Petition for Redress of Grievances

Some tax resistance campaigns accompanied their resistance with petitions to the government asking it to change its policies or to rescind the tax.

Examples Petitions as Hopeful Requests

Every once in a while, there is hope that the petition itself may lead to a change in government policy.

During the 17th century Croquant tax rebellions in France, the rebels sent carefully flattering petitions to the king that purported to assume, since the king was so wise and good, that the offensive tax hikes must have been snuck past his royal highness by deceitful advisors.

In 1723, religious nonconformists in Massachusetts successfully petitioned the King to free colonists who had been imprisoned for resisting a tax designed to fund the establishment church, and to affirm that Quakers in the colony should not have to pay taxes to maintain the ministers of another church.

African-American entrepreneur Paul Cuffee petitioned the Massachusetts legislature in 1780 and 1781 to complain that he was not permitted to vote, although he was a taxpayer (he also backed up his complaint by refusing to pay). His petition arrived at a time when the state Constitution was in flux, and may have helped influence its drafters to omit a clause that would have restricted voting to white citizens.

The Rebecca Rioters, with their pseudonymous campaign of midnight toll-gate destruction, had the government nearly begging them to present a list of grievances they could at least pretend to address. Many groups of Welsh farmers did meet and draft lists of grievances. Once, a London Times reporter gained the confidence of a Rebeccaite assembly, and then he set out their grievances for them in the form of a Times article describing the meeting. Another group of farmers drafted a petition of their grievances that they sent to a government representative via a trusted intermediary. On at least one occasion a group of parishes petitioned the Turnpike Trust that ran one of the offending toll gates, asking them to remove it, before Rebecca and her daughters took matters into their own hands.

During the Annuity Tax struggle in Edinburgh, Scotland, “40,000 citizens of Edinburgh petitioned the House of Commons for [the Tax’s] abolition. The town council, the magistrates of Canongate, the Merchant Company, the Anti-state-church and the Anti-annuity-tax Associations, all exerted themselves with the legislature and the government to procure its repeal, but all their influence was thwarted and set at nought, by the preposterous demands and unjust claims of the clergy.”

Examples Petitions as Part of Larger Protests

Some 14,000 American Amish petitioned Congress (putting aside that sect’s usual reluctance to participate in political affairs) asking the government to exempt them from the Social Security program, participation in which they felt was anti-Christian. At the same time, some Amish were actively resisting the tax and suffering from government reprisals. Congress eventually did carve out an exemption for the Amish and certain other sects.

The Benares hartal of 1810–11 was successful in forcing the government to rescind a house tax. When it began, the residents of Benares abandoned the city and set up camp in an open field between Benares and Secrole, where the British administration was headquartered. There, “[a] petition was presented to the magistrate, praying him to withdraw the odious impost, and declaring that the petitioners would never return to their homes until their application was complied with.”

Example Petitions that Open Negotiations

Before launching the Bardoli tax strike, representatives from the resistance movement petitioned the government, asking for the concessions they would later demand via satyagraha.

Example Petitions as Propaganda Opportunities

Abby Smith addressed the Glastonbury town council in 1873 to explain why she would not be paying her property tax to politicians who took advantage of her voteless condition. The address fell on deaf ears in the council, but a newspaper published the text of her speech, and commented that “Abby Smith and her sister as truly stand for the American principle as did the citizens who ripped open the tea chests in Boston Harbor, or the farmers who leveled their muskets at Concord.” Soon the Smith case became a cause célèbre nationwide.

Example Petitions that Forewarn the Opponent

The hut tax war in Sierra Leone was preceded by petitions from a variety of groups asking the government to rescind the tax and explaining why the tax was felt to be particularly offensive. In this case, the petitioning may have made things worse, as the government stubbornly pushed forward with the tax, but, because it was forewarned of opposition by the petitions, it “came to the conclusion that the exercise of force, peremptory, rapid, and inflexible, was the element to be relied on in making the scheme of taxation a success.”

Notes and Citations

Rothbard, Murray “Peasants, Rise Up! The Croquants of the 17th Century” Economic Thought Before Adam Smith (excerpt found on the Ludwig von Mises Institute website)
Backus, Isaac A History of New-England with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians called Baptists, vol. I, 2nd ed. (1871), p. 534
Sherwood, Henry Noble “Paul Cuffe and His Contribution to the American Colonization Society” Proceedings of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association for the Year 1912–1913, Vol. VI (1913), pp. 370–402 (particularly pp. 376–78)
Evans, Henry Tobit Rebecca Riots! (2010 ed.), chapters 9–10, 14–16, 18, 23–24
“Edinburgh Annuity-tax—Another Victim” The British Friend 1 September 1855, p. 215 (quoting from the Edinburgh News)
Igou, Brad “Valentine Byler vs. the IRS: ‘Pay Unto Caesar—The Amish & Social Security’” Amish Country News 1999
Mill, James & Wilson, Horace H. The History of British India, from 1805 to 1835, Vol. I (1858) p. 334
Desai, Mahadev The Story of Bardoli (1929), chapter VII, “Clearing the Position,” pp. 61–64
Speare, Elizabeth George “Abby, Julia, and the Cows” American Heritage June 1957
“Julia and Abby Smith” We Won’t Pay: A Tax Resistance Reader (2008) pp. 333–42
Chalmers, David Report By Her Majesty’s Commissioner and Correspondence on the subject of the Insurrection in the Sierra Leone Protectorate, 1898 (1899), pp. 18–24