Samuel
Adams

The Stamp Act

XII

MOVING TOWARD REVOLUTION

The new policy of the British Government was hardly inaugurated before the colonies and the mother-country began to quarrel over the subject of taxation. What were the merits of this controversy? What efforts were made to settle the question in an amicable manner? What acts of violence interfered with a peaceful settlement?

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION

One of the Americans who protested against the Sugar Act was Samuel Adams. Although this son of Massachusetts was a man of talent and education, and although he had reached the prime of life when the difficulties with England arose, he had as yet accomplished very little. After he was graduated at Harvard College he trifled for a while with the study of the law and then went into business for himself. But, having no aptitude for business and being devoid of the acquisitive instinct, he abandoned commercial pursuits and devoted himself to the service of the public. As a champion of popular rights his devotion was single-minded and his industry unflagging. In the new policy of the English Government he detected a menace to political liberty. To his mind the Sugar Act would lead to new taxation. "For if our trade may be taxed," said he, "why not our lands? Why not the produce of our lands, and everything we possess or make use of?"

Samuel Adams foresaw what was coming; the English Government did not stop with the Sugar Act. It went on and proposed a law that provided that the colonists should place a government stamp ranging in price from threepence to ten pounds on a great variety of commercial and legal documents and upon certain publications, such as pamphlets, newspapers, almanacs, and advertisements. George Grenville, the minister who proposed the tax, said: "It is highly reasonable the colonies

should contribute something toward the charge of protecting
themselves and in aid of the great expense Great Britain has
put herself to on their account. No tax appears to me so easy
and equitable as a stamp duty. It will fall only upon property,
will be collected by the fewest officers, and will be equally spread
over America and the West Indies. . . . If the colonists think
of any other mode of taxation more convenient to them, and
make any proposition of equal efficacy with the stamp duty, I
will give it all due consideration." The colonists being silent
on the subject of a substitute tax, Grenville brought the Stamp
Act into Parliament, and it was passed in March, 1765, with as
little opposition as a turnpike bill. "The passage of the act,"
said Franklin, who was in London at
this time, "could not have been pre-
vented any more easily than the sun's
setting."

Samuel Adams.

In England the Stamp Act created. hardly a ripple of popular interest. The English people were almost unanimous in their belief that Parliament had full right to pass the law, and they regarded it as being a piece of ordinary routine legislation. In the colonies it was far different. No sooner were the stamps ready for sale than resistance to the tax showed itself in a Resistvariety of ways. The distributors of the stamps became the ance objects of abuse and persecution, and their offices were rifled. In some places the stamps were seized by mobs and destroyed. In New York the governor was burned in effigy; in Boston the home of the chief justice was sacked. Merchants in order to express their resentment ceased to import goods from England. Lawyers refused to place the stamps upon documents, and even the courts disregarded the law. The resistance in the main was effective; few stamps were sold.

Organized opposition to the tax began in Virginia. The Sugar Act affected only the commercial interests that lay chiefly in the Northern Colonies, but the Stamp Act reached

Virginia

Leads the tion

Opposi

The

Stamp
Act

Congress

the pockets of all classes, the farmers and planters in the South as well as the merchants and ship-owners of the North. Resistance in Virginia was led by Patrick Henry, who in May, 1765, hurried through the House of Burgesses a resolution which declared that in respect to taxes Virginia was not subject to the authority of Parliament, that the General Assembly had the exclusive right and power to lay taxes upon the inhabitants of the colony, and that every attempt to vest such power in any other person or persons than the General Assembly was illegal,

Pro Patria

The first Man that either

unconstitutional, unjust, and destructive of British as well as American liberty. In his speech supporting

distributes or makes use of Stamp the resolution

Paper, let him take care of
his House, Person, & Effects.

Vox Populi;
We dare

A warning.

Henry shouted: "Cæsar had his Brutus, Charles I his Cromwell, and George III"-here he was interrupted by cries of "treason!"-"may profit by their example,"

said the orator, completing the sentence and adding, "If this be treason, make the most of it."

Massachusetts, being as strongly opposed to the measure as Virginia, sent out a circular inviting all the colonies to send delegates to New York for the purpose of taking united action in regard to the Stamp Act. The proposed conference met in October, 1765, with delegates present from nine colonies. The Stamp Act Congress, as the meeting was called, claimed for Americans the same inherent rights as were enjoyed by Englishmen, and declared that since the colonists were not represented in Parliament—and from the circumstances they could not be

their only lawful representatives were those chosen as members of the colonial legislatures. The colonial assembly, therefore, was the only body that could lawfully impose a tax upon the colonists.

The effect of both the Virginia resolutions and the declarations of the Stamp Act Congress was to raise a question that contained "a principle of fire": should the colonies be taxed without the consent of representatives chosen by themselves? A satisfactory representation of the colonies in the English Parliament was wholly impracticable and out of the question. The colonists would have demanded a representation proportional to population, and Englishmen would hardly have been willing to accord this; for they saw that if the colonies, growing as they were in population and resources, should be allowed seats in Parliament according to numbers, it would only be a few decades before the American members in Parliament would be outvoting the English members. In the minds of Englishmen it was not necessary that the colonists send representatives to Parliament, for according to English notions the colonies were already represented in that body. Parliament, said the Englishmen, legally represented every man, woman, and child within the bounds of the British Empire. Manchester and Birmingham had no representatives in Parliament, yet virtually they were as fully represented as the places that elected members. Likewise Virginia and Massachusetts were "virtually represented" even though they sent no members across the sea. This kind of reasoning could not be understood by Americans, who were accustomed to think of a representative as a man residing in the very district which he professed to represent; he was a man of a certain town or county elected by the voters of a certain town or county. So representation meant one thing to an American and another thing to an Englishman. The difference of view was so great that Americans could not possibly be reconciled to the English notion; "virtual representation" to their minds was sheer nonsense. But they had no plan of their own to offer. In protesting

"A Prin

ciple of

Fire'

The Declaratory Act

against taxation without representation they were contending for a principle for which they were willing to shed blood, yet they did not expect to find relief in a new system of representation. They were content with the representation which they had in their colonial legislatures. "No taxation without representation" was a popular slogan of great power in the early stages of the quarrel, but neither side seriously hoped or desired that the existing method of representation might be changed. Although British statesmen believed that Parliament was within its rights when it passed the Stamp Act, the fierceness of the opposition to the measure caused them to repeal it in less than a year after it had been spread upon the statute-book. Along with the repeal, however, Parliament passed the Declaratory Act. This asserted in the strongest terms that the English Government had full power and authority to make laws for the government of the colonies in all cases whatsoever. In this declaration England virtually said that although she would repeal the Stamp Tax out of deference to the colonies, she would nevertheless tax them whenever it was her pleasure to do so, and that she would tax them in whatever way she desired. Despite the fact that the ugly Declaratory Act was hanging over their heads, the Americans regarded the repeal of the Stamp Act as a victory for their cause, and there was great rejoicing in the colonies. But the joy was short-lived, for in the year after the repeal Parliament passed what is known as the Townshend Act, or the Paint, Glass, and Paper Act. This law imposed duties on glass, paint, paper, and tea imported and Paper into the colonies. The revenue was to be used for paying the salaries of the governors, judges, and other colonial officers, it being the purpose of the English Government to make these officials independent of the assemblies (p. 77). For the collection of the duties, strong measures were to be taken the hated writs of assistance were to be employed, and persons accused of evading the custom duties were to be tried by admiralty courts without juries.

The Paint, Glass,

Act

Parliament hoped that the Paint, Glass, and Paper Act would be acceptable to the colonies because the taxes imposed were