35 Years of Founding Era History (Chapter 5)

In this information, the speaker discusses the history leading up to the American Revolution. They mention the Stamp Act and the opposition it sparked among the colonists, particularly thanks to the efforts of Patrick Henry. They also talk about the Townsend Acts, a series of acts passed by the British Parliament to assert their authority over the colonies. These acts imposed taxes and strict provisions on the colonists, leading to further resistance. The speaker emphasizes the role of government oppression and the need to learn from history. They also mention the Tea Act and the Boston Tea Party as significant events that fueled the desire for independence. Overall, the speaker highlights the ongoing struggle between government power and individual liberty. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Well, welcome folks to 35 years of founding era history, the majority of which you And so this will be chapter five. And looking back to kind of make a summary of chapters one through chapter four. We know that the Stamp Act in 1765 kind of lit the fire of opposition, if we could call it that, in the people of the colonies. And could that have been brought about by a more significant figure than none other than Patrick Henry, the man who preferred liberty over life? Could it be better initiated by anyone in that period of our history? Well, we know what happened. You know, as the, as we look back at chapters one through four, we know that the resolutions that Patrick Henry got passed in the Virginia House of Burgesses, the news spread through the colonies, and except for a divergence of purpose in Rhode Island, where the split actually worked, where they were able to bring in enough people to support the government or to support the king and the crown. But there are some very valuable lessons that we should take from all of this as it moved through the colonies. And eventually, the government, the parliament, and the crown had no choice whatsoever, but to just negate the Stamp Act because it wasn't being collected. People were afraid to become a tax collector, and several of them had fled the country and gone back to England to avoid possible hanging at the hands of the Sons of Liberty and others. So we should take a very valuable lesson from this, and that would be that, number one, no government, no matter how oppressive, no matter how tyrannical, can impose its will upon the people at large without the help of willing dupes and useful idiots who take up the cause of government for money. And they are more than willing to oppress their fellow citizens if someone will just give them a regular paycheck. Well, when it comes to our history, folks, that hasn't changed. We've got the same thing today. How many people in uniform wearing badges will willingly enforce whatever law that the government passes, whether it be local, state, federal, whatever? How many of them will willingly go out there and enforce laws that are completely and totally unconstitutional? And the Constitution is weak as it is. They even violate that with impunity, and nothing happens. But you can be arrested, you can have your property taken from you, you can be put in confinement now at the whim of some government official. Now, I don't know how in the world you could ever call that rightful liberty or freedom or anything else. And the political parties aren't helping. That's not working. But let's jump back and get back to what was happening in the colonies after the Stamp Act kind of 1766, after the Stamp Act was in other words, basically simply repudiated. Referencing back to some of the previous chapters, when we talked about the Stamp Act being proposed in Parliament and the discussion between Charles Townsend and Isaac Bear, you might want to go back and re-listen to what Mr. Townsend had to say because, and also that Isaac Bear gave the Sons of Liberty their names, and he had an idea of what was going on. But anyway, when the Stamp Act fails, then what do we end up with as far as Parliament? Parliament is not going to sit back and take this, and especially we know for sure that Charles Townsend was not going to sit back and take this. So, what we have in 1767 then, is the Townsend Acts, which was a series of four acts passed by the British Parliament in an attempt to assert or to reassert what it considered to be its historic right to exert all of the authority that they desired over the people of the colonies. And so what they did was they went through the various assemblies and through strict provisions for the collection of their revenue and so, again, yes, it was the American colonists who named the the Townsend Acts. Number one, the thing that really got the people was called the Suspending Act, which prohibited the New York Assembly from conducting any business until it complied with the taxing requirements of the Quartering Act for the expenses of British troops that the Crown had placed in New York. So it was, in essence, look people, we are going to send soldiers there to force you to do what we want, and to capitulate with taxation, and you're going to pay for it. You're going to pay for them being quartered. You're going to pay their salaries, in essence. So you are going to be in charge of paying for your own oppression. Well, folks, it's still going on today, if you don't think so. Who do you think pays the people who come to oppress you? You do. And so, yeah, the Quartering Act, of course, you know, today, if you