The Test Laws
After the early battles in Massachusetts the governments of all 13 colonies were quickly taken over by those who called themselves Patriots, meaning that they were supportive of the removal of British rule. Those who opposed the Patriots were called Loyalists by the British, and Tories by the Patriots. Both sides looked with disdain upon the approximately one-third of Americans who favored neither side.
With the Patriots in control of state governments, Congress passed laws which defined treason. Under the law treason included not only the act of making war against the United States, but also giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Following the enactment of treason laws (violation of which was a capital offense) Congress passed laws which enabled the individual states to enact laws to test the loyalty of their citizens.
The Test Laws allowed the states to require their citizens to swear loyalty to the state. Refusal to so swear placed the individual’s property in the hands of the state and subjected the refusing citizen to imprisonment. Those not imprisoned could be barred from the practice of their profession or the execution of their trade. The harshness of the Test Laws in many places led to mob rule, as Tories were subjected to the degradation of public punishment by tar and feathers, whippings, riding a rail, and worse.
The Test Laws ensured that Loyalists’ property was confiscated by the state, purportedly to provide funds to support the war, but often in practice merely lining local pockets. In the South, particularly in the back country of North Carolina, they were cited to help resolve disputes and feuds which ran back several generations.
John Adams, the lawyer who had once defended the British soldiers accused of murder in the Boston Massacre, was a staunch defender of the Test Laws and their forceful application, believing that they would help turn non-aligned citizens to support of the Revolution while unifying resistance to the Tories, whom he considered to be “…an ignorant, cowardly pack of scoundrels…” Eventually, at least eight states executed Tories for the crime of being a Tory, rather than the crime of treason.