Otis, James
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
James (1725-1783), an American statesman. He was born at West Barnstable, Massachusetts. He was graduated from Harvard in 1743. He opened an office for the practice of law in Boston in 1748. He was considered the leading lawyer of Boston. In 1761 he appeared in court for the colony in opposition to an application made before the supreme court for writs of assistance to search for smuggled goods. His speech occupied three hours. It is spoken of as "The first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain ." "Reason and the Constitution," said Otis, "are both against this writ. . . . All precedents are under the control of the principles of law. . . . No acts of Parliament can establish such a writ. . . . An act against the constitution is void." John Adams said of him, "Otis was Isaiah and Ezekiel united--Otis was a flame of fire--Otis' oration against writs of assistance breathed into this nation the breath of life." From this time on, Otis was one of the foremost Revolutionary spirits. He sat in the state legislature. He was an active member of the congress which met at New York in 1765 to protest against the passage of the Stamp Act . He took a hand in drafting the various memorials forwarded to King George. In 1769 he became involved in a quarrel with one of the English customs commissioners. He received a blow on the head from the consequences of which he became temporarily deranged. He was afterward elected to the legislature and served in the battle of Bunker Hill , but his reason was so greatly unbalanced that he lost his place as a leader. He was killed by a stroke of lightning. See Adams ; Writs Of Assistance ; Hancock
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 account still holds in its outline: Otis argued against writs of assistance in 1761, sat in the Stamp Act Congress of 1765, was beaten about the head by customs commissioner John Robinson in 1769, and was killed by lightning at Andover in 1783. What historians now stress is how thin the evidence for the famous speech is — no text survives, and the ringing lines quoted here come from John Adams, who wrote up his courtroom notes decades later and whose "flame of fire" praise is a memory of an old man. Otis's claim that "an act against the constitution is void" is still cited as an ancestor of judicial review, and the writs case is routinely taught as background to the Fourth Amendment. Two things have shifted in emphasis: his derangement is now usually read as a mental illness that predated the 1769 blow rather than being caused by it, and his sister Mercy Otis Warren, unmentioned here, is today the better-studied writer of the family.
Written for this edition, 2026.