look at the Bill of Rights you look at Article 3, and that was kind of the move to stop that from ever happening again, but the only thing I have to ask is, what's the difference, really, in troops being quartered in your home because the government says you will bring them in, feed them, and do everything else, than you having to build a barracks, or a place for them to live, and doing the same thing? There's very little. Very, very little. That is a differentiation there. But the second act of the Townshend Act was called the Revenue Act, and it imposed direct revenue taxes. That means that these were taxes which were put in place not simply to regulate trade, but to actually accrue money for the Crown. Now, all of these were payable at the expense, and the taxes were put on lead, glass, paper, paint, and tea. Now, it was the second time in the colonies that a tax had been levied solely for the purpose of raising revenue. Now, the third act in the Townshend Act established strict and often arbitrary machinery throughout the colonies, including many more tax collectors, searchers, spies, vessels to guard the ports to make sure that no one went in or out, because smuggling became the thing to do, and especially in the Boston area, the smuggling was led by none other than John Hancock and Samuel Adams. But they wanted to have search warrants, writs of assistance, and a board of customs commissioners at Boston, all to be financed by the people. Now, the fourth Townshend Act, known as the Indemnity Act, was aimed at enabling the East India Company to compete with the tea that was being smuggled by the Dutch into the colonies. It lowered commercial duties on the tea imported to England by the East India Company, and gave the company a refund of the duty for tea that was then exported back to the colonies. Compensating for the loss of revenue brought about the Indemnity Act, which was another reason for the imposition of the Townshend duties. So here we are beginning to see, or at least we should be beginning to see, exactly what happens with this tax structure. The East India Company was in trouble, financial trouble, big time. Okay, was there, because this is going to get real important as we move down in our time frame of understanding here. Now, there was a gentleman in Philadelphia who operated a ship in the East India Company, and that ship was called the Dark Prince. Now, this ship was owned by one Robert Morris and his partner Thomas Willing, and they had a company, shipping company, titled Willing and Morris. And you really need to remember that name, Robert Morris, because we mentioned it in the last lesson, in the last chapter, and it's going to get even more relevant as we move forward here. So folks, in the middle of all of that mess back then was, of course, the Tea Act. And the Tea Act was a government bailout for a company on the brink of financial collapse. Now, we've seen this in our own history with the banking industry back in 2008, 2009. We saw it with Chrysler. Too big to fail is a common phraseology that seems to have been just as relevant back with the East India Company as it was with any others. So the legislation gave the East India Company a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade, allowing it to bypass colonial merchants as middlemen, and to even undercut the price of smuggled Dutch tea, which was widely consumed in the colonies and smuggled in, as I said before, by Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Thus the Tea Act directly threatened the vested commercial interest of Boston's wealthy merchants and the smugglers. And so here we have, yes, we have a tax that's going to be put on there. But was the revolt and the Boston Tea Party how does that really affect what we look at as we study this period of history? Well, we do know that George Washington very much condemned the Boston Tea Party. And he wrote in June of 1774 that the cause of Boston ever will be considered as the cause of America. But he didn't agree with throwing all of that tea into the harbor. And so was it the British reaction to the Boston Tea Party or the Tea Party itself that motivated Americans even more towards seeking independence? Well, quite a few of the people sided with Washington in this and thought that the Boston Tea Party was in fact wrong, that it was the destruction of private property. But here's the thing that has always troubled me when they start talking about, oh, that was private property. Well, you don't think that the taxes that you are compelling people to pay under threats of violence, you don't think that's property anymore? I'm befuddled here. Your property is important, but the tax money that people are having to pay for government oppression is not? So in essence, I think we could probably say that the Boston Tea Party and a few subsequent actions were probably what really split off the monarchists as we know them and who would later become Federalists. Now we have to remember that also at this time was the fact that the British had put a blockade over the port in Boston to shut down any commerce they might have whatsoever. And that again was part of the Townsend Acts. And so the British said to Boston, okay, we will keep it closed until damages are paid, annulled colonial self-government in Massachusetts, and expanded the Quartering Act. So this is why that many of the people call them the And this in fact was the motivation for the First Continental Congress. Now you might ask the question, I know I