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 (James Otis, Jr.).
James Otis, Jr., a man that "rambles and wanders like a ship without a helm" (John Adams), a broken man, deemed a lunatic by Governor Thomas Hutchinson and a sanity commission of Massachusetts Colony in 1771.
James Otis, Jr., called a "water of fire" by his contemporary John Adams, once known for a "promptitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities" (John Adams), and had argued that "a man's house is his castle" had become as a man whose own castle; his mind had been breached and broken down by forces nearly impossible to defend against.
Once, Otis, had given a speech, a labor of five hours in which a child was born. John Adams said that it was this insane and broken man who brought Independence into the world at the Superior Court in Boston in 1761:
"Then and there was the first scene of the first act of the opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born."
And now, James Otis, Jr. was wandering the streets, breaking windows, firing his rifle, burning papers, erratic and speaking hurtful and violent words to those around him.
James Otis had been a brilliant scholar, graduating from Harvard, and quickly rising in prominence within the Boston community. He was at the top of his profession and married to a woman of good family, Ruth Cunningham. Otis had always had a difficult and edgy personality, was fully conscious of social status, sometimes finding it a bit uncomfortable to commiserate with those of a less pretentious and less refined class, those impatient with him.
We all have our reasons for taking one side over another, but this Bard suspects that Otis was not merely defending a nation's liberty when he birthed Independence in 1761, but his own secret liberty which in his own mind was under continual attack by forces other than the British Empire. But it was Britain and its Writs of Assistance that symbolized these threats to his personal freedom in his home and within the community. Otis fought for liberty on a completely different level than those who fought on the physical level. This was a man that lived in his mind and it was a dark place with demons lurking in the corners, wanting to break in and take what was his.
James Otis, Jr. was a highly respected lawyer and had a reputation as an intelligent man amongst the Boston merchants. He was greatly admired for his talents and abilities within the community outside the doors of his home. And then, there was his wife, Ruth, to whom he was unhappily married. If this Bard were to make conjectures, and he does, he would guess that Otis felt his wife a bit like a British official bursting in with a warrant to search his private thoughts, to confiscate his property, and imprison him for contraband opinions and passions. Otis believed very strongly that what was his, what he had worked so hard for was his by right, "inherent and inalienable" (John Adams).
And so in 1761 when James Otis, Jr. was made Advocate-General and the Writs of Assistance were challenged by his fellow citizens as illegal searches and seizures of private property, he could not justify prosecuting his neighbors for inability to prove every stick, paper, and grain of sugar bore the mark of the....King. He could not prosecute the very people who esteemed him and depended upon him.
Now, perhaps, if Otis had grown up in Britain and had connections there he would not have felt so personally threatened. But if he were to carry out his heinous duties upon the only place he belonged and was known, he would have lost all dignity and position in the world. He would have lost the home he loved by fining and imprisoning the very people who offered their homes to him. After he had betrayed his friends and broken Boston down, he would have had to flee to Britain where he had nothing and no friends. The Writs of Assistance were a threat against his own house, for enforcing them would have confiscated all he "owned" and held dear--the esteem of the community. Otis' own physical house was no home, it was the place where Ruth lived, and she stood against all he loved. She did not admire him or hold him in esteem. Good old Loyalist Ruth, the kick in the pants that got Independence kindled.
"I was solicited to argue this cause as Advocate-General; and, because I would not, I have been charged with desertion from my office. To this charge I can give a very sufficient answer. I renounced that office and I argue this cause from the same principle; and I argue it with the greater pleasure, as it is in favor of British liberty...." (James Otis, Jr. 1761).
James Otis, Jr. may have been missing a few screws, but not as many as some elected officials. Otis knew where his allegiance belonged and where history would give him a proper home, and it wasn't by betraying the trust of Boston's citizens. And to prove himself he offered his services free of charge to defend the merchants of Boston before the Superior Court where they stood accused of smuggling and buying off the black market, rather than from Britain's East India Company monopoly.
And so, on that momentous day, 24 February 1761 at the Boston State House, James Otis, Jr. rose to defend the rights of those he loved and who had given him a home in their hearts. He spoke for five hours, a feat that most of us cannot imagine accomplishing. What he said was so powerful and so true that it stunned and roused all who heard it. The exact words cannot be known as there is no transcript, but those few who were in the State House were never to forget it, as if they had been anointed and invigorated with whatever it was that Otis had sprinkled on them. And perhaps, this led to his mental decline in the following years. Perhaps, he filled so many other glasses with his wine that there was none left for him at the end of the feast, and non to fill his vessel.
It must be wondered what it was like to have fought so hard, to have expended so much energy, to be so worn and to have returned to a home where one's family is against them. Otis's wife was a Loyalist, and one of his daughters too. Surely, Otis' battle was a lonely one.
John Adams was a young man when he saw Otis speak in defense of the merchants, but he seems to list it as one of the most important moments in history. Of it he writes:
"[James Otis] asserted that every man, merely natural, was an independent sovereign, subject to no law but the law written in his heart and revealed to him by his Maker, in the constitution of his nature and the inspiration of his understanding and his conscience. His right to his life, his liberty, no created being could rightfully contest. Nor was his right to his property less incontestable. The club that he had snapped from a tree, for a staff or for defense, was his own. His bow and arrow were his own; if by a pebble he had killed a partridge or a squirrel, it was his own. No creature, man or beast, had a right to take it from him. If he had taken an eel or a smelt or a sculpin, it was his property....
