Page 144 - American Stories, A History of the United States

the Protest spreads
The Stamp Act of 1765, which placed a tax on newspapers and printed matter pro- stamp act of 1765 Placed a tax 5.1
duced in the colonies, transformed a debate among gentlemen into a mass political on newspapers and printed matter
movement. Colonial agents had presented Grenville with alternative schemes for rais- produced in the colonies, causing
ing money in America, but he rejected them. The majority of the House of Commons mass opposition by colonists. 5.2
assumed that Parliament possessed the right to tax the colonists. They responded with
enthusiasm when the chancellor announced a plan to squeeze £60,000 annually out of
the Americans by requiring them to purchase special seals or stamps to validate legal 5.3
documents. The Stamp Act was scheduled to go into effect on November 1, 1765, and
in anticipation of brisk sales, Grenville appointed stamp distributors for every colony.
Some members of Parliament warned that the act would raise a storm of protest 5.4
in the colonies. Colonel Isaac Barré, a veteran of the Seven Years’ War, warned his col-
leagues that the Americans would not surrender their rights without a fight. But Barré’s
appeal fell on deaf ears. Throughout the colonies, extra-legal, semi-secret groups known
as the “Sons of Liberty” put political and economic pressure on neighbors who wanted
to remain neutral in the contest with Britain.
Word of the Stamp Act reached America in May. It was soon clear that Barré
had gauged the colonists’ response correctly. The most dramatic reaction occurred
in Virginia’s House of Burgesses. Patrick Henry, young and eloquent, whose fervor
contemporaries compared to evangelical preachers, introduced five resolutions pro-
testing the Stamp Act on the floor of the assembly. He timed his move carefully. It
was late in the session; many of the more conservative burgesses had departed for
their plantations. Even then, Henry’s resolves declaring that Virginians had the right
to tax themselves as they alone saw fit passed by narrow margins. The fifth resolution,
stricken almost immediately from the legislative records, announced that any attempt
to collect stamp revenues in America was “illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust, and has
a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American liberty.”
Henry’s five resolutions, known popularly as the Virginia Resolves, might have
remained a local matter if not for the colonial press. Newspapers throughout America
printed Henry’s resolutions, but perhaps because editors did not really know what
had happened in Williamsburg, they reported that all five resolutions had received the
burgesses’ full support. Several journals even carried two resolves that Henry had not
dared to introduce. A result of this misunderstanding was that the Virginians appeared
to have taken a radical position on the supremacy of Parliament, one that other Ameri-
cans now trumpeted before their own assemblies. No wonder Francis Bernard, royal
governor of Massachusetts, called the Virginia Resolves an “alarm bell.”
Not to be outdone, Massachusetts called a general meeting to protest Grenville’s pol-
icy. Nine colonies sent representatives to the Stamp Act Congress in New York City in stamp act Congress Meeting
October 1765. It was the first intercolonial gathering since the abortive Albany Congress of of colonial delegates in New York
1754. The delegates drafted petitions to the king and Parliament that restated the colonists’ city in October 1765 to protest
belief “that no taxes should be imposed on them, but with their own consent, given person- the stamp Act, a law passed by
Parliament to raise revenue in
ally, or by their representatives.” The tone of the meeting was restrained, even conciliatory. America.
The congress studiously avoided any mention of independence or disloyalty to the crown.
Resistance to the Stamp Act soon spread to the streets. By taxing deeds, marriage
licenses, and playing cards, the act touched the lives of ordinary women and men.
Anonymous artisans and seamen, angered by Parliament’s insensitivity and fearful
that the statute would increase unemployment and poverty, organized mass protests
in the major ports.
By November 1, 1765, stamp distributors in almost every American port had pub-
licly resigned. Without distributors, the hated revenue stamps could not be sold. The
courts soon reopened; most newspapers were published. Daily life in the colonies was
undisturbed, with one exception: The Sons of Liberty persuaded—some said coerced—
colonial merchants to boycott British goods until Parliament repealed the Stamp Act.
The merchants showed little enthusiasm for such tactics, but the threat of tar and feath-
ers stimulated cooperation.

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