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The Stamp Act

9/24/15

The Stamp Act was an important act introduced by the British Prime Minister George Grenville that was then passed in March 1765 by the British Parliament. The purpose was to raise money for national debt of Britain after the Seven Years War and Parliament needed means to help fund expensive costs of keeping troops inside the colonies. The act levied a tax on legal documents, almanacs, newspapers, and nearly every other form of paper used in the colonies. The British Government felt that the colonies were the primary reason of the military presence and should pay a portion of the expense. The American colonies did not take kindly to this matter.
Colonists all over greatly opposed the Stamp Act not only because of the taxes, but because it went against their principle no taxation without representation. Colonists started to fear that if the new tax were to pass without resistance, the door would be open for far more troublesome taxation in the future. Arguing that only their own representative assemblies could tax them, the colonists insisted that the act was unconstitutional, and they soon resorted to mob violence to intimidate stamp collectors into resigning. As a result, protests were all over the cities involving everyone from civic leaders to street mobs. The King and Parliament received many petitions and Americans were boycotting the British goods along with refusing to use the stamps for stamping documents. A man, Andrew Oliver, was appointed as the distributor of the stamps for Boston and entire colony of Massachusetts after the Stamp Act was enacted. An enraged crowd hung Oliver’s effigy and destroyed his house along with everything in it. The following morning the shocked Oliver asked to “be relieved of his commission as stamp distributor.” It wasn’t long before the next target, Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, was attacked and ran him out of his house as well. All of these acts sparked up a crowd led by a group of men from the middle rank of New York society that came to be now as the Sons of Liberty. Several days later the crowd got so violent to the point where they destroyed a British officer’s house because of his comment, “would cram the stamps down American throats at the point of his sword”.
The Virginia House of Burgesses then came down and adopted Patrick Henry’s Stamp Act Resolves. These resolves declared that Americans possessed the same rights as the English, especially the right to be taxed only by their own representatives. They declared that the Stamp Act was unjust and illegal and then got support from that multiple people and several colonies.

The Stamp Act Congress in October of 1765 was then held. It was represented by nine colonies throughout October 7th and October 25th. They created a petition to King George III, and several petitions to the Parliament and declaration of their rights describing how they were all being ignored. Finally on March 4th, 1766, the Stamp Act was repealed by the British Parliament, but issued a Declaratory Act at the same time to reaffirm its authority to pass any colonial legislation it saw fit. From this point on, the issues of taxation and representation raised by the Stamp Act strained relations with the colonies to the point where they later rose and rebelled against the British ten years later.

Bibliography

Hollitz, John. Thinking Through the Past: A Critical Thinking Approach to U.S. History. 5th ed. Vol. 1. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, Inc. 2014.

Horton, James Oliver, and Lois E. Horton. Slavery and the Making of America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press Inc., 2005. 54

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[ 1 ]. Hollitz, John. Thinking Through the Past: A Critical Thinking Approach to U.S. History. 5th ed. Vol. 1. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, Inc. 2014. 62
[ 2 ]. Hollitz, John. Thinking Through the Past: A Critical Thinking Approach to U.S. History. 5th ed. Vol. 1. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, Inc. 2014. 63
[ 3 ]. Horton, James Oliver, and Lois E. Horton. Slavery and the Making of America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press Inc., 2005. 54

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