Analyzing John Dickinson’s Protest of the Townshend Crisis

Objective

This activity asks you to consider how colonial protesters defined America’s rights during the Townshend crisis of 1767–70.

Objective: In this activity, you will analyze primary sources to better understand a topic of historical significance and to cultivate strong critical thinking, analysis, and writing skills.

Activity Prompt: American colonists used many different mediums to protest British policies in the 1760s and 1770s. Your task in this activity is to compare two of these mediums, a political treatise and a song, written by the same person, John Dickinson. In 1767 and 1768, Dickinson wrote both the treatise, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, and the song, “Liberty Song,” to protest the Townshend Revenue Act of 1767. What was Dickinson’s main argument in the two works? How did he express his argument differently in the political treatise versus the song? What were the strengths and weaknesses of each medium in communicating Dickinson’s political message? These are the types of questions that you should address in your comparison.  

Activity Response Length and Format: Your essay should address the question completely and be approximately 250 to 400 words, double-spaced, in 12-point font. If they are provided, follow your instructor’s specific guidelines in terms of content, length, and formatting.

Self-Evaluation Following Submission of Essay Prompt: In a paragraph or two, draw connections between this historical time period and events occurring in the United States today. Explain why this topic is relevant to the United States today. What other perspectives would you want to hear on this topic? Why is it important to see multiple perspectives?

1. Analyze the primary sources provided in this document, review the chapter reading, and respond to the writing activity. Consider how these sources relate to and provide insight into how American colonists defined their rights within the British Empire by the late 1760s. What authority, if any, did the colonists acknowledge that Britain still had over them?
2. Here are the related steps:
3. Examine the first primary source, an excerpt from Letter Two of Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania by John Dickinson (1767). The letter explains Dickinson’s objections to the Townshend Revenue Act and why, in his opinion, it violated the rights of American colonists.
4. Listen to the second primary source, “Liberty Song” (1768), which was also written by John Dickinson. The song further defines America’s rights and the limits of British authority.
5. Respond to the Activity Prompt by uploading your attached essay document into the MindTap where prompted to do so.

• Use the two primary sources included here, as well as the contextual information that you have learned about the imperial crisis between Britain and its American colonies in the 1760s and 1770s.

1. Once you are ready to upload your essay, also prepare a written response to the related self-evaluation (reflection) prompt that follows the essay.

Primary Sources for This Activity

Primary Source 1

Source 1 Title/Location: Excerpt of John Dickinson, Letter Two of Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania; 5-3b Resistance: The Politics of Escalation

Description of This Source: Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania is a series of twelve letters written by the Pennsylvania lawyer and legislator John Dickinson to protest the Townshend Revenue Act of 1767. The letters, originally published in colonial newspapers, had the second widest circulation of any American political treatise in the revolutionary era (behind only Thomas Paine’s Common Sense). In Letter Two, Dickinson confronted why the Townshend duties violated America’s historic rights within its imperial relationship with Britain. Americans accepted the right of Britain to regulate colonial trade, Dickinson argued. But American colonists had never provided consent for Britain to extract revenue above and beyond the costs of regulating trade.  

Activity Prompt

Source 1:

My dear Countrymen,

There is another late act of parliament, which appears to me to be unconstitutional, and as destructive to the liberty of these colonies, as that mentioned in my last letter; that is, the act for granting the duties on paper, glass, etc.

The parliament unquestionably possesses a legal authority to regulate the trade of Great Britain, and all her colonies. Such an authority is essential to the relation between a mother country and her colonies; and necessary for the common good of all. He who considers these provinces as states distinct from the British Empire, has very slender notions of justice, or of their interests. We are but parts of a whole; and therefore there must exist a power somewhere, to preside, and preserve the connection in due order. This power is lodged in the parliament; and we are as much dependent on Great Britain, as a perfectly free people can be on another.