did, sitting there in high school or wherever it was when we first started talking about the Boston Tea Party. It may have been grammar school. But who were they? Dressed up as American Indians, you know, of course, to conceal their identity, which makes perfect sense. But what did we have here? Who were they? Do we have any clue? Well, the band of protesters were very, very secretive about this. And even after American independence, they refused to reveal their identities, fearing they could still face civil and criminal charges, as well as condemnation from elites for engaging in mob behavior and the wanton destruction of private property. Even today, only the names of some of the participants are even known in history. Now, although we all know and call it the Boston Tea Party, when did that name first come about? Well, it didn't show up in any newspapers until, would you believe, 1826 with that name? It's incredible. In the 1830s, two books, A Retrospect of the Tea Party and Traits of the Tea Party, popularized the name Boston Tea Party and cemented that phrase into our history. And these party protests, Tea Party protests, were not confined to Boston. spread to many of the other colonies throughout the year of 1774. In fact, New York, Annapolis, Maryland, Charleston, South Carolina, had similar acts where tea was dumped or just simply burned in protest. And, of course, the financial loss for the East India Company and the Crown was significant because today it is estimated that the protesters tossed more than 92,000 pounds of tea into the Boston Harbor. Now, just to give you a little bit of correlation here or reference, that's enough to fill 18.5 million tea bags. Well, the present-day value of the destroyed tea has been estimated to be in the $1 million range. But one tea partier has alleged to have appeared to rise from the dead, and I thought that was worth including here, but after being knocked unconscious by a falling tea crate in the hold of a ship, one John Crane was reportedly thought to be dead and hidden by his compatriots under a pile of wood shavings in a nearby carpenter's shop. He awoke hours later, however, and was the only man who was harmed in the tea parties in any fashion whatsoever. Well, we would certainly be remiss here if we didn't discuss the Boston Massacre in relation to all of this. So, Boston was a hotbed because they blocked the harbor. You couldn't get goods in or out, even, you know, the smuggling ships were having problems with that. They were having to try to find Hancock, especially as a good study on this, as he was trying to circumvent the British sentries in the area of Boston and to try to bring Because it was his livelihood. That's how he made his living. He was a professional smuggler. So, Boston, the tensions were probably higher in Boston than any other city or area at that time. But more than 2,000 British soldiers occupied the city and the population was somewhere in the neighborhood of about 16,000. And so the soldiers were there to enforce Britain's tax laws. You know, like we started with the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts, the Tea Act, the Sugar Act, just taxes on anything that the people were going to consume. Because that is the essence of government. To tax the people. Why do you think Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution is the very first power given to Congress? The power of unlimited taxation for unlimited amounts for whatever they deem necessary and proper, and you have no say so. No taxation without representation. Sounds good. Problem is, is your representation sells you out and keeps increasing your taxes. If you don't believe that, find you someone who lives in the state of Arkansas, call them up and ask them. They've had Republican conservative super majorities in their government in Arkansas, and since the election of 2016, Arkansas has raised taxes more than any of their neighboring states that are controlled by Democrats. Now you're not going, oh no, we can't talk about that. Yeah, but it happens to be true. It doesn't make any difference who you elect. When they get there, you're going to be taxed. And your taxes will always be increased. They don't come down. That is the essence of government. Is the ability to tax and the ability to force you to pay those taxes. That's the entire purpose of government. That's why they gave themselves that power. We'll get into this even more as we move along here. And yes, there was the cry of no taxation without representation. But, and I don't think the people in Boston thought, they probably would have been appeased like the people of today if the king would have said, elect some representatives and send them over here to parliament. They would have had representation, but they would have never passed anything. Folks look at it. When did Ron Paul ever pass anything? What law did he ever propose before Congress that was ever passed? The fact that you've got a representative there saying things that you want to hear makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside means absolutely nothing. Because they're not going to control it. And in this government, it's set up specifically in this constitution to make sure that if some people get an idea in the legislature that they're going to try to do what's right, you've got the judicial branch there to ensure that government continues in its oppressive manner for as long as possible. That's why it's there. Willing dupes and useful idiots. Representation