Writs of Assistance

WRITS OF ASSISTANCE

WRITS OF ASSISTANCE were general search warrants issued to the customs officers by the colonial superior courts. They were first issued in Massachusetts in 1751 and remained fairly uncontroversial until 1761, when the old writs expired and customs officers had to apply for new ones to replace them. James Otis, an attorney who represented merchants who opposed the new writs, argued that they were unconstitutional, but he lost his case. Eventually, the courts issued new writs after the British government supported their legality. That closed the issue in Massachusetts.

The controversy resurfaced in 1767 when the Townshend Revenue Act authorized writs of assistance. Under the act, customs officers prepared the writs themselves and requested the attorney general in each colony to secure these writs from the superior court. This action made writs of assistance an issue in the superior court of every American province. Many judges objected to the form of the writs and questioned their constitutionality. In most courts, the issue dragged through 1772. This delay resulted in a direct refusal by most colonial courts, although many judges offered to issue writs of assistance in particular cases "as directed by law." Finally, in 1772, the customs officers reported that they had secured writs in East Florida, West Florida, South Carolina, Bahama, Bermuda, New Hampshire, Nova Scotia, and Quebec. Because the controversy over the writs of assistance surfaced in the superior court of every Anglo-American colony, it became a common grievance that merited attention in the Declaration of Independence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967.

Cook, Don. The Long Fuse: How England Lost the American Colonies, 1760–1785. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995.

O. M. Dickerson / s. b.

See also Search and Seizure, Unreasonable ; Townshend Acts and vol. 9: The Writ of Assistance, 1762 .