Independence

 

You’ll Be Back

You say the price of my love is a price you're not willing to pay
You cry in the tea which you hurled in the sea as you see me go by
Why so sad?
Remember we made an arrangement when you went away
Now you're making me mad.
Remember despite our estrangement, I'm your man

You'll be back
Soon you'll see
You'll remember you belong to me
You'll be back
Time will tell
You'll remember that I served you well
Oceans rise, empires fall
We have seen each other through it all
And when push comes to shove
I will send a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love

Was it only the taxes on Tea?

As we approach the July 4^th holiday, I am sure that most people will agree that  the phrase “No Taxation Without Representation” led to this day.  However what was not spoken and not acknowledged was the phrase “No Emancipation Without Representation” that was probably the impetus for the southern states joining in the rebellion again the King of England.  The northern states, particularly Massachusetts, as traders, were upset by the Intolerable Acts and the Tea Tax which gave the British East India Company an effective monopoly on the tea trade.  But the southern colonies did not have the type of trade that would prompt them to join with the northern trading colonies.  What prompted them to join in the rebellion? ( It is known as  the Revolution on this side of the Atlantic,  but the diffence between Rebellion and Revolution depends on the side that you support.)

The southern states were probably more upset by the 1772 case of Somerset v. Stewart. 

In that case, James Somerset, an enslaved African, was purchased by Charles Stewart, a customs officer when he was in Boston, Province of Massachusetts Bay, a British crown colony in North America.

Stewart brought Somerset with him when he returned to England in 1769, but in October 1771 Somerset escaped. After he was recaptured in November, Stewart had him imprisoned on the ship Ann and Mary (under Captain John Knowles), bound for the British colony of Jamaica. He directed that Somerset be sold to a plantation for labor. Somerset's three godparents from his baptism as a Christian in England, John Marlow, Thomas Walking and Elizabeth Cade, made an application on 3 December before the Court of King's Bench for a writ of habeas corpus. Captain Knowles on 9 December produced Somerset before the Court of King's Bench, which had to determine whether his imprisonment was lawful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_v_Stewart

Lord Mansfield, the Chief Justice of England, ruled

“The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory. It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged.”

The Town in Massachusetts in which I live was named for Lord Mansfield.  On this July 4^th let us remember that Independence was just as much about No Emancipation, as it was about No Taxes, without Representation.