Stamp Act

an act of Parliament passed March, 1765, to go into effect November 1st. It imposed "certain stamp duties, and other duties, in the British colonies and plantations in America, toward further defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same." The act required that stamps purchased of the British government and costing from six cents to fifty dollars each be affixed to certain legal documents, as bills of sale, deeds to real estate, wills, licenses, commissions, and that almanacs, advertisements, pamphlets, newspapers, and playing cards should be printed on stamped paper sold by the government. Parliament proposed to send 10,000 troops for defense against the French and Indians. The tax was expected to yield about $500,000 a year and would pay perhaps a third of the military expense in view.

The act aroused bitter opposition. "If they have the right to impose a stamp tax," said one writer, "they have a right to lay on us a poll tax, a land tax, a malt tax, a cider tax, a window tax, a smoke tax; and why not tax us for the light of the sun, the air we breathe, and the ground we are buried in?" "I will never carry on Business under such great disadvantages and Burthen. I will not be a slave, I have a right to the Libertys & Privileges of the English Constitution, and I as an English-man will enjoy them," said John Hancock. Patrick Henry, the magnetic patriot of Virginia, introduced ringing resolutions, concluding: "That every attempt to vest such power in any other persons whatever than the General Assembly aforesaid, is illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust, and has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American liberty."

A congress known as the Stamp Act Congress met in New York, October 7, 1765. It was attended by delegates from nine colonies. A dignified petition was drawn up and was sent to the British government. It stated in a formal way "the most essential rights and liberties of the colonists, and of the grievances under which they labor," insisted on the principle of "No taxation without representation," and prayed for the revocation of the act. In the meantime organizations known as Sons of Liberty had found a way of touching the British pocket-book by encouraging a general boycott of British goods. Thomas Hutchinson, the inoffensive lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, who opposed the passage of the bill while pending in Parliament, made preparations, as his office required, to set the act into effect. A Boston mob fell upon his home, sacked and plundered it, and put the lives of himself and family in danger. Officials were terrorized elsewhere.

When November 1st, the day stamps were to be used, arrived, not a stamp was in sight. The people went about their business as usual. The act was ignored. In Parliament, William Pitt pleaded the cause of the colonists: "We may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever, except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent." Said he, "You have no right to tax America. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of our fellow-subjects, so lost to every sense of virtue as tamely to give up their liberties, would be fit instruments to make slaves of the rest."

Parliament passed a resolution declaring that the colonies were "subordinate unto, and dependent upon, the Imperial Crown and Parliament of Great Britain which had full power and authority . . . to bind the Colonies and People of America, subject of the Crown of Great Britain, in all Cases whatsoever." March 18, 1766, the Stamp Act was repealed by the British Parliament.