Novanglus Essays
Crispus Attucks, a runaway slave, was killed in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 5, 1770. On that day, four other colonists were also shot dead by British soldiers in what became known to history as the Boston Massacre. Attucks is often regarded as the first casualty of the American Revolution, and his final words were— “Do not be afraid.” Nine months after the massacre, the soldiers involved stood trial for murder. They were represented by future President and Founding Father John Adams, who remarked:
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
Despite his famous assertion that “facts are stubborn things,” John Adams, under the pseudonym “Novanglus,” disregarded these principles in a series of essays that began in 1774. He argued that the imperial government’s legislation, through the Declaratory Act of 1766, which abolished all colonial statutes and laws that challenged or questioned the supreme legislative authority of Parliament “for all purposes whatsoever,” was an unconstitutional overreach.
Additionally, the Adams/Leonard debate seamlessly aligned with Mansfield’s decision in the Somerset case two years earlier. Mansfield declared that slavery could only be authorized in the Kingdom if enacted by positive law—a legislative power vested solely with Parliament. He also found that slavery was not “allowed or approved by the law of this Kingdom, ” affirming parliamentary sovereignty. Consequently, all colonial slave statutes and laws were rendered null and void under English law by 1772, which the Founding Fathers acknowledged in the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Adams’ essays were meant to respond to the essays of loyalist Daniel Leonard, who, writing as “Massachusettensis,” defended British authority over the American colonies and criticized the burgeoning independence movement. Leonard presented a compelling and a focused legal argument that the American colonies were subject to British law and that Parliament possessed supreme legislative power in the Kingdom and over the American colonies. Leonard argued that parliamentary sovereignty was a fundamental principle of the British Constitution and that the bicameral colonial legislature bound itself by colonial charter to Parliament in being part of the Empire.
Leonard emphasized the importance of maintaining the unity and authority of the British Empire, and he contended that the colonies were represented in Parliament in a virtual sense, a common interpretation of parliamentary sovereignty. In contrast, Adams’s responses were feckless, as he did not challenge these fundamental facts and provided no English common law support, controlling legal precedent, or any evidence to refute these legal arguments. He defended colonial rights and self-governance with the bare claim of unconstitutional overreach.
The argument of unconstitutional overreach by the Founding Fathers, notably John Adams, did not hold up under English law. The English constitution established parliamentary sovereignty throughout the Kingdom, and England’s highest court affirmed that no domestic body could overrule Parliament’s supreme legislative authority. Therefore, Parliament’s Declaratory Act of 1766 was not an unconstitutional overreach.
Moreover, it is essential to understand that while American colonies were granted charters allowing certain rights and privileges, including self-governance, this was a qualified promise of colonial governance and was designed to function as a bicameral legislature. The King of England or his imperial government served as the upper House, while colonial assemblies, such as Virginia’s House of Burgesses, functioned as lower Houses.
Legislative decisions by these lower Houses, especially those concerning slave statutes and hereditary slave laws, required the approval of the upper House—the King of England to be presumptively valid and to be legally enacted colonial legislation. No colonial assembly could enact valid slave statutes or laws without the assent of the upper House.
A careful review of colonial America’s slave statutes and laws reveals that the upper House did not approve colonial slave statutes or hereditary slave laws, which made the practice of colonial slavery legally unsupported and unlawful. Therefore, under colonial charters—there was no factual basis to claim unconstitutional overreach, as Parliament’s Declaratory Act of 1766 abolished pretended colonial slave statutes and laws and all colonial laws that questioned Parliament’s supreme legislative authority.
When King George III ascended to the British throne in 1760, the British imperial government abandoned a salutary neglect policy towards the American colonies, which allowed them considerable autonomy with minimal interference. During salutary neglect, the British imperial government was lax in enforcing parliamentary laws, the frequent violations of colonial charters, and did not address the widespread practice of colonial government corruption. The ministers of King George II implemented this policy change towards the American colonies in early 1760.
In 1765, the British passed the Stamp Act to raise revenue to cover the costs of defending the colonies. However, this Act was vehemently opposed by the American colonists. In response, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act and enacted the American Colonies Act of 1766, also known as the Declaratory Act of 1766, which recalibrated colonial America’s legislative governance, as the Act abolished and repealed all colonial laws that denied or questioned Parliament’s supreme legislative authority. Moreover, Parliament’s legislation in 1766 abolished colonial slave statues and hereditary slave laws, and this Act automatically restored the status of enslaved black individuals to a lawful status under English law.
Under the holding in Calvin’s Case (1608), an individual born in territories under the control of the English monarch was a natural-born subject under the English common law tradition of jus soli, and no Englishman could be born a slave under English law. Violating English law, Virginia’s House of Burgesses and all other colonial assemblies within the American colonies enacted slave statutes and laws and a hereditary slave law of partus sequitur ventrem that challenged the colonial charter and Parliament’s supreme legislative power. The colonial slave laws enacted by colonial assemblies in the American colonies denied or questioned Parliament’s supreme legislative power and its Royal Assent by Commission Act of 1541 and the English Bill of Rights of 1689.
Further, in the run-up to declaring independence, John Adams, in a Novanglus Essay published in February 1775, in which he looked at the constitutional relationship between Britain and her American colonies, stated, “… the British constitution is much more like a republic than an Empire. They define a republic as a government of laws, not of men. If this definition be just, the British constitution is nothing more, nor less than a republic, in which the king is first magistrate… We are a part of the British dominions, that is, of the King of Great Britain, and it is our interest and duty to continue so.”
Adams’ core contention in this seventh Novanglus Essay was the claim that Massachusetts’ colonial assembly was the Supreme power of the colony and that the colony of Massachusetts, just like the other twelve colonies, was only connected to Great Britain through England’s King. However, this claim was inaccurate, as all colonial charters conferred Supreme power unto the King’s colonial governor. Moreover, the King structured the colonial legislature to be bicameral as a constitutional safeguard to prevent colonial assemblies from ever having sovereignty over colonial affairs.