On this day in history, March 18:
The British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in 1766, a year after it had been enacted and almost five months after it took effect on November 1, 1765.
The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765. It mandated the first direct tax on the American colonies and was the first attempt to assert parliamentary authority over them.
It was imposed on all colonists, requiring them to pay a tax on all printed matter – books, newspapers, pamphlets, legal documents, licenses and magazines – which had to bear an embossed stamp.
The revenue was to be used to pay the French and Indian War debt, which rose to £129.5 million in 1764, as well as the costs of defending the American frontier near the Appalachian Mountains.
Stamp Act Resolves
The Stamp Act was seen in the colonies as an attempt by England to raise money without the approval of colonial legislatures. If this tax were allowed, the colonists reasoned, more burdensome taxes would follow.
Few colonists believed they could do anything until the Virginia House of Burgesses adopted Patrick Henry's Stamp Act Resolves. These implied that Americans possessed all the rights of Englishmen, that the principle of “no taxation without representation” was an essential part of British law, and that only Virginians could tax themselves.
The House of Burgesses defeated the two most extreme resolutions, but five were passed. The governor of Virginia did not approve, so he dissolved the House of Burgesses.
Anti-Tax Protests Arise
Unexpectedly, the Stamp Act ignited outrage, leading to the first effort by the colonists to resist British authority. Members of the colonial elite, who were used to the idea that their legislatures were equivalent to the British House of Commons, were incensed.
Resistance to the Stamp Act took the form of petitions to King and Parliament, a boycott of British goods, refusal to use the stamps, and violence sparked by the Sons of Liberty, as mobs intimidated stamp agents. Protests and discussions of political liberty followed.
American newspapers reacted to the Stamp Act with predictions of the demise of journalism. In New York, rioters destroyed the home of a British officer who said he "would cram the stamps down American throats at the point of his sword."
In London, Benjamin Franklin, the colonial agent for Pennsylvania, testified before the House of Commons that any attempt to enforce the Stamp Act with troops might provoke rebellion. His call for repeal was joined by British merchants who cited its dire economic effects.
Sons of Liberty
The Stamp Act led to the formation of the Sons of Liberty, who remained active until the American Revolution. Often secretly organized by wealthy men, they arose throughout the colonies, and their rank-and-file members engaged in violence. In Boston, an angry mob forced stamp agents to resign.
The leaders of the Sons of Liberty came from the middle and upper ranks of colonial society, and included Paul Revere, Joseph Warren, Alexander McDougall, Patrick Henry, John Hancock, Isaac Sears, James Otis, John Adams and Samuel Adams. Their motto was "no taxation without representation."
Throughout the Stamp Act crisis, the Sons of Liberty professed their loyalty to the King because they maintained a “fundamental confidence” that Parliament would do the proper thing and repeal the tax. Colonial merchants in Boston, New York and Philadelphia also organized an economic boycott. The decline in trade was severe, leading to the bankruptcy of some merchants in London.
The stamps were even destroyed, and the Massachusetts legislature, at the suggestion of James Otis, who was associated with the phrase "taxation without representation is tyranny," issued a call for a congress to find a way to resist the law.
Stamp Act Congress
The Stamp Act Congress, which met from October 7-25, 1765, in New York City, included delegates from nine of the 13 colonies: New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, South Carolina, Maryland and Connecticut.
It framed an address to King George III and adopted the “Declaration of Rights and Grievances,” proclaiming that British colonial subjects had the same "rights and liberties" as subjects in England, that freeborn Englishmen could not be taxed without their consent, and that any tax imposed on them without the consent of their colonial legislatures was unconstitutional.
Petitions embracing these resolutions were prepared for submission to the King, the House of Commons, and the House of Lords. By this time, most stamp tax agents in the colonies were intimidated into resigning, and the taxes were not effectively collected.
Repeal of Stamp Act
Faced with a loss of trade and protests from British merchants, whose exports declined, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act. But this was accompanied by the Declaratory Act, affirming Parliament's continued authority over colonial legislatures.
In 1766, the Sons of Liberty erected a Liberty Pole in New York to celebrate their victory. The next year, they adopted the "rebellious stripes flag," with nine vertical stripes, five red and four white, representing the colonies at the Stamp Act Congress.
Britain's need for revenue and Parliament's conviction that it alone was sovereign did not end with the repeal of the Stamp Act. New, harsher laws, such as the Townshend Acts of 1767, were subsequently passed in London.
"No Taxation Without Representation"
The Stamp Act was the initial event unifying all the colonies in their resistance to parliamentary authority. Its opponents laid the foundation for later revolutionary activity with their doctrine of consent of the governed.
The Stamp Act also made the colonists more aware of their identity as Americans. Although it was repealed, the anti-tax protests became the first act in the drama leading to American independence from the British Empire.
Americans, who did not elect members of Parliament, opposed the act not only due to their inability to pay the tax, but also because it violated the principle of "no taxation without representation." It aroused the grievances of the colonists, and their defiant action paved the way for the American Revolution.
SOURCES:
Morgan, E. S. and H. M. The Stamp Act Crisis. 1983.
Thomas, Peter David Garner. British Politics and the Stamp Act Crisis: The First Phase of the American Revolution. 1975.
John Kirshon - John Kirshon is a journalist/editor with more than 25 years of experience at the Associated Press, The New York Times and CBS News. He was ...
