AMERICA:
1763-1776
The Sugar Act
In 1764 Parliament passed the Sugar Act, with
the goal of raising 100,000 pounds, an amount equal to one-fifth of the
military expenses in North America. The Sugar Act signaled the end of colonial
exemption from revenue-raising taxation. Previous acts, such as the
long-standing Navigation Acts, had been passed as protectionist measures,
regulating trade to boost the economy of the British Empire as a whole. Under
the Navigation Acts, taxes were paid by British importers alone, rather than
the colonists, and brought in just 1,800 pounds in 1763, compared with a cost
of 8,000 pounds just to enforce the acts.
The Sugar Act lowered the duty on
foreign-produced molasses from six pence per gallon to 3 pence per gallon, in
attempts to discourage smuggling. The act further stipulated that Americans
could export many commodities, including lumber, iron, skins, and whalebone, to
foreign countries, only if they passed through British ports first. The act
also placed a heavy tax on formerly duty- free Madeira wine from Portugal.
The Sugar Act complicated trade for American
shippers by requiring them to fill out a number of confusing forms in order to
legalize their shipments. If even the smallest technicality was not attended
to, ships' captains could have their entire cargo seized. Further, the act
could be employed in some cases regarding local trade along the east coast, and
in many cases put unrealistic restrictions on this trade.
In addition to a restriction of trade, many
colonists felt the Sugar Act constituted a restriction of justice. The act
allowed customs officials to transfer smuggling cases from colonial courts with
juries to juryless vice- admiralty courts in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Until 1768,
vice-admiralty judges were awarded five percent of all confiscated cargo and
ships, a clear incentive to come to a guilty verdict. The vice-admiralty courts
also reversed traditional judicial ideology, by burdening the defendant with
the task of disproving the charge of smuggling rather than assuming innocence
until guilt was proven.
British Prime Minister George Grenville
ordered the navy to enforce the Sugar Act, and it did so vigorously. Still
colonists continued to smuggle molasses until 1766, when the duty on foreign
molasses was lowered to one penny. The Sugar Act provided the British treasury
with about 30,000 pounds per year between 1766 and 1775, a substantial source
of income.
Nine provincial legislatures in America
protested the passage of the Sugar Act, but seven of these objected on narrow
grounds. Though many colonists objected to the act's revenue-raising taxation
and regulation, opposition was minor, due to a lack of organization and the
hesitancy of the legislatures to take a stand against Parliament.
Commentary
The Sugar Act was one
of the first tangible signs of Britain's intent to gain tighter control over
colonial trade. Parliament predicted that if shippers had to stop at British
ports en route to other destinations they would be more likely to purchase imperial
goods to bring back with them to the colonies, and thus boost Britain's
flailing economy. Parliament imagined it could further collect a great amount
in revenue and discourage smuggling by lowering the duties. Parliamentary
leaders reasoned that with the duty set at three pence, colonists would be less
likely to smuggle than they had been when the duty was six pence, and thus more
likely to pay, leading to a higher income for the British treasury. However,
American smugglers had grown accustomed to paying one and a half pence per
gallon of molasses to customs agents to look the other way, and continued this
practice until 1776, when the duty was lowered to a penny, less than the amount
smugglers had been paying in bribes. Meanwhile, the high tax on imported
Madeira wine from the Azores and other Portuguese territories created a
smuggling operation where none had existed before. Importing duty-free
Portuguese wine had been a lucrative business for importers up until the
passing of the Sugar Act, and they would not let it go easily.
The Sugar Act was another step in the
direction of a strong British hand in colonial life. To the colonists, greater
regulation of trade was not simply an economically restricting measure, but one
which expanded the sphere of British involvement in the everyday activities of
the colonists. The Sugar Act provided additional instances in which the writs
of assistance might be employed. Further, the clause requiring shipping of many
commodities through Britain struck many colonists as a symbol of Parliament's
desire to strengthen both economic and governmental ties with the colonies
while they strove to be free from British involvement.
Moreover, the Sugar Act seemed to many, in its
methods of enforcement and adjudication, another defiance of the rights of
Englishmen, namely, the right to a fair trial in front of a jury of one's
peers. Not only did the Sugar Act provide for the relocation of trials from the
colonies to Halifax, Nova Scotia, far from the setting in which infractions had
taken place, it also allowed trials without a jury, in which the judge had a
clear incentive to convict and the defendant was assumed to be guilty. This
outraged many colonial leaders. However, most colonists were hesitant to claim
that the Sugar Act was unconstitutional, because it seemed to be merely an
amendment of the Molasses Act of 1733. Additionally, the tax burden fell most
heavily upon Massachusetts New York, and Pennsylvania. While other colonies
agreed that the Sugar Act was undesirable, they had less of an incentive to
take a strong stand against Parliament, and organized opposition was never
mounted.
REFERENCE
Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American
Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard UP, MA: 1967.
Brown, Richard D., ed. Major Problems in the Era of the
American Revolution 1760 - 1791. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Co.,
1992.
Cook, Don. The The Long Fuse; How England Lost the
American Colonies, 1760 - 1785. New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press,
1995.
Darling, Arthur B. Our Rising Empire 1763 - 1803. New
Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1940.
Egerton, H.E. The Causes and Character of the American
Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923.
Gipson, Lawrence H. The Coming of the Revolution. New
York: Harper and Row, 1954.
Greene, Jack P. Understanding the American Revolution:
Issues and Actors.Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1995.
Karpalides, Harry J. Dates of the American Revolution. Shippensburg,
PA: Burd Street Press, 1998.
Knollenberg, Bernhard. The Origin of the American
Revolution 1759 - 1766. New York: Collier Books, 1961.
Lecky, William E.H. The American Revolution 1763 - 1783. New
York: D. Appleton and Co., 1898.
Miller, John C. Origins of the American Revolution. Stanford,
CA: Stanford UP, 1943.
Edmund S. Morgan. The Birth of the Republic 1763 - 89. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1956.
Wahlke, John C. The Causes of the American Revolution. D.C.
Heath and Co., Lexington, MA: 1973
Ward, Harry M. The American Revolution: Nationhood
Achieved 1763 - 1788. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.
Social Plugin