does not get you anything. A representative republic is a farce. But it all sounds good. But back to the situation in Boston here. I don't mean to get so carried away, but it gets to me at times. Skirmishes between colonists and the British redcoats, and between patriot colonists and the Tories, or the ones who were loyal to Britain, became increasingly common in the city. To protest taxes, patriots often vandalized the stores selling British goods and intimidated store merchants and intimidated customers from going in and out of those businesses. On February 22nd, a mob of patriots attacked a known loyalist store. A firearms officer, Ebenezer Richardson, lived near the store and tried to break up the rock-pelting crowd by firing his gun through the window of his home. His gun fire, his shot, struck and killed an 11-year-old boy named Christopher Sider, and further enraged the protesters. Several days later, a fight broke out between local workers and British soldiers. It ended without serious bloodshed, but helped set the stage for the incident we now know as the Boston Massacre. It was a frigid, snowy evening on March 5th, 1770. It didn't take long for angry colonists to come and start badgering him and insulting him and threatening him with violence. At some point, White fought back and struck a colonist with the bayonet. In retaliation, the colonists pelted him with snowballs, ice, and rocks. Bells started ringing throughout the town, usually a warning of fire, sending a mass of male colonists into the streets. As the assault on White continued, he eventually fell and called out for help. In response, fearing mass riots and the loss of the king's money, Captain Thomas Preston arrived on the scene with several soldiers and took up an alleged defensive position in front of the customs house. Worried that bloodshed was inevitable, some of these colonists pleaded with the soldiers to dissipate the group and try to alleviate the situation because people saw what was coming. But it didn't help because others were screaming at him, daring him to shoot. Now, it was later reported that the protesters planned to carry off this one guard from the post and murder him. That was the story that the Loyalists took up. Now, the violence escalated, unfortunately, and the colonists struck the soldiers with clubs and sticks, snowballs, rocks, just whatever they could find to throw. Reports differ depending on what source you look at as to exactly what happened next, but after someone supposedly said the word fire, a soldier fired his gun, although it is unclear if the discharge was intentional. Once the first shot rang out, other soldiers opened fire, killing five colonists, including Crispus Attucks, a local dock worker who happened to be black, and wounded six others. Among the other casualties of the Boston Massacre was one Samuel Gray. Now, he was a rope maker, and he was shot in the head. Sailor James Caldwell was hit twice before dying, and Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr were mortally wounded. So, you know, we look at this and we see that, yes, governments will do whatever it takes. But, you know, getting back to this situation here with the Boston Massacre, it's ironic that the man who volunteered to defend legally the soldiers, and actually won their acquittal, was one John Adams. Now, Adams is thought so many times he's called a Federalist founder, although, you know, the Federalist Party split because he and Hamilton split when Adams was president, but we'll get to that later in our 35-year assessment here. But here we had Adams who claims to be, you know, all liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. John Adams, like Benjamin Franklin, was a monarchist. He stated that if you read John Adams' letters, if you read, he wanted a government just like King George had, but he wanted it in America with his folks, people who were friends with him, his wealthy aristocracy group, managing it. Well, one of the things that should be mentioned here, and I kind of skipped over it, I apologize for that, but one of the things that should be mentioned is also that along with the Townsend Acts and the Intolerable Acts was a edict by the king and parliament is that all smuggling charges were now conducted without a jury trial, and were also the local courts couldn't handle it. Had to be the king's court. Just kind of draw the parallels today with the Supreme Court. States can decide all they want to, like Missouri did recently. They can decide all they want to to protect their Second Amendment or to protect their Bill of Rights, but it makes no difference because federal judges, because the Department of Justice, you know, they named the judges for each case, so they put the judge they want in there. For people who don't believe that, you know, I got some oceanfront property for sale again, but the Department of Justice does not want to lose, and especially if they can put the judges they want into positions. So it's absolutely incredible, but the parallels are still there. So no trial by jury. Well, the Constitution made sure that even we're going to let you have a jury, but it's going to be subject to our decision whether that jury's decision stands or not. So trial by jury is also another illusion. You don't have that right. You can say you have that right. Yes, you can have a jury trial, and the jury can say, hey, I'm going to award you $450,000 because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, just like they did the lady