The Father of the American Revolution - Part Three
In 1764, Parliament passed the Revenue Act, known in the colonies as the Sugar Act. It placed tariffs on sugar, coffee, wines and other products. It lowered the tariff on molasses imported from the West Indies, but dramatically stepped up enforcement of the duty. Merchants were required to provide thoroughly detailed invoices of their cargoes. Colonial governments began issuing more search warrants, known officially as “writs of assistance.” The Royal Navy was even given broad authority in helping to enforce the Act and insure the proper collection of revenue.
The Sugar Act was denounced by colonial merchants as overly burdensome and by other colonists, including Samuel Adams, as an unjustified extension of Parliament’s power over the colonies. Now under new leadership, Parliament dismissed such complaints, and made plans to pass an even broader and more direct tax on the colonies.
James Otis, a fiery Boston lawyer, whom Adams had befriended, was among the first to champion the colonial anti-tax cause. Adams put his pen to paper in support of Otis and those protesting the tax.
With the approval and support of the Caucus Club, Adams drafted a set of instructions for the members of the Massachusetts Assembly. The instructions, though they carried no legal authority, represented nevertheless a certain degree of political clout.
Realizing the importance of context, Adams sought to magnify their clout by titling them as if they came from the people of Boston (and not an organized lobby). He even put language in the instructions, as if to harmlessly couch them in such a spirit: "We therefore your Constituents take this opportunity to declare our just Expectations from you."
Knowing that Parliament's right to tax the colonies was not questioned by a majority of the Assembly, and perhaps not even by most Massachusetts citizens, he reached for the loftiest of principles in substantiating his demands for the Assembly. He appealed to the Assembly's identity as the representative body of the people, and urged them accordingly to guard the rights of the "free people" of Massachusetts "against any undue weight which may tend to disadjust [the] critical Ballance upon which our happy Constitution & the Blessings of it do depend."
Opponents of the Sugar Act had already determined that one of their chief obstacles to effectively protesting the Sugar Act was Chief Justice and Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson. Devout in his loyalty to the Crown, Hutchinson held several public offices
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