Difference between revisions of "Stamp Act of 1765"

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The Stamp Act of 1765 was legislation passed by the British Parliament which required that all legal documents, permits, commercial contracts, newspapers, wills, pamphlets and playing cards in the American colonies be taxed. They were given a special tax stamp to show the tax was paid.^[1] Parliament passed this act to help repay lenders from the expensive French and Indian War. Americans protested energetically against the British imperial government in the years from 1765 to 1775—then engaged in all-out warfare.

The Stamp Act outraged Americans because it asserted parliament’s right to tax Americans without their consent. That violated the rights of colonists as Englishmen, and they protested vigorously.

Public opposition to the Stamp Act was fierce, and gave rise to the slogan "No taxation without representation." The American colonists threatened to tar and feather the tax collectors. Crowd action ranged from enforcement of community norms to response to economic conflict within the community. Americans opposed hostile government officials, and ridiculed British "placemen" (patronage holders). At the time of the Stamp Act, crowd action was the most effective and American response. No one was killed, but American merchants and British officials were shamed and ridiculed in public.^[2]

Official opposition was reflected by the Stamp Act Congress, which issued its resolutions on October 19, 1765. It rejected taxation without representation, stressed the ancient (historic) rights of the colonists as British subjects, and decided to lay the colonists' grievances directly before the British Parliament.

London

London merchants who had a large and profitable trade with the colonies were very badly hurt by the boycotts the coloniosts imposed, as shown by the January 17, 1766 petition of the merchants of London, reprinted below.

The British government debated whether to send the Army to enforce the Stamp Act. Two issues were involved: collection of the stamp duties and restoration of civil authority. The Duke of Cumberland might have pressed for intervention, but his death removed the strongest advocate for such a course. Most of the cabinet eventually concluded that the American resistance could not be compromised as long as the Stamp Act remained in effect and that the act itself was not worth saving, so they repealed it on March 18th, 1765.^[3]

Public Opinion

Newspapers

During the French and Indian War (1765063), the fledgling American newspaper industry significantly improved its methods of reporting news. Editors reprinted news and editorials from other papers, thus helping form a sort of national consensus. This made the press an effective voice in opposition to the Stamp Act --which taxed newspapers and almanacs--and in support of colonial independence soon thereafter. The newspapers reported effigy hangings and stamp master resignation speeches. Some newspapers were on the royal payroll and supported the Act, but most of the press was free and vocal.

Religion

For many Americans the revolutionary experience could be conceptualized best within a religious framework. Sermons, orations, poems, newspapers, essays, and other sources of the popular colonial mind reveal that a significant number of Americans continued to perceive God as the prime mover in human history. They gave America's secular development a prominent place in God's moral government of the world. Because of these beliefs, the Stamp Act was viewed as a threat to the fulfillment of America's providential destiny. Americans saw the Act's repeal as a sign of Almighty intervention in support of his favored people.^[4]

Colonies

New Hampshire

Between January and November 1765, the New Hampshire Provincial Assembly moved from indifference to the intensifying dispute between London and the American colonies to wholehearted endorsement of the colonial resistance. Three events created a climate of change: the exposure of Benning Wentworth's corruption, the Sugar Act, and the transmission of Whig views from other colonies through the press. These events led to a broadly based popular movement against the Stamp Act based not on economics but on the defense of liberty.

Rhode Island

Rhode Island's political and merchant elite organized and manipulated working-class rioters to put pressure on the British in their commercial conflict with the colonies. But the rioters had their own motives as well. of Newport, Rhode Island. Like the merchants, they gave vent to concerns about constitutional issues. They also rioted in response to hardships brought on by economic depression, dislike for the British policy of impressment of civilians into the Royal Navy, and resentment toward Newport Junto loyalists who belittled the political importance and self-esteem of commoners.

Rhode Island Governor Stephen Hopkins took the lead against the Sugar Act of 1764, invited other colonies to join in the Stamp Act Congress of 1765, and was a delegate to the First Continental Congress of 1774.