I have looked over every statute relating to these colonies, from their first settlement to this time; and I find every one of them founded on this principle, till the Stamp Act administration. All before, are calculated to regulate trade, and preserve or promote a mutually beneficial intercourse between the several constituent parts of the empire; and though many of them imposed duties on trade, yet those duties were always imposed with design to restrain the commerce of one part, that was injurious to another, and thus to promote the general welfare. The raising of a revenue thereby was never intended. Thus the King, by his judges in his courts of justice, imposes fines, which all together amount to a very considerable sum, and contribute to the support of government: But this is merely a consequence arising from restrictions that only meant to keep peace and prevent confusion; and surely a man would argue very loosely, who should conclude from hence, that the King has a right to levy money in general upon his subjects. Never did the British parliament, till the period above mentioned, think of imposing duties in America for the purpose of raising a revenue. . . .

Here we may observe an authority expressly claimed and exerted to impose duties on these colonies; not for the regulation of trade; not for the preservation or promotion of a mutually beneficial intercourse between the several constituent parts of the empire, heretofore the sole objects of parliamentary institutions; but for the single purpose of levying money upon us.

Activity Response Length and Format

This I call an innovation; and a most dangerous innovation. It may perhaps be objected, that Great Britain has a right to lay what duties she pleases upon her exports, and it makes no difference to us, whether they are paid here or there.

To this I answer. These colonies require many things for their use, which the laws of Great Britain prohibit them from getting any where but from her. Such are paper and glass.

That we may legally be bound to pay any general duties on these commodities, relative to the regulation of trade, is granted; but we being obliged by her laws to take them from Great Britain, any special duties imposed on their exportation to us only, with intention to raise a revenue from us only, are as much taxes upon us, as those imposed by the Stamp Act. . . .

Here then, my dear countrymen, rouse yourselves, and behold the ruin hanging over your heads. If you ONCE admit, that Great Britain may lay duties upon her exportations to us, for the purpose of levying money on us only, she then will have nothing to do, but to lay those duties on the articles which she prohibits us to manufacture—and the tragedy of American liberty is finished. . . .

Upon the whole, the single question is, whether the parliament can legally impose duties to be paid by the people of these colonies only, For the sole pupose of raising a revenue, on commodities which she obliges us to take from her alone, or, in other words, whether the parliament can legally take money out of our pockets, without our consent. If they can, our boasted liberty is but

Vox et praeterea nihil.

A sound and nothing else.

A Farmer

Credit Line: “Letter Two (Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania),” Pennsylvania Gazette, December 10, 1767.

Primary Source 2

Source 2 Title/Location: Excerpt from John Dickinson, “Liberty Song” (1768)

Description of This Source: In 1768, Dickinson wrote a song to express, in a more popular form, many of the same arguments that he had made in Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. Importantly, as in the letters, Dickinson made no claim for American independence. Rather, he sought to define America’s rights and the proper limits of British authority within the imperial relationship. If Britain treated its subjects in a “just” manner, according to Dickinson, they would loyally continue to serve the government. Dickinson penned his “Liberty Song” lyrics to fit a popular 1750s British patriotic stage tune entitled “Heart of Oak” that celebrated the Royal Navy’s victories over France. The tune would have been familiar to American colonists, who, musically at least, remained as British as ever in the late 1760s.

Source 2:

“Liberty Song” 

Come, join hand in hand, brave Americans all,
And rouse your bold hearts at fair Liberty’s call;
No tyrannous acts shall suppress your just claim,
Or stain with dishonor America’s name.

Chorus:
In Freedom we're born and in Freedom we'll live.
Our purses are ready. Steady, boys, steady;
Not as slaves, but as Freemen our money we'll give.

Our worthy forefathers, let's give them a cheer,
To climates unknown did courageously steer;
Thro' oceans to deserts for Freedom they came,
And dying, bequeath'd us their freedom and fame.

Chorus

The tree their own hands had to Liberty rear'd;
They lived to behold growing strong and revered;
With transport they cried, "Now our wishes we gain,
For our children shall gather the fruits of our pain."

Chorus

Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all,
By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall;
In so righteous a cause let us hope to succeed,
For heaven approves of each generous deed.

Chorus

This bumper I crown for our Sovereign's health,
And this for Britannia's glory and wealth;
That wealth and that glory immortal may be,
If She is but Just, and if we are but Free.

Chorus

Credit Line: “Liberty Song” (1768); William Boyce (music), John Dickinson (lyrics). Sherrill Milnes, Jon Spong, Birth of Liberty: Music of the American Revolution (Spotify).