James Otis

James Otis (1725-1783), American colonial leader, born on February 5, 1725, in West Barnstable, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard College (now Harvard University). He entered the legal profession in Boston in 1748 and served as Advocate General of the Boston vice-admiralty court from 1756 to 1761. He resigned from that office to appear as counsel for the merchants of Boston, in opposition to the issuing of writs of assistance enabling the royal customs collectors to search the establishments of merchants suspected of possessing contraband goods violating the Molasses Act of 1733. In a famous address to the court, in February 1761, Otis declared that any act passed by Parliament contrary to the “natural rights” of the American colonists was invalid. Although he failed to prevent the issuing of the writs, he was recognized thereafter as the leader of radical colonial opponents to British measures.

Otis was elected to the Massachusetts General Court (the legislature) in 1761 and three years later became the head of the Massachusetts branch of the Committees of Correspondence. In 1764 he also prepared a cogent plea for free speech and against taxation by Parliament: The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proven. Otis's ideas were incorporated into the documents of the Stamp Act Congress in 1765. Otis also condemned the Townshend Acts of 1767 as driving the colonists to revolt. In 1769 he was physically attacked by a customs collector who opposed his published statements; his injuries left him mentally incapacitated and compelled him to withdraw from public life. He died in Andover, Massachusetts, on May 23, 1783.