In a stirring speech delivered to the Superior Court, Boston’s own James Otis Esq. opposed the Writs of Assistance which were ordered by the court at the request of the Royal Governor, Sir Francis Bernard. These court orders authorized customs officers or whoever bore them to conduct searches anywhere they pleased for whatever motive possessed them. Their original purpose according to Crown authorities was to stop the illegal trade and smuggling that is depriving the customs officials of their rightful tariffs. While Otis did not contend that smugglers should go free he made a passionate plea against the violation of British Liberties that these writs allow.
He began by saying that,
“I take this opportunity to declare that, whether under a fee or not (for in such a cause as this I despise a fee), I will to my dying day oppose with all the powers and faculties God has given me all such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villainy on the other, as this writ of assistance is.”
He went on to say that these writs were, “the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an English law book.”
Otis actually tendered his resignation as advocate-general because he could not in good conscience defend these writes as he had originally been asked to do. He said,
“I renounced that office, and I argue this cause from the same principle; and I argue it with the greater pleasure, as it is in favor of British liberty, at a time when we hear the greatest monarch upon earth declaring from his throne that he glories in the name of Briton, and that the privileges of his people are dearer to him than the most valuable prerogatives of his crown; and as it is in opposition to a kind of power, the exercise of which, in former periods of history, cost one king of England his head and another his throne. … Let the consequences by what they will … The only principles of public conduct that are worthy of a gentleman or a man are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of his country.”
Otis’s arguments against these writs include these very specific reasons.
1) They are too general and allows too much latitude on the part of the government.
2) They are perpetual, that is it does not have any limit on the time it can be carried out.
3) They allow too much latitude as to the place. They apply to any home or business.
4) They are transferable to anyone to whom the customs official may give it.
Otis then made one of the most impassioned pleas ever heard on behalf of British Liberties.
“Now one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle; and while he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they please; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and whether they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court can inquire. Bare suspicion without oath is sufficient. This wanton exercise of this power is not a chimerical suggestion of a heated brain.”
He went on to share several horror stories about how many innocent people have been brutalized by these writs. After the session drew to a close we were able to catch that up and coming young attorney John Adams (who never fails us for a good quote) to give us his analysis of the speech.
Adams said that Otis “asserted that every man, merely natural, was an independent sovereign, subject to no law but the law written on his heart and revealed to him by his Maker, in the constitution of his nature, and the inspiration of his understanding and his conscience. His right to his life, his liberty, no created being could rightfully contest. Nor was his right to his property less incontestable. The club that he had snapped from a tree, for a staff or for defense, was his own. His bow and arrow were his own; if by a pebble he had killed a partridge or a squirrel, it was his own. No creature, man or beats, had a right to take it from him. If he had taken an eel, or a smelt, or a sculpin, it was his property. In short, he sported upon this topic with so much wit and humor, and at the same time with so much indisputable truth and reason, that he was not less entertaining than instructive. He asserted that these rights were inherent and inalienable; that they never could be surrendered or alienated, but by idiots or madmen.”
Today Otis set those justices back a hundred years or so and even regaled them with 100 years of history proving that these acts along with most of the navigation acts were diametrically opposed to the English Constitution.
The justices did not listen. They rejected his arguments out of hand and made sure he knew that he had better watch his step and not to repeat this foolishness again. He took it all in stride as his pride was attacked. Today the Superior court did not listen to a word James Otis had to say but I dare say that any British Citizens in that courtroom today listened and it will not be the last we hear on this matter from James Otis Esq.
1 comments:
I notice that your posts have a 2007 date and also a 1700s date, but did you know that when you make your posts, you can change the date, so that instead of saying October 17, 2007, it can say any other date that you want, such as July 4, 1776?
Just a suggestion.
This is a very interesting idea for a blog, by the way.
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