The Grievances: Swarms! (minor update)

As I mentioned the other day, I thought I might study The Grievances-- the 27 specific gripes the Colonists had with King George III that constitute the body of the Declaration of Independence. Now into my studies, I think "study" was too ambitious.

For the most part, I'm reading tertiary if not quaternary and quincentenary sources (although primary sources are available both in my library and online.) That may be a way to learn about how the experiment in freedom and personal liberty came about, but it's no way to study the experiment. If you don't believe me, you can go ask Mr. Big Food et al.

That said, you gotta start somewhere. And I think that some folk have picked up on the tradition we have here at the Farm of reading the Declaration of Independence on Independence Day is a fine start. And I also think that reading some-- more than one-- crappy old books-- if you can get your hands on them-- is an excellent next step. And failing that, the world wide web has many crappy old books on line that you don't even have to get your hands on. There are many good web sites that describe the state of affairs in the Colonies pre-1776, and for the most part, Wikipedia is not too bad.

I could be mistaken, but from what I've read, The United States of America is the only state begun from scratch in the middle of history. It's the only state created by wiping the slate clean and considering how things ought to be. Yeah yeah. It wasn't-- and God knows, isn't-- perfect. No state-- no individual-- ever was or is. But it was the best attempt at the best state ever attempted.

We owe it to ourselves to at least learn more about our country's founding, don't you think?

And now...

Grievance 10 of 27

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

This is a favorite of mine and others (1) for so many reasons.

Recall the first and last few words of the Declaration

When in the Course of Human Events,...

... we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

In my humble opinion, the Declaration begins and ends with words bigger than life. In the middle, the words themselves speak to regular life.

Although probably not true for today’s city mice, we country mice still know what a swarm of insects is. To be sure, the folks of Colonial America knew. They knew what a swarm of striped cucumber beetles could do to their crops of melon, zucchini, winter squash, and pumpkin. A swarm of beetles could eat out the substance of their gardens and fields, leaving them hungry now, and starving come winter. To liken the Officers of the multitude of New Offices to swarms is to bring this grievance to the people-- to even the low information folk of the day “hesitant Americans.” (2) Swarms. Brilliant, in my humble literary opinion.

“A multitude of New Offices,” you can say that again!

Folks at The National Humanities Center, which has an annotated version of the Declaration, have this to say:

Of the new offices created after 1763, the most unpopular were the British customs agents (tax collectors) who arrived in 1767 with expanded authority to conduct searches of ships and warehouses for goods smuggled into the colonies (a practice, long ignored by Britain, to avoid British import taxes).

They goes on to remind us that this grievance, in part, gave rise to the Fourth Amendment which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

There is a bit more to the story, though.

Don't act up! Behave. (3, p.93)

In 1763, the year the French and Indian War ended, George Greenville (f.n. 1) became  Chancellor of the Exchequer. Because of the Seven Years War, of which the French and Indian Was was only a part, Britain was in an economic recession, and the country was broke. Greenville was a man of “little talent” and great “obstinacy” who was not “well versed in American affairs.” (4) He focused, first on customs services which had grown lax, and sent British agents to America to enforce them. It's important to note that " '[o]ne of the convictions most firmly planted in the minds of eighteenth-century Englishmen was the superiority of true-born Britons to the American colonists.' " (3) No doubt the British agents were of such a mind.

Greenville then authorized the Commanders of Naval vessels to serve as customs agents, to thwart smugglers and collect taxes. He pushed the Sugar Act of 1764-- an act in part to defray "the expences of defending, protecting, and securing the said colonies and plantations"(f.n.2)-- through Parliament and sent 10,000 British soldiers to America to enforce it. And then he got the Stamp Act passed. The Stamp Act was a real doozy. You name it and it had to have a stamp on it, but that wasn't the biggest worry. The Act provided for the eventual establishment of ecclesiastical courts, which did not exist in the Colonies. These courts, were they to come into existence, would have been overseen by English Bishops-- another swarm.

As time went on, however, and the full import of of the various policies initiated by Greenville began to be realized, American resentment grew. Greenville’s policies seemed admireably designed to cripple in the most effective manner the economic life of the colonies. 

[snip] 

The colonies were poor, and the debts that they had incurred, or that some of them at least incurred, during the French and Indian War seemed heavy; yet this was the time the English government selected to restrict their trade, remodel their monetary system, and tax them for a kind of protection that they did not want and thought they did not need. (4)

[More on Greenville's other projects-- alluded to in that quote-- here.]
 Greenville was Mister of the Treasury for only two years (f.n. 3), but as you can see, the Acts just kept on coming. I’ll note that the chart (above) stops at 1767-- well before the tea tax and the “Intolerable Acts” of 1774. Each of these Acts meant more and more Brits to enforce the provisions.

 It's no wonder that by 1776 the Colonists-- at least the ones paying attention-- felt as if their substance was being eaten out. What was next? A tax on rabbits magicians pull out of their hats? No. We had to wait a couple hundred years for the swarm of  "Bunny Team Six." Steyn:

In 2011, I mentioned that USDA was dispatching crack field agents to poke around the back yards of children’s magicians on the off-chance they might be using rabbits on stage. Two years on, Bunny Team Six has come up with a new hare-brained scheme to take the magic out of our lives. Sure, it’s impressive when a conjurer pulls a rabbit out of his hat, but let’s face it, it’s not as impressive as a federal bureaucrat pulling a new regulation out of his butt:

My USDA rabbit license requirement has taken another ridiculous twist. I just received an 8 page letter from the USDA, telling me that by July 29 I need to have in place a written disaster plan, detailing all the steps I would take to help get my rabbit through a disaster, such as a tornado, fire, flood, etc. They not only want to know how I will protect my rabbit during a disaster, but also what I will do after the disaster, to make sure my rabbit gets cared for properly.  I am not kidding–before the end of July I need to have this written rabbit disaster plan in place, or I am breaking the law.

The magician, Marty Hahne, has been given until July 29th to submit his cottontail disaster-relief plan in the event that a tornado strikes his top hat, and to provide proof that he and his wife are trained to implement the plan. How much further down the rabbit hole can America go?

Just a reminder-- 25,000 Americans died during the Revolutionary War, a full 1% of the population. 

Footnotes and References below the fold.


Footnotes
1. The Wikipedia entry on Greenville is pretty sparse. John Hick's (4) paints a much more interesting picture of Greenville. 
2. I pulled that from the Wikipedia entry on the Sugar Act. The Beards (3) have it in the Stamp Act. 
3. Some sources (2, 4, 5) have Greenville as Prime Minister, others have his as Chancellor of the Exchequer. If I were studying this, I'd try to figure out what's going on.
UPDATE: I see that the Wikipedia entry I referenced referred to George Grenville. Greenville, Grenville. ?? 

References

1. Matthew Spalding, ed. The Founders' Almanac: A Practical Guide to the Notable Events, Greatest Leaders & Most Eloquent Words of the American Founders. The Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C. 2002.
2. Verner W. Crane. Benjamin Franklin and a Rising People. Little, Brown and Company, Boston. 1954.
3. Charles A. and Mary R. Beard. The Beards' Basic History of the United States. Garden City Books, Garden City, NY. 1944.
4. John D. Hicks. The Federal Union: A History of the United States to 1877 Third Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1957.
5. Henry W. Bragson and Samuel P. McCutchen. History of a Free People. The Macmillan Company. 1956.