which the British parliament laid upon paper; but you require a paper tax of us annually. That which has made the greatest noise, is the tax of three pence a pound upon tea; but your law of last June laid a tax of the same sum every year upon the Baptists in each parish, as they would expect to defend themselves against a greater one. . . . All America is alarmed at the tea tax; though, if they please, they can avoid it by not buying tea; but we have no such liberty. We must either pay the little tax, or else your people appear even in this time of exetremity determined to lay the great one upon us. But these lines are to let you know, that we are determined not to pay either of them; not only upon your principle of not being taxed where we are not represented, but also because we dare not render homage to any earthly power, which I and many of my brethren are fully convinced belongs only to God. We can not give the certificates you require, without implicitly allowing to men that authority which we believe in our conscience belongs only to God. Here, therefore, we claim charter rights, liberty of conscience. 1
As the event proved, the Revolutionary period brought little legislative relief to dissenters in Massachusetts. Wherever the distractions of the war did not interrupt the ordinary course of ecclesiastical affairs, the state church continued to assert its time-honored prerogatives. The new constitution of the commonwealth which was adopted in 1780 gave conclusive proof that the Standing Order still
- 1 The address is given in full in Hovey, A Memoir of the Life and Times of Isaac Backus, pp. 218-221. It drew a kindly response from the Provincial Congress, signed by John Hancock as president, pleading the inability of the Congress to give redress and advising the aggrieved parties to submit their case to the General Court of Massachusetts at its next session. This step was taken in September, 1775; but beyond the fact that a bill, drawn to give redress, was once read in the sessions of the Assembly, nothing came of the matter. "Such", remarks Backus, "is the disposition of mankind". (Cf. Backus, History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 202 et seq. Cf. Burrage, History of the Baptists in New England, pp. 113 et seq.)
