James Otis Jr.
James Otis, Patriot | |
|---|---|
 James Otis | |
| Born | February 5, 1725 |
| Died | May 23, 1783 (aged 58) |
| Occupation(s) | Lawyer, Firebrand, Pamphleteer and Legislator |
| Spouse | Ruth Cunningham |
| Children | James, Elizabeth Brown, Mary Lincoln |
| Parent(s) | James Otis, Sr., Mary Allyne |
James Otis, Jr. (February 5, 1725 – May 23, 1783) was a lawyer in colonial Massachusetts, a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, and an early advocate of the political views that led to the American Revolution. The phrase "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny" is usually attributed to him.
He was born in Barnstable, Massachusetts. After the death of his parents, James Otis, Sr. and Mary Allyne, his uncle and aunt as well as his godparents, adopted him. He was the second of thirteen children and the first to survive infancy. His young adoptive cousin Mercy Otis Warren, his brother Joseph Otis, and his youngest brother Samuel Allyne Otis also rose to prominence, as did his nephew Harrison Gray Otis.
In 1755 James married “the beautiful Ruth Cunningham,” a merchant’s daughter and heiress to a fortune worth 10,000.00 pounds.[1] Their politics were quite different, yet they were attached to each other. Otis later “half-complained that she was a ‘High Tory,’” yet in the same breath “she was a good Wife [‘Ruthy’], and too good for him.” [2] The marriage produced three children (James, Elizabeth and Mary). Their son James died at the age of eighteen, and their daughter Elizabeth, a loyalist like her mother, married Captain Brown of the British Army and lived in England for the rest of her life. Their youngest daughter, Mary, married Benjamin Lincoln, son of the distinguished Gem Lincoln.
Speaking of James Otis, John Adams said, "I have been young and now I am old, and I solemnly say I have never known a man whose love of country was more ardent or sincere, never one who suffered so much, never one whose service for any 10 years of his life were so important and essential to the cause of his country as those of Mr. Otis from 1760 to 1770."
Writs of Assistance
Otis graduated from Harvard in 1743 and rose meteorically to the top of the Boston legal profession. In 1760, he received a prestigious appointment as Advocate General of the Admiralty Court. He promptly resigned, however, when Governor Bernard failed to appoint James Otis Jr.'s father to the promised position of Chief Justice of the Superior Court. In a dramatic turnabout following his resignation, Otis instead represented pro bono the colonial merchants who were challenging the legality of the "writs of assistance" before the Superior Court, the predecessor of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. These writs would enable British authorities to enter any colonist's home with no advance notice, no probable cause and no reason given. In his oration against the writs, John Adams stated, "Otis was a flame of fire; with a promptitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities."
James Otis considered himself a loyal British subject. Yet in February 1761, he argued brilliantly against the Writs of Assistance in a nearly five-hour oration before a select audience in the Old State House. His argument failed to win his case, although it galvanized the revolutionary movement. More than thirty years later, with considerable exaggeration, John Adams claimed that "the child independence was then and there born,[for] every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away as I did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance." In fact, his challenge to the authority of Parliament made a strong impression on John Adams, who was present, and thereby eventually contributed to the American Revolution. In a pamphlet published three years later, in 1765, Otis expanded his argument that the general writs violated the British unwritten constitution harkening back to Magna Carta. Much enhanced by John Adams on several occasions, the text of his 1761 speech was first printed in 1773 and in longer forms in 1819 and 1823.
Otis did not identify himself as a revolutionary; his peers, too, generally viewed him as more cautious than the incendiary Samuel Adams. Otis at times counseled against the mob violence of the radicals and argued against Adams' proposal for a convention of all the colonies resembling that of the British Glorious Revolution of 1688. Yet on other occasions Otis exceeded Adams in rousing passions and exhorting people to action. According to some accounts, at a town meeting on September 12, 1768, Otis even called his compatriots to arms.
Patriot and pamphleteer
Originally politically based in the rural Popular Party, Otis effectively made alliances with Boston merchants so that he instantly became a patriot star after the writs of assistance. He was elected by an overwhelming margin to the Massachusetts House of Representatives a month later. Otis subsequently wrote several important patriotic pamphlets, served in the Massachusetts legislature and was a leader of the Stamp Act Congress. He also was friends with Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense.
Otis suffered from increasingly erratic behavior as the 1760s progressed. Otis received a gash on the head by British tax collector John Robinson's cudgel at the British Coffee House in 1769. Some mistakenly attribute Otis's mental illness to this event. That it was completely unrelated is shown by Wroth and Zobel (see below). John Adams has several examples in his diary of Otis's mental illness well before 1769. By the end of the decade, Otis's public life largely came to an end. Some believe Otis was a manic-depressive or schizophrenic and that his illness could be successfully treated today. Otis was able to do occasional legal practice during times of clarity.
In many ways, Otis went beyond the traditional mentality of the pre-Revolutionary War era. For example, Otis favored extending the basic natural law freedoms of life, liberty and property to African-Americans, a position with few adherents among the leaders of the Revolution.
Death
Otis died suddenly in May 1783 at the age of 58 when, as he stood in the doorway of a friend's Andover house, he was struck by lightning. He is reported to have said to his sister, Mercy Otis Warren, "My dear sister, I hope, when God Almighty in his righteous providence shall take me out of time into eternity that it will be by a flash of lightning."
Published works
- The Rudiments of Latin Prosody (1760). Otis published the first of two treatises on prosody, and his alma mater, Harvard, eventually adapted it as a textbook.
- A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives (1762). The first political publication by Otis. Here he uses an example of an expenditure not sanctioned by the colonial legislature as the foundation of his theory that taxes can be charged only by a representative government. In effect, he summarizes the argument that would have a central place in Revolutionary rhetoric.
- The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (1764). This pamphlet sets down another important philosophy underpinning the Revolutionary debate: it asserts that rights are not derived from human institutions, but from nature and God. Thus, government does not exist to please monarchs, but to promote the good of the entire society.
- Considerations on Behalf of the Colonists (1765). This pamphlet expands the author's argument from The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (1764). He furthers the notion of natural rights by linking it to the theory of equal representation. In this year he also authors the pamphlets Vindication of the British Colonies and Brief Remarks on the Defence of the Halifax Libel, Otis's last. Contradicting his earlier statements, Otis now is pleased to grant Parliament complete authority over the colonies. Scholars have settled on two explanations for his drastic reversal: Otis either temporarily became mentally ill, or he intended to use these pieces to defend himself against charges of treason.
References
External links
- Full text of James Otis, the pre-revolutionist by John Clark Ridpath, from Project Gutenberg
- James Otis, Jr., Family