislature. Nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand will never entertain the thought but of submission to our sovereign, and to the authority of Parliament in all possible contingencies.'"
OTIS AS AN AUTHOR.
In 1762, a pamphlet appeared, bearing the following title: "A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay: more particularly in the last session of the General Assembly. By James Otis, Esq., a Member of said House.
"Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor,
Who dare to love their country and be poor.
Or good though rich, humane and wise though great,
Jove give but these, we've naught to fear from fate.
Boston, printed by Edes and Gill."
Instead of copious quotations from this patriotic work, we present the following judgment upon its merits by one best qualified to estimate its worth. "How many volumes," says John Adams, "are concentrated in this little fugitive pamphlet, the production of a few hurried hours, amidst the continual solicitation of a crowd of clients; for his business at the bar at that time was very extensive, and of the first importance, and amidst the host of politicians, suggesting their plans and schemes!
"Look over the Declarations of Rights and Wrongs issued by
Congress in 1774.
"Look into the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
"Look into the writings of Dr. Price and Dr. Priestley.
"Look into all the French constitutions of government; and to cap the climax, look into Mr. Thomas Paine's 'Common Sense, Crisis, and Rights of Man;' what can you find that is not to be found in solid substance in this Vindication of the House of Representatives?"
THE TOWN MEETING.
Another important feature in the unfolding of our free institutions, was the system of town meetings which began to be held as early as 1767.
"The chief arena of James Otis' and Sam Adams' influence," as Governor Hutchinson wrote to Lord Dartmouth, "was the town meeting, that Olympian race-course of the Yankee athlete."
Writing to Samuel Adams in 1790 John Adams, looking back to the effect of these events, says:
"Your Boston town meetings and our Harvard College have set the universe in motion."
One held in October of 1767 was presided over by James Otis, and was called to resist new acts of British aggression on colonial rights. On September 12, 1768, a town meeting was held, which was opened with a prayer by Dr. Cooper. Otis was chosen moderator.
The petition for calling the meeting requested, that inquiry should be made of his Excellency, for "the grounds and reasons of sundry declarations made by him, that three regiments might be daily expected," etc.
A committee was appointed to wait upon the governor, urging him in the present critical state of affairs to issue precepts for a general assembly of the province, to take suitable measures for the preservation of their rights and privileges; and that he should be requested to favor the town with an immediate answer.
In October several ship-loads of troops arrive.
The storm thickens.
Another town meeting is called, and it is voted that the several ministers of the Gospel be requested to appoint the next Tuesday as a day of fasting and prayer.
The day arrives, and the place of meeting is crowded by committees from sixty-two towns.
They petition the governor to call a General Court. Otis appeared in behalf of the people, under circumstances that strongly, attest his heroism.