Tax Resistance and the Birth of the American Revolution
On April 18, 1689, eighty-six years and a day before the “shot heard ‘round the world” at Lexington and Concord, the people of Boston and surrounding towns rose up and overthrew the royal governor in a rebellion against taxation and arbitrary power. It no mere local uprising. It was the first major step toward what would later become the American Revolution.
ROOTS OF THE REVOLUTION
While most Americans today know that “no taxation without representation” was a battle cry of the American Revolution, few realize this principle and active resistance against it began almost a century earlier.
To discover its roots, we have to go back to 1687 and the Historic Town of Ipswich, Massachusetts. As a historical marker notes:
“The legendary and heroic opposition by the people and leaders of Ipswich to a tax imposed by the Crown in 1687 is commemorated in the seal of the town of Ipswich, which bears the motto, ‘The Birthplace of American Independence 1687.”
The events in Ipswich reveal striking similarities between the British approach to governing the colonies in the 1680s and the patterns that would repeat during the American Revolution nearly a century later.
THE DOMINION OF NEW ENGLAND
In the early 1680s, King Charles II revoked the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to bring it more firmly under crown control, foreshadowing what King George III and Parliament would later do with the Coercive (or Intolerable) Acts of 1774.
Sir Edmund Andros was appointed to head the new “Dominion of New England.” Like General Thomas Gage would do nearly a century later, Andros immediately began implementing policies and laws unilaterally, despite the longstanding tradition that local laws, especially those involving taxation, required approval from the local assembly.
Undeterred by local customs, Andros reinstated a previously repealed tax law that farmers had found particularly burdensome. He further antagonized colonists by adding and increasing import duties, particularly on alcohol.
Additionally, “ancient titles to land in the Colony were declared to be worthless, and proprietors were required to secure themselves by taking out new patents from the Governor, for which high prices were extorted.”
Colonists who merely complained about these policies faced punishment through fines and imprisonment, but despite these threats, many local communities actively resisted efforts to enforce the new tax laws.
None did so more prominently than Ipswich.
THE IPSWICH RESISTANCE
In August 1687, Rev. John Wise, along with other local leaders, including Samuel and John Appleton, rallied the people of Ipswich. They organized a town meeting where the residents unanimously voted that “no taxes should be Levied upon the Subjects without consent of the Assembly chosen by the Freeholders.”
In a precursor to the modern nullification strategy of today, the town meeting took the additional step of voting to refuse enforcement of the tax. The town’s official resolution stated:
“They do, therefore, vote that they are not willing to choose a Commissioner for such an end without said privileges and moreover consent not that the Selectmen do proceed to lay any such rate until it be appointed by a General Assembly concurring with ye Governor and Counsel.”
This represented a strategic two-pronged resistance: the people refused to pay the tax, while their local government refused to appoint anyone to collect it.
PUNISHMENT AND PERSECUTION
Six local leaders, including Wise and the Appletons, were arrested for being “seditiously inclined and disaffected to his Majesty’s government.” They were charged with contempt and “high misdemeanors,” and denied the Great Writ, habeas corpus.
According to a historical record of the event, the defense “pleaded the repeal of the law of assessment upon the place. Also the Magna Charta of England, and the statute laws that secure the subjects properties and estates, &c.”
As Lysander Spooner later noted, tyrants see discussion as just “idle wind.” This certainly proved true for the men of Ipswich.
In response, the judge said, “We must not think the laws of England follow us to the ends of the earth,” a clear example – among many – that words on paper don’t ever enforce themselves.
The judge’s tyranny didn’t stop there. He continued, telling Wise he had no rights whatsoever, other than what the government allowed him to have:
“Mr. Wise you have no more privileges left you, than not to be sold for slaves”
All the defendants were found guilty, banned or suspended from office, fined, and required to post a large bond “for the good behavior one year.”
Like the Royal Governors during the American Revolution, Andros wasn’t done – far from it. He proceeded to restrict the right of the people to assemble, banning all town meetings, except one annual meeting “solely for electing officials.”
As a 16-year-old, Benjamin Franklin understood in 1722 when publishing one of Cato’s Letters: “Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech”
THE PEOPLE RISE UP
This cycle of arbitrary power, taxation without representation, resistance, punishment for opposition, and restrictions on representation, free speech, and assembly drove and expanded the resistance. Finally, on April 18, 1689, a large colonial militia organized, marched into Boston, and began arresting public officials.
Once victory seemed almost certain, another 1,500 militiamen entered the city, and a declaration was read, including a list of grievances.
- Absolute and Arbitrary power
- Making “taxes as he pleased”
- “Red Coats … brought from Europe, to support what was to be Imposed”
- The judge’s statement to Wise “that the people in New-England were all Slaves and the only difference between them and Slaves is their not being bought and sold”
- The fact that people who opposed were arrested and fined.
At this point, Andros attempted to flee but was captured. Negotiations ensued, and the militia promised him safe passage on the condition that the local people “must and would have the Government in their own hands.”
News of the successful uprising spread rapidly. Colonial authorities moved to reinstate the structures and charters that had been abolished when Andros was first installed.
In what today might be considered a surprising response, King William III granted the colonists approval to continue under their old charters, a clear victory in the wake of this period of resistance to arbitrary power.
LESSONS FOR THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Nearly a century later, the American Revolutionaries applied these same principles of resistance when facing similar threats to their liberty through taxation.
In response to the Stamp Act of 1765, John Dickinson warned colonists that acquiescence would lead to further oppression.
“THE Stamp Act, therefore, is to be regarded only as an EXPERIMENT OF YOUR DISPOSITION,” he wrote. “If you quietly bend your Necks to that Yoke, you prove yourselves ready to receive any Bondage to which your Lords and Masters shall please to subject you.” [emphasis in original]
John Hancock echoed this sentiment, writing to his London Agent that “the people of this country will never suffer themselves to be made slaves of by a submission to the damned act.”
Today, the Historic Town of Ipswich not only has “The Birthplace of American Independence 1687” as its town seal, but a historical marker stands at the site of resistance:
“Here on August 23, 1687, the citizens of Ipswich, led by the Reverend John Wise, denounced the levy of taxes by the arbitrary government of Sir Edmund Andros, and from their protest sprant the American Revolution of 1689.”
The spirit of resistance born in Ipswich lived on.
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