St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-02-22

stupid old monarch. from whose heart
the spirit of tolerance was as remote as
the sceptre should have been from his
hand. The innate love of liberty which
inspired the hearts Of the colonists
was their heritage from ancestors
them little else. Though they were of
various nationalities they had this
priceless gift in common: the English
had received it from their fathers. who
bought them liberty at Runnymede;
the Scots claimed it as their birthright
since the days of Bruce; England is
still finding it difficult to make the irish
submissive, while the Dutch had Dos
sessed a love of freedom from the time
that their ancestors fought under Will
lam of Orange. And these men. with
their common hatred of oppression, had
come to found q new home in a new
land, and 10 teach to the world the
lesson of self-government.
With this brief glance at the person.
ages in this historical drama, we can,
perhaps, better appreciate their subse-
q uent actions. Possibly the most re-
mote of the material causes of the Rev.
olutiOn was the French and Indian war.
Before that memorable struggle, the
American colonies had been a group of
separate settlements, governed, indeed,
by the same mother country, but yet
having individual interests and be.
ing in some degree quite indepen :
dent of M another. But the knowledge
of a common danger drew them together
for mutual protection, and taught them
the valuable lesson of unity in thought
and action, which stood them in such
good stead some twenty years later.
They could have accomplished nothing
II they had not learned III time that
their sole chance, in the face OF super
iority in numbers, equipment and gen.
eralship, lay in union.
Another point which had 10 slight
effect upon subsequent events was the
relative position of England and the
colonies. The Atlantic ocean lay be-
tween them, a barrier of incalculaDle
Importance i'll those days. The voyage
across its perilous eXpanse was attended
with serious difficulties, and so much
time was consumed in the trip that the
colOnlSts could do many a lawleSS thing
while a ship was on her way over to OBJ
tain permission to punish them.
The immediate causes constituted a
series of measures at one gOading and
retallatory, every step OF which rem
dered the two parties more widely SUM-
dered, more bitterly opposed. more
steadily unwilling to compromise.
II hLotO VI tlCOO PiOCCCutISo was bIO
Importation act passed i'll 1888; this laid
a heavy tax upon all sugar, run and
nlolasses brought into the colonies.
The duty was eXorbitant, and mer-
chants and importers did not pretend to
observe a law which they believed to be
an infringement on their rights. Snug
| CLING became so common as to be con-
sidered anything but dishonest, and
the law was evaded so thoroughly
as to become almost a dead let
ter. In 1850 the restrictions upon
colonial traffic were made still more
| rigid; intercolonial commerce was to-
tally interdicted; the colonists were not
allowed to erect steel or iron works, nor
vel to fell a tree in the rich woods of
Carolina to make a barrel stave or a
drop of turpentine. The observance of
this law was sighted as at first, and be-
cause of such disregard for regulation
English officers were granted WritS of
assistance, which authorized any in.
ferior official to enter a private house at
any time of day or night and search for
Struggled goods. The writs were, there
fore, nothing short of search warrants,
and to the colonists, who were English
men with English traditions, and had
been taught from the cradle that ''an
E~nglishman;s house is his CASTLE" the
insult was intolerable.
The breach being now opened, every
new action seemed to widen it. and to
enrage both parties. But the anger of
the colonists was a righteous wrath over
injustice, while that of England was
more like the childish petulance of OBJ
stinacy. England now found herself
burdened with debt incurred by the
French and Indian war, and her mill
istry determined that as the colonists had
/ hnI n / n rrrn rlnn -n ~ I'M Ah4y
should be allowed to do most Of the
paying.
With this end in view the celebrated
stamp act was passed in March, l765.
1t required that every lease, deed,
license, mortgage, everything in fact
pertaining TO legal practice, should bear
a stamp purchased from the British
government, ranging from Sd to 96, and
declared that no contract should be con-
sidered valid without it. The indigna-
ton OF the colOnists at this new curtall-
ment of their liberties knew no bounds.
They declared that the debt was Eng
lands, not theirs; that they hal aided
her in the wal as much as she had aided
them; and they had right to make this
boast, for while Braddock with his vet
eIan regulars had suffered humiliating
defeat, Washington, with his unframed
band of p~royincials, had succeeded
nobly. Hitherto the cOlonists had re-
sisted all injustice and t%yrannical inno-
yations by passively ignoring them.
This new outrage called for more
actiue demonstration. The assem-.
blies of New York and Massachusetts
and the Virginia house of burgesses
passed resolutions declaring their re-
sentiment of this oppression. In the
latter body Patrick Henry's fiery speech
in denunciation of George Ill. although
badly frightening the older members by
its audacity, had a far-reaching effect,
stirring the souls of the ~colonists and
making submission impossible. mo
taxation without Observation-Disclosures
the party cry, and at the suggestion of
James Otis the First colonial congress.
lmbued with the spirit of the words, as.
sembled at New York. Representatives
came from nine of the colonies and
framed a declaration of rights; this
stated simply, but Enthusiastically, that
the c%olonists would not tolerate taxa
ton by a body in which they were not
represented, and contained a manly ap-
peal for redress of their wrongs, adj
dressed to both houses OF parliament
and to the king.
The day OH which the hated act was
to take effect was the 1st of November,
and was set apart as a day of mourning.
All places OF business were closed, many
buildings were draped with emblems of
grief. the flags dropped at half-mast,
while the constant, dismal tolling of
bells warned of public calamity. Ben
Jamin Franklin had written 1.-The Sun
of American Liberty Has Set" and the
excited, grief = stricken faces of
the people who thronged the streets
IN every town were silent wit.
nesses to the sad truth OF his words.
Everywhere were hung or burned the
effigies of stamp officials, custom officers,
aud any man known to be in sympathy
with England's latest exhibition OF
%despotism. In New Hampshire a band
Of disheartened patriots bore to a newly
made grave a coffin bearing the suggest.
i've words, Liberty, aged CXLV
years" The burial service was read
over it, and it was slowly lowered into
the earth while bells pealed a funeral
knell. The incident seems now SO
quantity weird as to be almost uncouth.