The Movement Toward Independence
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phemous, or obscene, or otherwise result in breaches of the peace. In 1763
there was no political dispute in America controversial enough to justify
the breaking up of a public meeting by the guardians of the peace.
Only two years later, however, in 1765, this era of good feeling came
to a most abrupt and disastrous end. The cause of disruption was the
Stamp Act that the British imposed upon the colonies as a means of raising sixty thousand pounds in annual taxes to help defray the costs of the
war with Pontiac’s Indians on the northwestern frontier. (The British
government expected to have to pay 350,000 pounds a year to maintain
troops in North America.) Soon the famous cry ‘‘No taxation without
representation’’ was heard from the Patriots. That the Stamp Act taxed
newspapers and legal documents infuriated America’s newspaper publishers and lawyers—and these were powerful classes to offend. One
consequence was a concerted attack by most of the American newspapers upon both Parliament and King George III—and attacks by mobs
upon the printing houses of the few Tory (or pro-British) newspapers.
Civil rights are sorely battered in time of war. Until the fighting ended
in 1783, little freedom of speech or of the press was allowed, from New
Hampshire to Georgia—except freedom of a sort for whichever side, Patriot or Loyalist, happened to be in control of a town or a region. Those
two decades of violent interference with publication and public speaking
were not forgotten when the first State constitutions were drafted.
The Movement Toward Independence
The Americans prospered, as we have seen, under more than a century
of British rule. They enjoyed a great deal of personal freedom and independence. It would therefore be a gross mistake to view the colonists as
living in a repressive state or to suggest they were brutalized by English
tyrants. There were disagreements, to be sure, but none so fundamental
as to provoke a public uprising threatening the existence of government.
Precisely how long this peaceful state of affairs might have lasted had
the British continued to follow their ‘‘hands-off’’ policy toward the colonies is uncertain. In any event, 1763 marks an important turning point in
Anglo-American relations, for this is the year when the mother country
embarked upon a bold new course of action to increase revenue, tighten