with Fox News, and then it goes to the federal courts, and the federal courts overturns the jury's decision. You don't have trial by jury, people. You know, it's an illusion. It's a fairy tale, and it all goes back, you know, the same thing. Tyrants are always going to do the same thing. If you watch them, you can predict what they're going to do, and people can't seem to pick this up about history. If you don't know what's been done before, you won't know that it's going to happen to you when you see it coming because you aren't aware of the patterns, the things they do over and over and over again. But here we go. You know, they take it out of the hands of the colonists. Okay, the king's court will decide. Well, it's no different in America today. You might as well call the Supreme Court or the federal judiciary, for that matter, the king's court because they can overrule anything the people of a state do. It's just that simple, and that was the plan initiated and written by little Jimmy Madison way back when. That's what he wanted. States should be there only as subordinately useful. Now, good old Alexander Hamilton, speaking out of both sides of his mouth, which is typical for Jews anyway, he made that wonderful statement, blah, you know, I know the states should have all the power, and then in another place he writes just exactly the opposite. But isn't that what lawyers do? I mean, that just seems to be the case. But let's get down to this. Now the Boston Massacre is the initiation of violence. Bloodshed. People have lost their lives. So there are an awful lot of people today who don't realize that today we are looking at almost exactly the same circumstances. And the tactics that have worked for government in the past are the tactics they will use now, just like anyone else. You will use what has worked for you, and that's what the government's going to do. Now, on December the 16th in 1773, the Sons of Liberty in Boston made a political protest of the tax policy of the British government and the East India Company that controlled all of the tea that was imported into the colonies in Boston Harbor. We've talked about that, and the Boston Tea Party. Disguised as Indians, yes, we know all about that. But as a result of that protest, Parliament, with the direct encouragement of King George III, passed what is called the Coercive Acts, or as they were properly known, the Restraining Acts, in 1774. Now there are four of those. There's the Boston Port Act, which was passed on June the 1st of 1774. Then there was the Quartering Act on June the 2nd of 1774. The Administration of Justice Act, which was passed on May the 20th, 1774. And the Massachusetts Government Act, which was passed on May the 20th, 1774. Now, let's look into those to get a little bit better idea, okay? Let's take a quick look first at the Boston Port Act. The Boston Port Act was one of the Coercive Acts that Parliament passed in an effort to regain control of the patriots, or the protesters, or the Sons of Liberty in Massachusetts. This measure closed the port in Boston, effective June the 1st, 1774, until the city would see fit to reimburse the East India Company, not the Crown. They had to reimburse the East India Company. We're going to put this together for you here as we move along. For the cost of the tea destroyed in the Boston Tea Party, and paid for damages caused to the Customs Office House during the unrest there. Bostonians were also required to prove to the Crown's satisfaction that they were peaceable. I don't know how you do that. That's got to be cool. But further, the Crown insisted on recognition from Massachusetts that duties such as the tea tax were properly within the purview of Parliament. In other words, acknowledging to the government, yes, you have a right to steal my money. Lord North reasoned that the colonies would not take fire as a result of the Boston Port Act, since Boston was the only place punished. Well, how wrong can you be? The American colonies, or the American states, recognized that the Port Act was the first step in the destruction of their American liberty. The colonies rallied to Boston's aid, and the First Continental Congress was convened to direct opposition to King George and Parliament. Now, also a part of the Coercive Acts was the Quartering Act, as mentioned before. And so this was Lord North's disciplinary program against the state or the colony of Massachusetts following the Boston Tea Party. Parliament amended the Quartering Acts of 1765 and 1766. In 1768, the Boston Whigs, taking advantage of the absence of any redcoat barracks in Boston itself, attempted to quarter the troops in Castle William rather than in Boston, where they were urgently needed. Under previous legislation, the colonies were required to provide soldiers with living accommodations in public facilities such as inns and taverns or unoccupied buildings. The revised law authorized billeting soldiers in occupied facilities, including private homes. You can imagine how this went over. But the Boston Patriots were able to force the British troops to remain camped on the Boston Commons until November of 1774 by refusing to allow workmen to repair the buildings General Gage had selected for his own personal quarters. The Quartering Act differed from the other Coercive Acts in that its terms applied to all of the American colonies and not just Massachusetts. So the people see this coming now. These are not just acts against the people of Boston and the people of Massachusetts. Now