38. The Nonimportation Movement Begins

The arrogant encroachments of the Townshend Acts immediately rekindled American resistance to British oppression. With the exception of tea, much of which was handled by the British East India Company, the commodities taxed by the Townshend Act were all manufactured products imported almost exclusively from Great Britain. The Americans therefore decided to employ the nonimportation weapon, which had proved so effective in pressuring the British merchants to have the stamp tax repealed. A nonimportation boycott promised to be the best means of fighting the Townshend duties as well.

Boston, the major port for reception of the newly taxed goods, was a natural point of origin for the resistance, and this vigilant and libertarian-oriented town did not disappoint anyone’s expectations. The first public resistance came in the Boston Town Meeting of October 28, 1767, led by James Otis. The meeting drew up a lengthy list of British products that Americans were to pledge themselves not to purchase after the end of the year; colonists were to patronize local manufacturing instead. Copies of the resolutions were sent to all the towns in Massachusetts and to the principal towns in the other colonies. Twenty-four Massachusetts towns backed Boston’s action enthusiastically, with only Salem refusing. The following month Boston petitioned for the constitutional rights of the colonists against the new duties.

This original phase of the nonimportation movement was organized by Massachusetts town meetings and pledged the public not to consume certain British imports. These actions were partially spurred by a commercial depression triggered by the restrictions and burdens of the Townshend Acts. Clearly, they would help those caught by the depression to retrench their expenses and hence their purchases of imported goods.

Massachusetts towns were not alone in following Boston’s example. Rhode Island, in fact, not only followed but went one better: on December 2 a Providence Town Meeting pledged the town’s merchants not to import a list of imported goods after the first of the year. Such a pledge of a nonimportation boycott by merchants was far more concrete and finely edged, and far easier to maintain than a vague and unwieldy pledge by the mass of consumers. Providence’s action was really the first effective move for a mercantile boycott to pressure England for repeal. Any merchant failing to sign or to conform to the boycott was himself to be boycotted by the people. Two days later, Newport followed suit, and then small Rhode Island towns. In Connecticut, town meetings, led by Norwich, adopted nonconsumption agreements after the pattern of Boston’s.

Historians have made much of the fact that popular resistance to the Townshend duties early took the form of boycott agreements, whereas resistance to the Stamp Act had stressed armed rebellion. This has been interpreted as a significantly conservative shift led by merchants fearful of popular mob actions. But this view ignores the crucial difference between the two threats. The stamp tax, being internal to all colonial transactions, had to be fought by dismantling the new Stamp Act bureaucracy and then immobilizing the stamped paper. This could be done only by the armed action of the aroused people. But the Townshend levies reverted to the more orthodox import duties, and early mob action would have been pointless. What was needed now was mercantile action: smuggling in defiance of the duties, and boycott pressure on English merchants. Mob violence at that point would have been ineffectual and even absurd, and hence was not embarked upon. As would soon be seen, neither the American liberal leaders nor the public had become more timid or conservative since the stamp crisis; different methods of oppression simply called for different means of resistance. The change was one of tactics, not of spirit.

As in the case of the Stamp Act, popular local action was supplemented by petitions and resolutions of the assemblies. A clarion call was sounded in the form of a letter drawn up by the indefatigable Samuel Adams and presented to the Massachusetts General Court. Adopted on February 11, 1768, the missive was sent out as a circular letter to the assemblies of all the other colonies. The letter acknowledged the power of Parliament to regulate the colonies, but categorically denied any power of taxation, internal or external. Furthermore, not only the constitutional but the natural rights of Americans were charged to have been violated by such a tax, because the doctrine of consent to taxation was an “unalterable right in nature ingathered into the British constitution.” Hence the Townshend duties were spurned, along with any move to make executive (including judicial) offices independent of Assembly appropriations, and united action was called for. The Massachusetts circular letter was approved by the assemblies of New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina during the spring and summer, and Virginia reinforced it by a circular letter of its own against British taxation.