Pennsylvania

In Pennsylvania the Proprietary Party, fearful of loss of charter rights, instigated riots to discredit Benjamin Franklin's Quaker Party, which favored the Crown's taking over the colony. The Proprietary Party specialized in libel; the Assembly Party, politics. In the election of October 1765, the loss of seats by the Proprietary Party demonstrated that the electorate favored moderate resistance to the Stamp Act enforcement. Joseph Galloway played a conciliatory role and did not let the conflict get out of hand.

The central political role of Philadelphia merchants reached a peak with their successful Stamp Act protests in 1765. By 1768 during the Townsend Acts protests, the wealthier merchants refused to sign agreements concerning the nonimportation of British goods. By 1770, the city’s artisans and radicals became more important to the resistance than merchants. With the Tea Act of 1774, more merchants united with the radicals to revive the languishing revolutionary movement. Although the radicals later succeeded in forcing the break with Britain in 1776, the merchants stepped in to manage the new governments.

Virginia

In Virginia lawyer and radical democrat John Mercer's (1705-68) took the lead in opposing the new tax. Mercer heard of the law's passage in April 1765 and immediately published a list of taxed items and rates, prefaced by an incendiary introduction. Mercer's argument against the act was echoed by colonial courts in November, when the law became effective. Citing Chapter 40 of the Magna Carta, which states that legal process may not be sold, Mercer's early protest of the act probably contributed to the passage of the Virginia Resolves in May 1765, which in turn led to similar actions in other colonial legislatures.

Patrick Henry helped persuade the Virginia House of Burgesses to adopt in May, 1765, the Virginia Resolves against the Stamp Act: not only did Henry deliver the famous Caesar-Brutus speech; he wrote the Resolves, planned with George Johnston the strategies for debate on the house floor, and spoke at several points in the debate which initiated colonial resistance to the Act, resistance which culminated in the Act's repeal in 1766.

North Carolina

The lack of firm police action by the North Carolina royal government against patriots demonstrating their opposition to the Stamp Act in 1766 suggests that weak law enforcement encouraged anti-British activity during the pre-Revolutionary period. Governor William Tryon could not enforce the Stamp Act regulations in the Wilmington area owing to several acts of civil disobedience, including disruption of his inauguration. Law enforcement officers often supported these disturbances themselves or lacked the means to quell them. The precedent for future opposition to new taxes was set.

Further reading

• Bullion, John L. A Great and Necessary Measure: George Grenville and the Genesis of the Stamp Act, 1763-1765. (1982). 290 pp.
• Miller
• Morgan, Edmund, and Helen Morgan. The Stamp Act Crisis (2nd ed. 1963), the standard history excerpt and text search

Primary sources

• Morgan
• Weslager, C. A. The Stamp Act Congress: With an Exact Copy of the Complete Journal. (1976). 279 pp.

Primary documents

Virginia Resolution

Adopted June 1765:

Resolved, That the first Adventurers and Settlers of this his Majesty's Colony and Dominion of Virginia brought with them, and transmitted to their Posterity, and all other his Majesty's Subjects since inhabiting in this his Majesty's said Colony, all the Liberties, Privileges, Franchises, and Immunities, that have at any Time been held, enjoyed, and possessed, by the people of Great Britain.

Resolved, That by two royal Charters, granted by King James the First, the Colonists aforesaid are declared entitled to all Liberties, Privileges, and Immunities of Denizens and natural Subjects, to all Intents and Purposes, as if they had been abiding and born within the Realm of England.

Resolved, That the Taxation of the People by themselves, or by Persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know what Taxes the People are able to bear, or the easiest Method of raising them, and must themselves be affected by every Tax laid on the People, is the only Security against a burthensome Taxation, and the distinguishing Characteristick of British Freedom, without which the ancient Constitution cannot exist.

