Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/94

66 tree, where he presented resolutions which were adopted word for word by more than forty towns in Massachusetts. The people refused to make use of stamps, and the business of the inferior courts was carried on without them, judges and lawyers agreeing to connive at the absence of the stamps. In the supreme court, however, where Thomas Hutchinson was chief justice, the judges refused to transact any business without stamps. This threatened serious interruption to business, and the town of Boston addressed a memorial to the governor and council, praying that the supreme court might overlook the absence of stamps. John Adams was unexpectedly chosen, along with Jeremiah Gridley and James Otis, as counsel for the town, to argue the case in favor of the memorial. Adams delivered the opening argument, and took the decisive ground that the stamp act was ipso facto null and void, since it was a measure of taxation which the people of the colony had taken no share in passing. No such measure, he declared, could be held as binding in America, and parliament had no right to tax the colonies. The governor and council refused to act in the matter, but presently the repeal of the stamp act put an end to the disturbance for a while. About this time Mr. Adams began writing articles for the Boston "Gazette." Four of these articles, dealing with the constitutional rights of the people