Another powerful and widely influential statement of the American case against the Townshend duties was delivered by the eminent leader of the Pennsylvania liberals, the young lawyer John Dickinson. Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer appeared in the Pennsylvania Chronicle around the turn of the year 1767–68. It denied the right of any parliamentary taxation and hence of the Townshend duties, although it conceded the right to raise a revenue incidental to regulation of American trade (as under the Sugar Act). Dickinson also called for a determined nonimportation campaign to effect repeal of the Townshend taxes.

It soon became clear that official petitions and individual protests and even uncoordinated local boycotts were not enough; more concerted and unified efforts were evidently necessary. On March 1, the merchants of Boston, led by Captain Daniel Malcom, pledged to cease importing all goods from Great Britain for one year, provided that the merchants in New York and Philadelphia, the two other major American ports, would agree to join. Almost all the merchants of Boston signed this agreement, as did the merchants of Salem, Marblehead, and Gloucester (although the merchants of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, refused). After several meetings, almost every merchant and trader of New York agreed to import no British goods after October 1, 1768, and until repeal of the Townshend duties, provided that Boston continued its boycott and Philadelphia concurred. The Boston merchants accepted these terms in early May, but Philadelphia was a different story.

The city of Philadelphia, scarcely hit by the trade depression, was more heavily ridden with Tories than any other city in the American colonies. Here the Tory machine of Joseph Galloway was in control, and was able to overrule John Dickinson. During meetings in Philadelphia in March and April 1768, Dickinson eloquently reminded the merchants of the numerous attempts by Great Britain to cripple the trade and the nascent manufacturing of the colonies. The Townshend Acts were an invasion of liberty; and liberty, property, and industry went hand in hand. Therefore, Dickinson urged the merchants to forgo present advantage for principle and for long-run self-interest. But the Philadelphia merchants, taking their cue from Galloway, remained unmoved, and the great and imaginative project for a nonimportation league of merchants from the leading American cities collapsed.

Philadelphia’s betrayal was a severe blow to the colonial cause. Notwithstanding, nearly all the merchants of Boston fearlessly agreed on August 1 to go it alone, and to discontinue imports of all goods from Great Britain for the entire year of 1769, as well as imports of all goods on the Townshend duty list until those duties were repealed. The heroic example of Boston’s merchants inspired others; soon the merchants of Salem, Plymouth, and other towns followed suit. On August 27, the New York merchants decided to go far beyond their Boston confreres. Almost unanimously they agreed to cease all importation after November 1, 1768, and until the Townshend duties were repealed. Any subscribing merchants violating the agreement would be publicly designated “Enemies to their Country.” Furthermore, the retail tradesmen in New York signed an agreement to refuse to buy from any merchants who themselves refused to sign or follow the merchants’ agreement. The merchants of Albany and other towns of the province also concurred. The following April, New York’s Assembly, on motion of Philip Livingston, merchant and leader of the liberal wing of the landed oligarchy, voted its thanks to the New York merchants for their patriotic decision for a boycott.

Once again, in the fall of 1768, the merchants of Philadelphia were on the spot. And once again they coolly ignored the pressure for a boycott, and confined themselves to their own petitions, supporting a request to England by the Pennsylvania Assembly for repeal of the Townshend Act. Finally, however, the Philadelphia merchants pledged themselves to nonimportation effective next spring, if the Townshend Act had not then been repealed. With no sign of repeal in mid-March of 1769, the great bulk of the Philadelphia merchants at last agreed to import virtually no goods from Great Britain after April 1, 1769, until the Townshend duties should be repealed. Any violator would be publicly stigmatized as an “Enemy of the Liberties of America.” Thus, by the spring of 1769, the three great ports had joined in a boycott until repeal. After a year of shilly-shallying, Philadelphia was at last permitting concerted American pressure upon Great Britain. The boycott movement was over the top.