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→Legislator
==Legislator==
==Legislator==
[[Image:Bland jones.jpg|250px|thumb|A depiction of Henry speaking in the Virginia House of Burgesses.]]
At the time Henry became a member of the House of Burgesses, Virginia and the other colonies were already in turmoil over the controversial [[Stamp Act]], which the British Parliament had passed a few months earlier, imposing a tax on the American colonies (by means of a revenue stamp) without the consent of the colonial legislatures: a measure generally considered contrary to both legal tradition and the colonial charters themselves. Not surprisingly, given his earlier stance in "the Parsons' Cause," Henry strongly identified with the Whig faction opposing the Stamp Act and similar transgressions, and immediately associated with other Whigs in the Burgesses who were writing the [[Virginia Resolves]] in response. These Stamp Act Resolves not only expressed disagreement with the Stamp Act but clearly stated that Parliament had no capacity to tax the American colonies, which made the controversy a constitutional, rather than a simply economic, issue.
At the time Henry became a member of the House of Burgesses, Virginia and the other colonies were already in turmoil over the controversial [[Stamp Act]], which the British Parliament had passed a few months earlier, imposing a tax on the American colonies (by means of a revenue stamp) without the consent of the colonial legislatures: a measure generally considered contrary to both legal tradition and the colonial charters themselves. Not surprisingly, given his earlier stance in "the Parsons' Cause," Henry strongly identified with the Whig faction opposing the Stamp Act and similar transgressions, and immediately associated with other Whigs in the Burgesses who were writing the [[Virginia Resolves]] in response. These Stamp Act Resolves not only expressed disagreement with the Stamp Act but clearly stated that Parliament had no capacity to tax the American colonies, which made the controversy a constitutional, rather than a simply economic, issue.