First edition of the American Prohibitory Act of 1775 

“It throws thirteen colonies out of the royal protection, levels all distinctions, and makes us independent in spite of our supplications and entreaties...It may be fortunate that the act of independency should come from the British Parliament rather than the American Congress.”

 —John Adams on the Prohibitory Act.

“That as to the king, we had been bound to him by allegiance, but that this bond was now dissolved by his assent to the late Act of Parliament by which he declares us out of his protection.”

—Proceedings from the Second Continental Congress

The American Prohibitory Act of 1775 declared “all manner of (the American colonies’) trade and commerce is and shall be prohibited;” that any ships found trading “shall be forfeited to his Majesty, as if the same were the ships and effects of open enemies;” and that “for the encouragement of the officers and seamen of his Majesty’s ships of war” that “seamen, marines, and soldiers on board shall have the sole interest and property of all ships, vessels, goods and merchandise, which they shall seize and take.”  John Adams would later call it the “piratical act, or plundering act.”  This fateful Act declared all Americans to be outlaws beyond the king’s protection at the very moment when, across the Atlantic, conservative leaders in America were working feverishly to craft a settlement to present to the king and Parliament that would end the intermittent fighting between colonial and royal forces, protect the colonists from unconstitutional parliamentary legislation while at the same time would stop short of a declaration of independence.  The American Prohibitory Act ended any chance for reconciliation—indeed, this Act marked the point of fracture in an increasingly dramatic exchange between the Americans and the British Crown and Parliament.  Four months before the Act was issued, the drama had begun to escalate in August of 1775 when the king issued a proclamation declaring the colonies to be in a state of “open rebellion”—this was the first official recognition of the rebellion in America.  

Two months later, in October 1775, the king declared, before Parliament, that the rebellion in America had “become more general and is manifestly carried on for the purpose of establishing an independent empire”—despite the fact that the Americans had not yet made any statement declaring that their aim was independence.  News of this October speech was not to reach America until January of 1776.  Most importantly, the king’s assumption that the thirteen American colonies had already formed a united coalition seeking only independence was entirely mistaken.  In November 1775, under the conservative leadership of John Dickinson, the Pennsylvania Assembly issued the following instructions forbidding the Pennsylvania delegates in Congress to vote for independence should the issue arise: “Though the oppressive measures of the British Parliament and administration have compelled us to resist their violence by force of arms, yet we strictly enjoin you that you, in behalf of this colony, dissent from and utterly reject any propositions, should such be made, that may cause or lead to a separation from our mother country” (English Historical Documents, pp. 170).  Following Pennsylvania’s lead, New York, Maryland, Delaware, and South Carolina quickly delivered similar instructions to their delegates in Congress.   When news of the Prohibitory Act arrived in February 1776, the whole landscape of the debate in Congress shifted dramatically and conclusively.  The implications of the Prohibitory Act were clear to colonial leaders on both sides of the issue. 

The following excerpt is from a letter written in early 1776 by Joseph Hewes, a North Carolina merchant and, as of December 1775, a prominent opponent of independence: “The Act of Parliament prohibiting all trade and commerce between Great Britain and the colonies has been lately brought here by a Mr. Temple from London...I fear it will make the breach between the two countries so wide as never more to be reconciled...I see no prospect of reconciliation.  Nothing is left now but to fight it out” (letter to Samuel Johnston, dated March 20, 1776). John Adams, who had been an early proponent of independence, saw The Prohibitory Act in much the same way: “It throws thirteen colonies out of the royal protection, levels all distinctions, and makes us independent in spite of our supplications and entreaties...It may be fortunate that the act of independency should come from the British Parliament rather than the American Congress” (letter to Horatio Gates, dated March 23, 1776).  On May 10th of 1776 the Second Continental Congress issued a Resolution that, again, shows the central role the Prohibitory Act played in tipping the scales toward independence.  The Resolution begins by stating that “Whereas his Britannic Majesty has, by a late Act of Parliament, excluded the inhabitants of these united colonies from the protection of his Crown” and ends with the following: “Resolved, that it be recommended to the respective assemblies of the united colonies...to adopt such government as shall...best conduce to the happiness and safety and their constituents in particular and American in general”.  Direct reference to The Prohibitory Act would turn up a few months later in the Declaration of Independence itself: “He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us,” and also, perhaps more revealingly, in the historic debate on independence held at the Second Continental Congress from June 8th through June 10th of 1776.  The following is from Thomas Jefferson’s notes on the proceedings of the debate:

...The delegates from Virginia moved in obedience to instructions from their constituents that the Congress should declare that these United Colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states...and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved...

...That no gentleman had argued against the policy or the right of separation from Britain, nor had supposed it possible we should ever renew our connection; that they had only opposed its being now declared...

...That as to the king, we had been bound to him by allegiance, but that this bond was now dissolved by his assent to the late Act of Parliament by which he declares us out of his protection...
                                                           

While it was Thomas Paine’s Common Sense that proved crucial in mobilizing public opinion in favor of independence, no document played a more decisive role in the debate over independence at the Second Continental Congress than the American Prohibitory Act.

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