User:Thucydides411/Letters from a farmer in Pennsylvania
Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania is a series of essays written by the Pennsylvania lawyer and legislator John Dickinson (1732–1808) and published under the name "A Farmer" from 1767 to 1768. The twelve letters were widely read and reprinted throughout the thirteen colonies, and were important in uniting the colonists against the Townshend Acts. The success of his letters earned Dickinson considerable fame.
While acknowledging the power of Parliament in matters concerning the whole British Empire, Dickinson argued that the colonies were sovereign in their internal affairs. He thus argued that taxes laid upon the colonies by Parliament for the purpose of raising revenue, rather than regulating trade, were unconstitutional.
In his letters, Dickinson foresees the possibility of future conflict between the colonies and Great Britain, but urges against the use of violence:
If at length it becomes undoubted that an inveterate resolution is formed to annihilate the liberties of the governed, the English history affords frequent examples of resistance by force. What particular circumstances will in any future case justify such resistance can never be ascertained till they happen. Perhaps it may be allowable to say generally, that it never can be justifiable until the people are fully convinced that any further submission will be destructive to their happiness.
— Letter III
The Letters[edit]
Letter I[edit]
Letter I, published 5 November 1767, introduces the fictional author, and warns against the dangers of the British Parliament's censure of the New York assembly. Dickinson describes himself as a simple farmer on the banks of the Delaware river, who through private reading and friendship with learned men has had the luxury of acquiring a liberal education uncommon to his social class.
Dickinson notes with alarm the failure of the Pennsylvania legislature to protest or condemn the enforcement of Parliamentary authority over the New York assembly. The British Parliament had previously passed the New York Restraining Act, which forced New York to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act, requiring the colonies to quarter and provision British soldiers. The power to impose the costs of provisioning British soldiers on the colonies is equivalent to the power to levy taxes, Dickinson argues. Having brought about the repeal of the Stamp Act of 1765, the colonies would through their acceptance of the Quartering Act cede the power of taxation to the British Parliament.
Dickinson further warns that Parliament's actions against the New York assembly have implications for the other colonies:
I say, of these colonies; for the cause of one is the cause of all. If the parliament may lawfully deprive New York of any of her rights, it may deprive any, or all the other colonies of their rights; and nothing can possibly so much encourage such attempts, as a mutual inattention to the interests of each other. To divide, and thus to destroy, is the first political maxim in attacking those, who are powerful by their union. He certainly is not a wise man, who folds his arms, and reposes himself at home, viewing, with unconcern, the flames that have invaded his neighbor’s house, without using any endeavors to extinguish them.
He concludes by calling for a firm, but tempered response by the colonial legislatures to Parliament, and by suggesting that the colonies appeal to the King to suspend the offending Acts.
