The Crime of Anonymity

[Sebastian Dangerfield]

On Wed, 16 Dec 1998 09:27:01 -0500 Peter Petto asks:

>Do you know if the Black Act would have proscribed the early pamphlets 
>and other incendiary documents that led to the American Revolution?

Very interesting question.  Since basically all English laws of general
applicability were in force in the colonies (and the colonial
legislatures could not derogate any Parliamentary Act), it was certainly
applicable (the Back Act was not repealed until sometime around 1856 or
so).  Of course, in order to fall within the terms of the Act, such
tracts would have to include some kind of threat, which surely many of
them did.  I believe, for instance, that the letters of 'Junius' presaged
the destruction of Tea shipments (and the identity of Junius is still
unknown). 

So the Black Act was surely avaiable, at least in some instances, but I
have never seen references to Black Act prosecutions in the colonies. 
Much more ready to hand were the seditious libel statutes and the press
licensing laws, which did not require anonymity or overt threats.  Paine
was prosecuted in Britain under the seditious libel laws for writing his
rejoinder to Burke, which precipitated his going back to France where he
had been declared an honorary Citizen, and he was convicted in absentia
in Britain.  (Things didn't go too smoothly for him in France, as he
spent about a year in prison during the Terror, but that's another
story).  Most of the prosecutions in the colonies were thus under the
very broad seditious libel laws.  It was out of fear of such prosecutions
that the pamphleteers (including the Federalists who were debating the
shape of the Constitution) chose to write anonymously, funny enough.  

P.S.:  Erratum:

I said earlier that the corn price supports in place during the 1750s
were the ones later decried by Ricardo.  Not so.  Although I believe
there were some kinds of institutional price supports in place, the Corn
Laws at which Ricardo levelled his criticisms were enacted in 1815.  
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