Resolved, That his Majesty's liege People of this his most ancient and loyal Colony have without Interruption enjoyed the inestimable Right of being governed by such Laws, respecting their internal Polity and Taxation, as are derived from their own Consent, with the Approbation of their Sovereign, or his Substitute; and that the same hath never been forfeited or yielded up, but hath been constantly recognized by the Kings and People of Great Britain.^[5]

British Merchants

January 17, 1766. A petition of the merchants of London, trading to North America, was presented to the House, and read; setting forth;"

"That the petitioners have been long concerned in carrying on the trade between this country and the British colonies on the continent of North America; and that they have annually exported very large quantities of British manufactures, consisting of woollen goods of all kinds, cottons, linens, hardware, shoes, household furniture, and almost without exception of every other species of goods manufactured in these kingdoms, besides other articles imported from abroad, chiefly purchased with our manufactures and with the produce of our colonies; by all which, many thousand manufacturers, seamen and labourers, have been employed, to the very great and increasing benefit of this nation; and that, in return for these exports, the petitioners have received from the colonies, rice, indigo, tobacco, naval stores, oil, whale fins, furs, and lately potash, with other commodities, besides remittances by bills of exchange and bullion, obtained by the colonists in payment for articles of their produce, not required for the British market, and therefore exported to other places; and that, from the nature of this trade, consisting of British manufactures exported, and of the import of raw materials from America, many of them used in our manufactures, and all of them tending to lessen our dependence on neighbouring states, it must be deemed of the highest importance in the commercial system of this nation; and that this commerce, so beneficial to the state, and so necessary for the support of multitudes, now lies under such difficulties and discouragement, that nothing less than its utter ruin is apprehended, without the immediate interposition of parliament; and that, in consequence of the trade between the colonies and the mother country, as established and as permitted for many years, and of the experience which the petitioners have had of the readiness of the Americans to make their just remittances to the utmost of their real ability, they have been induced to make and venture such large exportations of British manufactures, as to leave the colonies indebted to the merchants of Great Britain in the sum of several millions sterling; and that at this time the colonists, when pressed for payment, appeal to past experience, in proof of their willingness; but declare it is not in their power, at present, to make good their engagements, alleging, that the taxes and restrictions laid upon them, and the extension of the jurisdiction of v ice admiralty courts established by an act passed in the fourth year of his present Majesty, for granting certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in America, and by an act passed in the fifth year of his present Majesty, for granting and applying certain stamp duties, and other duties, in the British colonies and plantations in America, with several regulations and restraints, which, if founded in acts of parliament for defined purposes, are represented to have been extended in such a manner as to disturb legal commerce and harass the fair trader, have so far interrupted the usual and former most fruitful branches of their commerce, restrained the sale of their produce, thrown the state of the several provinces into confusion, and brought on so great a number of actual bankruptcies, that the former opportunities and means of remittances and payments are utterly lost and taken from them; and that the petitioners are, by these unhappy events, reduced to the necessity of applying to the Ho use, in order to secure themselves and their families from impending ruin; to prevent a multitude of manufacturers from becoming a burthen to the community, or else seeking their bread in other countries, to the irretrievable loss of this kingdom; and to preserve the strength of this nation entire, its commerce flourishing, the revenues increasing, our navigation, the bulwark of the kingdom, in a state of growth and extension, and the colonies, from inclination, duty, and interest, firmly attached to th e mother country; and therefore praying the consideration of the premises, and entreating such relief, as to the House shall seem expedient."^[6]

References

1. ↑ http://ahp.gatech.edu/stamp_act_bp_1765.html
2. ↑ http://virtualology.com/stampactcongress.com/
3. ↑ John L. Bullion, "British Ministers and American Resistance to the Stamp Act, October-December 1765." William and Mary Quarterly 1992 49(1): 89-107.
4. ↑ John G. Berens, "Good News from a far Country: A Note on Divine Providence and the Stamp Act Crisis." Church History 1976 45(3): 308-315.in JSTOR
5. ↑
6. ↑ from The Parliamentary History of England, Vol. XVI, 133-135, reprinted online in The Essential Documents of American History ed. by Norman P. Desmarais and James H. McGovern