"....He asserted that these rights were inherent and inalienable. That they never could be surrendered or alienated but by idiots or madmen and all the acts of idiots and lunatics were void and not obligatory, by all the laws of God and man. Nor were the poor Negroes forgotten. Not a Quaker in Philadelphia or Mr. Jefferson in Virginia ever asserted the rights of the Negroes in stronger terms. Young as I was and ignorant as I was, I shuddered at the doctrine he taught; and have all my life shuddered, and still shudder, at the consequences that may be drawn from such premises. Shall we say that the rights of masters and servants clash and can be decided only by force? I adore the idea of gradual abolitions! From individual independence he proceeded to association. If it was inconsistent with the dignity of human nature to say that men were gregarious animals, like wild geese, it surely could offend no delicacy to say they were all social animals by nature, that there were natural sympathies, and above all, the sweet attraction of the sexes, which must soon draw them together in little groups, and by degrees in larger congregations, for mutual assistance and defense. And this must have happened before any formal covenant, by express words or sign, was concluded....
"....He asserted that the security of these rights to life, liberty, and property had been the object of all those struggles against arbitrary power, temporal and spiritual, civil and political, military and ecclesiastical, in every age" (John Adams on Otis' defense against Writs of Assistance Act).
James Otis lost the case against the Writs of Assistance, the right to be secure in one's home, but won in the courts of the hearts and memories of those gathered there. It was a grand battle, nobly fought, and a tool of defense in the following years.
In the following years Otis continued to speak, to practice law, and to write pamphlets for the colonists. In 1764 he wrote The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, which displays his colorful language:
"I say supreme absolute power is originally and ultimately in the people; and they never did in fact freely, nor can they rightfully make an absolute, unlimited renunciation of this divine right....
"....It was from the trick of gulling the vulgar into a belief that their tyrants were omniscient, that it was therefore right, that they should be considered as omnipotent. Hence the Dii majorum et minorum gentium; the great, the monarchical, the little Provincial subordinate and subaltern gods, demigods, and semidemi-gods, ancient and modern. Thus deities of all kinds were multiplied and increased in abundance; for every devil incarnate, who could enslave a people, acquired a title to divinity; and thus the 'rabble of the skies' was made up of locusts and caterpillars; lions, tygers and harpies; and other devourers translated from plaguing the earth!"
But as the 1760s wore on, James Otis became increasingly muddied in his mind, and began to get into trouble as he wandered about the streets. In September of 1769, while at the British Coffee House, he was attacked by John Robinson, head tax collector who may have been angry about some of Otis' writings. Robinson beat Otis over the head, severely injuring him, and as Adams wrote "reason was shaken from its throne." This was the last blow upon Otis and by 1771 he was found by his enemy, the British Colonial Governor Hutchinson, to be a lunatic and given into the guardianship of his brother.
James Otis, Jr. sneaked off to battle one last time when he heard the Minute Men calling men to arms. Otis grabbed his gun and made for Bunker Hill where he joined in the battle, then returned home.
One evening in May of 1783, while standing outside of the door way of his daughter's home in Andover, Massachusetts, a bolt of lightning struck from heaven and met with James Otis, Jr, transporting him to a home where no Writ of Assistance could gain entry.
What remains here on earth of James Otis, Jr. is the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution, one of the 10 Amendments we call The Bill of Rights:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It is also from Otis that we have the phrase "taxation without representation is tyranny," which we have turned to "no taxation without representation," a very fit phrase for these times.
"In the first place, the writ is universal, being directed 'to all and singular justices, sheriffs, constables, and all other officers and subjects'; so that, in short, it is directed to every subject in the King's dominions. Every one with this writ may be a tyrant' if this commission be legal, a tyrant in a legal manner, also, may control, imprison, or murder any one within the realm. In the next place, it is perpetual; there is not return. A man is accountable to no person for his doings. Every man may reign secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror and desolation around him, until the trump of the Archangel shall excite different emotions in his soul. In the third place, a person with this writ, in the daytime, may enter all houses, shops, etc., at will, and command all to assist him. Fourthly, by this writ not only deputies, etc., but even their menial servants, are allowed to lord it over us. What is this but to have the curse of Canaan with a witness on us: to be servants, the most despicable of God's creation?" (James Otis, Jr.).
And so, we must ask ourselves are we gradually being subjected to the tyranny of those who are our servants? Is it really serving and protecting when our cities install traffic cameras to profit from people's small errors, or set up "DUI" checkpoints on money-making roads during high traffic hours? Is it serving and protecting when one gives up their 4th Amendment right each time they get in their car or goes into an airport or federal building and is subjected to a full body scan?
If James Otis, Jr was willing to renounce his job, speak for five hours straight, return home to a wife who resented him, lose his sanity, get beat on the head, go to Bunker Hill, and risk arrest by the British officials, why then will we not defend ourselves and neighbors? We too have voices and one voice may set an example for others who may be inspired and strengthened. Yes, using the voice, the word may rain down derision, but there are those like John Adams who may lay foundations with those words.
"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 life were so important and essential to the cause of his country as those of Mr. Otis from 1760 to 1770" (John Adams).
image: Winslow Homer
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