Chapter 15: Refusing to Pay Caesar. When a commandment of Jesus places a hardship on us, it tests our trust in God. Does He really care about us? Does He truly have our best interests in mind? Speaking specifically about taxes, Jesus commanded us, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." Matthew 22:21. The Molasses Act would reveal exactly how much trust the colonists had in God, and it showed that they had little.
From the moment the Molasses Act was passed, the colonists decided they simply would break the law by smuggling. Colonial merchants profited handsomely by smuggling rum and molasses from French and Spanish Caribbean colonies without paying any duties. But the smuggling industry didn't involve only the shipowners. Merchants tied to smugglers could sell their goods more cheaply than the merchants who obeyed the law.
So the merchants who sold smuggled goods were an integral part of the black market, and so were the colonists who knowingly bought smuggled goods to save money. Smuggling provided jobs for sailors, dockworkers, shipbuilders, and warehouse owners. In one form or another, the largest part of American society participated in this law-breaking, and most colonial churches turned a blind eye to it.
American history textbooks written by Christians typically avoid the unpleasant truth that so many of the colonists were either directly involved in smuggling or were complicit in it.
So such textbooks make statements such as the following one from United States History in Christian Perspective: "Had the Molasses Act been enforced, it would have seriously hurt the colonial economy." The book makes it sound as though England didn't really expect the colonists to abide by the Molasses Act and thus deliberately didn't enforce it. In other words, Parliament passed the law for the sheer fun of it. Let's not kid ourselves.
Parliament expected its laws to be obeyed, and the colonial customs inspectors were entrusted with the duty to enforce those laws in the American colonies. It's similar to the governmental situation here in Pennsylvania, where I live. When the legislature meets in Harrisburg and passes laws, it expects those laws to be obeyed everywhere throughout the state. But the governor in Harrisburg doesn't send out special state troopers to enforce state laws in every city and county.
The local government officials are expected to do that. It was no different with Parliament's laws. England couldn't possibly police the entire Eastern Seaboard of America. Parliament had to depend upon the integrity of the colonial officials and the cooperation of the American people to enforce the Molasses Act and other laws.
Unfortunately, most colonial customs inspectors were all too willing to accept bribes to look the other way, and most colonial Americans were quite ready to purchase smuggled goods if they could save money by doing so. The issue wasn't that England didn't enforce the law; it was that the colonists didn't obey the law.
I doubt the author of the aforementioned textbook realized the incriminating admission he was making in saying that if the rum and molasses taxes had been paid, it would have seriously hurt the colonial economy. If that is true, it is only because the rum-based slave trade, the tavern business, and the sale of rum to the Indians were such a huge part of the colonial economy. One Christian economist of today has given this colorful description of colonial America. In short, America was a huge underground economy.
Here, trade was free and enterprise unrestricted. Taxes were so often evaded that for all practical purposes, there were none. A person could keep everything he earned. He could save and invest and eventually have his own thriving business or farm that would provide jobs for the next wave of immigrants. Inhabited by rebellious, individualistic smugglers and tax evaders, America quickly became the most prosperous place on Earth. One might guess that this Christian writer, Richard J.
Maybury, is denouncing the lawlessness of the colonies. But it's the opposite. He praises them for the clever way they created a free economy, lawful or not. But I don't think Jesus was praising them. The colonists thought they were merely breaking Britain's law, but in reality, they were breaking Christ's law as well. Were Americans oppressed? Nevertheless, Maybury is exactly right. By the year 1750, the American colonists lived in an enviable situation politically, economically, and religiously.
They enjoyed fuller democratic participation, greater economic opportunities, and more religious liberty than any other people on Earth. If anyone had suggested that in another 26 years the colonists would be fighting for their independence from Britain, people would have scoffed. American colonial governments were modeled after the British system of an executive, elected legislature, and independent judges. As in England, the right to vote in the colonies usually was tied to the ownership of real property.
However, since land was much less expensive in the colonies, a far greater proportion of the American colonists owned land than did England's residents. So a much greater percentage of colonial men had the right to vote than in England. The vast amount of inexpensive land, easy access to shipping, low taxes, a burgeoning population, and fewer class distinctions meant the New World provided more economic opportunities and job openings than did Great Britain.
As a result of all these advantages, it was far easier in the colonies than in Britain for a person to start off with little means and rise quickly to the top. During the colonial period, hundreds of thousands of people left Great Britain to seek better economic opportunities in the 13 colonies. People weren't streaming out of the colonies to enjoy a better life in Britain. Rather, people from Britain were streaming into the American colonies.
Another significant factor that contributed to the prosperity of the colonies was the British Navy. Britain ruled the oceans, and its merchant ships enjoyed greater protection from pirates than any other vessels. The American colonists were British citizens, and their ships were classified as British ships. So their ships enjoyed the same advantages as English-owned ships. Pirates and unfriendly nations thought twice about attacking a British ship because of the repercussions they would face.
As a result of the large drop in pirate attacks on British shipping, insurance and freight charges dropped rapidly in the century before the American Revolution, bringing further prosperity to colonial merchants. Of course, maintaining a large navy came at a tremendous cost, but the colonists paid little of that cost. Planned or not, the colonists ended up enjoying the benefits of belonging to the British Empire while bearing only a token part of the costs of maintaining that empire.
From the British perspective, this situation couldn't go on indefinitely, and so the colonists' trust in God was about to be tested again.