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CHAPTER XII.

THE POLITICAL EFFECT OF THE CLOSURE OF THE LAND BANK.

It has already been stated that when it became necessary to secure parliamentary interference to close the Land Bank, it was discovered that there was no law then in existence on the English statute books under which this could be accomplished. The law officers of the crown placed their opinion on record to that effect, and that opinion was made known to the House of Commons when the petitioners for intervention sought to secure legislation necessary to accomplish their purposes. We have seen how in the face of this state of facts, and in flagrant violation of the rights of the unfortunate subscribers to the Land Bank, parliament declared that a previous act, passed twenty years before, which by its terms was capable of enforcement only in Great Britain and Ireland, did originally, did at that time, and should thereafter apply to the colonies. By this act, the permissible deeds of law-abiding citizens were converted into violations of a law to which severe penalties were attached. Laws of this sort were not common even in those days, but they were not then regarded with the abhorrence with which we should regard contemporaneous legislation of the same description.

The influence of such a conspicuous instance of what might be expected from parliamentary supremacy, upon a community not predisposed to accept the doctrine in its fullest significance, might easily have been predicted. The opinion expressed by John Adams that it was of more effect than the stamp act is probably true.¹ The

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people had been educated during the currency discussion to a knowledge of the details of the current politics of the province and the frequent appeals of the representatives to the selectmen for instructions upon questions pending in the Assembly was a practical application of the doctrine of government by the people, unheard of up to that period and perhaps not paralleled in modern times, except by the referendum. In the discussion, which has already taken place in the part of this work devoted to currency, of the political effect of these appeals to the people, it was found necessary to couple the consideration of the closure of the Land Bank with an examination of the increase of popular interest in the currency controversy, in order that we might simultaneously have in view the various causes which affected the growth of the sentiment of opposition to parliamentary supremacy which ultimately led to revolution. But little can be said at this point which will add to the knowledge of the subject to be derived from what was then developed, yet it would be unpardonable in the separate treatment of that portion of our theme which has involved a detailed study of the arbitrary closure of the Land Bank to abandon entirely consideration of this topic, simply because it was found necessary to incorporate some of the material in a chapter in another volume. It is not essential, however, that the discussion should be carried to the same length here as on the former occasion. The division of the general subject into two topics, Currency and Banking, carried with it the corrollary that there must be duplication of treatment upon many points, but did not require the same thoroughness in every case. In the chapter referred to the fundamental purpose was to bring forth the touch of the people with provincial politics and their consequent

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readiness, when the time came to espouse an idea. The idea then espoused was based upon opposition to the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy and it found expression in resistance to the collection of taxes, when the British government signified its intention of abandoning its attitude of passive acquiescence in the violation of the navigation and revenue laws, and the adoption in lieu thereof of the purpose to collect in some form or other revenue from the colonies.

What parliamentary supremacy could do in an emergency was illustrated by the situation of the unfortunate subscribers to the Land Bank, who having in response to an appeal from the assembly, for schemes of any sort for a medium of trade for the province, organized themselves into a company which they thought would serve this purpose, suddenly found themselves subject to prosecution and persecution. If we consider that they retained control of the popular branch of the assembly, until through Shirley’s urgent solicitations they were persuaded peacefully to submit, and that they were powerful enough to secure the vote of several towns to receive their bills for town rates, we can see how far reaching was the influence of the thousand or so subscribers and can appreciate the fact that the bitterness aroused by the proceedings against them must have pervaded the minds of a large proportion of the people of Massachusetts. What we know of the history of those days, conies to us filtered through the pages of Hutchinson and Douglass, both violent opponents of the Land Bank, the former an advocate of parliamentary supremacy at any cost, the latter prepared to invoke “ previous legislation “ as a cure for any evil.¹ For this

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reason our historians have failed to give the episode of the Land Bank, and especially the arbitrary features of its closure, the prominence in their narratives to which it was entitled.

Still another thing stood in the way of any just appreciation of the political importance of these proceedings, and that was the practical submission of the General Court to the parliamentary act. We have seen that within six months from the time of the launching of the Land Bank bills, there was evidence in the supplementary agreement to the mortgages which was then prepared, that the currency of the bills was not satisfactory to the managers. This doubtless led some of the more intelligent of the subscribers to an appreciation of the fact that the capitalists of the province were solid in opposition to the Land Bank, and were determined to avail themselves of any means to terminate its career. The continued support of the bank, after knowledge was received of what parliament had done, meant not only the maintenance of warfare against the governor and council and the capitalists, whose combined forces the subscribers had been able to resist up to that time, but also a battle with parliament, and this at a time when doubts were beginning to arise among the subscribers whether the bank could in any event be sustained. The majority of those who wished to close the Land Bank were probably in favor of the doctrine that parliament had supreme control in the colonies. “The authority of parliament,” says Hutchinson, “to control all public and private persons and proceedings in the colonies, was, in that day, questioned by nobody.”¹ The political dogma, no taxation without representation, had not yet been formulated. There must have been some,

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however, among those who favored the closure of the Land Bank, who clung to the memories of the greater liberty enjoyed under the first charter, in the days of the commonwealth, and who looked forward to a future when there should be freedom from parliamentary interference. The prize to be gained through the closure of the bank was, however, too great for any but the more enthusiastic among the subscribers themselves, to hesitate about accepting this means of getting rid of so great an evil. The parliamentary act was practically accepted by the assembly, and coercive legislation was carried through, the avowed purpose of which was to put it in force. At a later date this practical approval of the act of parliament by local legislation, proved a stumbling block for some of the politicians of the revolutionary party, in the discussions concerning parliamentary supremacy. Samuel Adams, sought to fend off the full force of this approval, by calling attention to the fact that in the acts of the assemby through which the bank was closed, the terms of the act of parliament were not only ignored, but were practically set aside.¹

It is a curious fact, not of importance in this connection, but nevertheless of interest, that this very legislation was invoked in a recent case in the Massachusetts Courts, in support of the proposition that joint stock companies are to-day illegal here, because through this act of parliament and its subsequent approval by the assembly, the Bubble Act forms a part of the law of the land to-day. This was based upon the constitutional provision which continued in force all local laws and all

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acts of parliament approved by the assembly, which were not repugnant to the constitution or which had not been expressly repealed. The logic of the situation seems to be with the proponent of this doctrine, but a careful examination of the argument laid down by Samuel Adams would furnish a partial answer at least to the point made by the learned counsel.’ Thus we see that the currency conflict led up to those consultations of the representatives with the selectmen of the towns which probably suggested the committees of correspondence through which so much was accomplished in the days of the revolution while the arbitrary suppression of the Land Bank compelled men to face the question whether such legislation as that through which the closure was accomplished could possibly be tolerated. The earnest desire of the thinking part of the community to get rid of the Land Bank, prevented the indignation then aroused from finding effective expression, but the long protracted struggles connected with the closure of the hank, left behind them a trail of suffering and ill will, which must have had its influence upon current politics, and as we to-day read the story of the closure of the Land Bank we can but wonder at the state of mind of a people who could have tolerated the thought of enduring the supremacy of a parliament which could pass such a law as that which extended the Bubble Act over the colonies.

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