Words Worth Remembering: American Character
In the middle of December 1765, John Adams, sitting by a warm fire and watching the snow fall, could not help but think that he was witnessing a watershed moment in human history.
The Stamp Act had, in a word, raised hell. Not only did it spawn massive resistance without previous precedent, it also drew the colonies closer than perhaps they had ever been.
The Stamp Act Congress, which gathered in New York in October upon the invitation of Massachusetts, resolved that Americans could not be virtually represented in so far away a body as the British Parliament, let alone taxed by that same body.
Self-rule was a right they would not give up. As Samuel Adams wrote, the colonists were “entitled to those essential rights in common with all men,” rights that “no law of society can, consistent with the law of God and nature, digest them.”
In the Virginia House of Burgesses, Patrick Henry assailed the encroachments of the kingdom’s legislature. “If this be treason,” he shouted, “make the most of it!” Standing in the hallway, a young Thomas Jefferson, then a student, wrote of “the splendid display of Mr. Henry’s talents as a popular orator,” words that incited not just words of resistance, but acts of resistance.
From Boston to Savannah, demonstrations broke the power of enforcement, crippling the royal government and nullifying what was once thought to be an act that would “enforce itself.”
As the Constitutional Courant declared in New Jersey, the colonists would not “give in to the vile minions of tyranny and arbitrary power,” resolving instead: “Let it be our honor, let it be our boast, to be odious to the foes to humankind.”
Come fall 1765, the Stamp Act had been effectively defeated.
Deep in thought near Christmas, John Adams observed that “the people, even to the lowest ranks, have become more attentive to their liberties, more inquisitive about them, and more determined to defend them, than they were ever before known or had occasion to be.”
He continued, “They think that the liberties of mankind, and the glory of human nature, is in their keeping. They know that liberty has been skulking about in corners from creation, and has been hunted and persecuted, in all countries, by cruel power. But they flatter themselves that America was designed by Providence for the theater on which man was to make his true figure, on which science, virtue, liberty, and happiness and glory were to exist in peace.”
On New Year’s Eve, Tuesday, December 31, the Cause was once again on Adams’ mind. “What wretched blunders do they make in attempting to regulate [America],” he told his diary, jabbing at London. “They know not the character of Americans.”
Weeks later, on Thursday, February 13, 1766, the more amiable Rockingham ministry—Prime Minister Grenville’s had been dismissed by George III for reasons unrelated to America—questioned Benjamin Franklin about the Stamp Act in front of Parliament.
Franklin, like Adams, knew very well the character of Americans, one defined by fierce attachment to simplicity, independence, and self-rule.
The three-hour testimony, complete with scripted questions coordinated by Franklin’s allies, allowed Rockingham to formulate a detailed, sympathetic case for repeal.
“Can anything less than a military force carry the Stamp Act into execution?” one member asked.
“They cannot force a man to take stamps who chooses to do without them,” Franklin replied. “They will not find a rebellion; they may indeed make one.”
The last two questions struck at the heart of the pressure in London: nonimportation, a key way in which the colonists expressed their displeasure with Parliament.
“What used to be the pride of the Americans?”
“To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain,” Franklin said.
“What is now their pride?”
“To wear their old clothes over again, till they can make new ones.”
Americans would not budge. They would not submit. They would rather wear what was old than buy what was new from a country aiming a pistol at their head.
Ultimately, parliament repealed the Stamp Act in March, giving in to what was, in effect, the beginning of the end of the British empire in the American colonies.
The spirit of 1765 was none other than the American character—the American soul—revealing itself at a profound moment of choosing. Had the colonists submitted, one need not be a genius to conclude that perhaps the nascent struggle for self-rule would have ended or at least been severely undermined.
Every now and then, history presents us with similar moments of choosing. And whether it be an international crisis, domestic upheavals, or societal change, the guiding question before our choice must be the same: Is this consistent with the character of America?
Today, as ever, there are a litany of moments of choosing, the final choices of which have yet to be fully made — choices that will determine more than just the state America of tomorrow, but what kind of America exists tomorrow and for generations to come.
Today, our present leaders in the White House and in Congress know not the character of Americans. And as in 1765 with Britain, it remains our duty to remind them just who we are—if not for their sake, at least for our own.