we're going to move on to the Justice Act. Now folks, I want you to stop and think some as you're listening to this and tell me, does any of this sound familiar today? Can you draw the parallels? Can you see the patterns? The Administration of Justice Act provided that British officials accused of capital crimes in the execution of their duties in suppressing riots or collecting lawful taxes in Massachusetts, they could avoid any hostile juries. You don't want your people tried by we the people, do you? Oh, okay. All right, the governor at the time, General Thomas Gage, was authorized at his discretion to decide that such cases be heard in England. Now, you can bet your life that the Sons of Liberty didn't like this and they labeled this particular Coercive Act as the Murder Act because it offered a means for accused murderers to escape colonial justice. You think you don't have that now? You ever heard of Lon Harauchi? Have you ever heard of anyone, you know, I could name, I don't know how many killings in this country by the police and they have immunity, qualified immunity, just because they are cops and government employees? Same thing, folks. Learn to read the patterns. Well, folks, we're down to the last one here now of these oppressive acts or the murder acts or whatever you want to call them and this one was called the Massachusetts Government Act. Following the Boston Tea Party, the citizens of Massachusetts continued to claim their independence from the Crown and from Parliament. After the Massachusetts legislature appointed a committee of correspondents, Governor Hutchinson challenged their right to make such appointments. In reply, in other words, folks, you don't matter. Does that sound familiar today? In reply, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and others in the Sons of Liberty drafted a reply. Now, here's what their reply said and it is this. Your Excellency is pleased to inform the two houses that you are required to signify to them His Majesty's disapprobation of the appointment of committees of correspondents in various instances which sit in act during the recess of the general court by prorogation. You are not pleased to explain to us the grounds and the reasons of His Majesty's disapprobation until we shall have such explanation laid before us. A full answer to this part of your speech will not be expected from us. We cannot, however, omit saying upon this occasion that while the common rights of the American subjects continue to be attacked in various instances and at times when the several assemblies are not sitting, it is highly necessary that they should correspond with each other in order to unite in the most effectual means for obtaining a redress of their grievances. Increasingly, the view from the King and Parliament was that the Massachusetts represented the epicenter of resistance to royal control. Lord Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the Colonies, wrote to Governor Gage, who had succeeded Thomas Hutchinson in April, setting out the challenge, and I will read that for you. His Majesty trusts that no opposition will or can with any effect be made to the carrying of the law into execution, nor any violence or insult offered to those to whom the execution of it is entrusted. Should it happen otherwise, your authority as the First Magistrate, combined with the command over the King's troops, will, it is hoped, enable you to meet every opposition and fully to preserve the public peace by employing those troops with effect, should the madness of the people, on the one hand, or the timidity or want of strength of the peace officers, under your command on the other, make it necessary to have recourse to their assistance." By May, Parliament had had enough and passed the Coercive Acts. The Massachusetts Government Act, passed on May 20, effectively abrogated the Colonies' charter and provided for an unprecedented amount of royal control. Severe limits were placed on the powers of town meetings, the essential ingredient of American self-government. Further, most elective offices in the Colony were to be filled only by the King and Parliament with their appointments, and there were to be no popularly elected officials in Massachusetts. Well, there we have it for today, folks. Kind of fun so far, isn't it? Well, folks, thanks for tuning in here for 35 years of Founding Era history you were probably never taught about. Thank you for being on my sub-stack. I appreciate that. I'm trying to get out as much information as I can. I'm also starting a new series of these podcasts, and this one's going to be strictly and totally on Anti-Federalists, because I feel like that there's so much of our history that we're not taught, and the fact that they kept the Anti-Federalists even from being mentioned for over a hundred years tells me the Anti-Federalists is who we need to listen to and should have been listening to for years. But again, as we go through this, folks, try to pick out in your own mind where you can see the similarities, where you can see the same program being used over and over and over and over again, and it's done that because it works. God bless you all. Hope to see you on the Anti-Federalists, Chapter 1, and 35 years of Founding Era history you were never taught about, Number 6, coming up soon. God bless, and rightful liberty to everyone. Copyright © 2020 Mooji Media Ltd. All Rights Reserved. No part of this recording may be reproduced without Mooji Media Ltd.'s express consent.