Historic Tea Party Roots-247 Years of Resisting Tyranny
by KrisAnne Hall
I recently read with joy a conservative blogger's attempt
to connect the TEA party movement to its historic roots;
a topic I have been meaning to write about for months now.
The blogger rightly said that the "the historical precedent
for the TPM wasn't the Tea Party event in Boston Harbor on
December 16, 1773." I actually uttered an "Amen, brother!"
He went on to describe the Continental Association established
on October 20, 1774 by the First Continental Congress in response
to the Intolerable Acts. That's when I realized that I have
waited long enough to write this article.
The fact is the Continental Association of 1774
(10 months after the Boston Tea Party) is about
10 years too late. The first organized opposition
to a tyrannical government in the colonies came in
1764 in the form of the Committees of Correspondence.
In April 1764 Parliament passed the Sugar and Molasses Act.
These laws were originally passed in 1733 at the insistence
of the large plantation owners in the British West Indies
(can you say lobbyists?) The six-pence tax was never
successfully collected, and so the Sugar Act actually cut
the tax in half but stepped up enforcement. At the same time,
the Sugar Act taxed the sugar, coffee, wine, and spices the
colonists used, and also regulated the export of lumber and iron.
This "excessive taxation and regulation" immediately impaired
the colonial economy. In conjunction with the Sugar Act,
parliament passed the Currency Act, which essentially assumed
control of the colonial monetary system. The Currency Act
also established "superior" Vice-admiralty courts to ensure
rulings favorable to British interests.
In 1764 the colonies were in the midst of a depressed economy
due to the protracted Seven Years’ War, so these indirect taxes
and restrictive laws were particularly grievous. In addition
to the economic impact, the psychological impact was particularly
offensive. The Sugar Act not only restricted the exports by the
colonists, but gave an economic "leg up" to the British West Indies.
This reinforced the second class status often attributed to the
colonists by the British "mainlanders". The ports of New England
were hit especially hard due to the taxes, regulation and government interference. Many of the merchants were in danger of being driven
out of the market into bankruptcy.
So in 1764 the first "grass roots" opposition to tyranny in the
colonies took shape in the form of a Committee of Correspondence
in Boston. The colonists did not have email, smart phones,
Facebook or blogs, so the Committees of Correspondence served
as a means of communication on issues that needed collective
attention. The committee in Boston wrote to other colonies to
rally united opposition to the Sugar Act and the Currency Act
sparking anti-government protests among the colonists.
On the heels of these protests the Parliament, deciding to
clamp down on the rebellious colonists, passed the first
Stamp Act and Quartering Act of 1765, and New York formed
its Committee of Correspondence to rally resistance to the
new taxes and tyranny. Massachusetts Bay committee then
sent out letters urging other colonies to send representatives
to a Stamp Act Congress in the fall.
As a decade of hostility between the royal government and the
colonists rolled on, Boston set up the first Committee with the
approval of a town meeting 1772. By spring 1773, patriots decided
to follow the Massachusetts system and began to set up their own
Committees in each colony. By February 1774, 11 colonies had set
up Committees of Correspondence. The Committees would eventually
be the basis for the Continental Congress and the Continental
Association of 1774. As the revolutionary period unfolded the
Committees of Correspondence would become the basis for the future
legislative bodies in America. Yet it all began in 1764 as a
citizen movement in response to an oppressive government that
would not respond to or respect the wishes of the people.
Two of the men behind the movement were:
Samuel Adams and James Otis Jr.
Mr. Otis was an attorney who had gained notoriety
for his pro bono representation of colonial merchants
challenging the authority of the writs of assistance
in 1761.
These writs enabled British authorities to enter any
colonist's home with no advance notice, no probable
cause and no reason given. (Today these writs are
called national security letters and are authorized
under the Patriot Act.) John Adams said of Otis'
five-hour oration in the Boston State House that
"the child independence was then and there born, [for]
every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me
to go away as I did, ready to take arms against
writs of assistance."
Also speaking of Otis, John Adams said,
"I have been young and now I am old, and I solemnly say
I have never known a man whose love of country was more
ardent or sincere, never one who suffered so much, never
one whose service for any 10 years of his life were so
important and essential to the cause of his country as
those of Mr. Otis from 1760 to 1770."
Better known was Samuel Adams, a representative of the
local Boston assembly and member of the Massachusetts
House of Representatives.
Samuel Adams had this to say in May 1764:
"For if our Trade may be taxed, why not our Lands?
Why not the Produce of our Lands & everything we possess
or make use of? This we apprehend annihilates our
Charter Right to govern & tax ourselves. It strikes at
our British privileges, which as we have never forfeited
them, we hold in common with our Fellow Subjects who are
Natives of Britain. If Taxes are laid upon us in any shape
without our having a legal Representation where they are laid,
are we not reduced from the Character of free Subjects to the
miserable State of tributary Slaves?"
Samuel Adams would later organize the Sons of Liberty which
coordinated the famous Boston Tea Party of 1773.
But let’s not forget the ladies of the TEA party movement.
Penelope Barker of Edenton, North Carolina organized the
Edenton Tea Party in 1774.
In the home of her friend Elizabeth King, she and 50 other
women signed a declaration and sent it to be published in
a London newspaper. In part the declaration said:
“Maybe it has only been men who have protested the king
up to now. That only means we women have taken too long
to let our voices be
heard. We are signing our names to a document, not hiding ourselves
behind costumes like the men in Boston did at their tea party.
The British will know who we are…We, the aforesaid Ladys will not
promote ye wear of any manufacturer from England until such time
that all acts which tend to enslave our Native country shall be
repealed."
Much like the liberal media of today these principled women
were attacked and portrayed by the British as bad mothers
and loose women.
However, the colonists praised these ladies and the women of the
colonies followed their lead and began boycotting British goods.
In light of historical fact, it is clear to any rational and
reasonable mind that the modern TEA party movement is not a
modern movement at all. The TEA party represents the heart
of the American ideal of liberty and self-government.
These brave men and women did not sit idly by in the face of
oppression and tyranny because they understood their history
and knew their rights. They understood that their rights
came from God and had been guaranteed to them beginning at
the 1100 Charter of Liberties, through the Magna Carter of
1215, and the English Bill of Rights of 1688.
Their liberty was not a modern development and neither is ours.
That is why, in spite of Rachel Maddow's pronouncement that
the TEA party is over because of small rallies, the TEA party
is not going away. It has been here for 247 years and will
continue as long as the founding principles of America still
burn in the hearts of patriots.
