Stamp Act (1765)

STAMP ACT (1765)

The Stamp Act, passed in March, 1765, was the first direct tax ever placed by the British government on the American colonies. The Act, which was to take effect November 1, 1765, required an official stamp on about 50 different types of documents, ranging from playing cards to newspapers and college diplomas. The stamp's cost depended on the value of the document. King George III's Prime Minister George Grenville, who led Parliament from 1763 to 1765, felt that such a tax was needed to help pay for the costs of the French and Indian War (1754–1763). Great Britain was deeply in debt from the expenses of winning the war against France, and the revenues it gathered from the colonies did not come close to paying the costs of collecting them. Because of the expenses of the war, the country's national debt had increased by more than 50 percent in the space of seven years, from 75 million pounds sterling to 137 million pounds sterling. In addition, Grenville wanted to keep the peace between Native Americans and settlers along the North American frontier and to crack down on colonial smuggling. The Stamp Act, which Grenville believed would raise about 100,000 pounds sterling per year, was meant to help pay the costs of these programs.

The colonists objected to the Stamp Act in part because it infringed on their rights as English citizens, but also because it put a tremendous financial burden on them. The colonies were in the middle of an economic depression which had its origins in the destruction caused by the French and Indian War, and cash was very scarce. The tax on stamps was payable only in hard cash—gold or silver. Paper colonial money (often devalued so much that it was practically worthless) was not accepted. Hard currency was also difficult to find in the colonies because English imports (including most manufactured goods) had to be paid for in cash, not colonial notes. In addition to setting colonists the problem of finding the money to pay their taxes, the act also threatened their material prosperity. The Stamp Act allowed officials to try accused law-breakers in royal vice-admiralty courts, which did not use juries, as well as in regular criminal courts. These vice-admiralty courts, it was believed, would be less sympathetic to colonial viewpoints.

Local politics and class rivalry also played a role in resistance to the Stamp Act, particularly in Virginia and Massachusetts. Virginian lawyer Patrick Henry made the act the subject of his first speech in the colony's House of Burgesses in May, 1765. Henry's opinions on the Stamp Act were narrowly passed by the House and they, as the Virginia Resolutions, inspired open opposition to the Act in other colonies.

In Boston opposition to the Stamp Act was even more conspicuous. At that time a small clique of wealthy families, related by marriage, held most of the royal offices in the colony. These families included Governor Francis Bernard, Thomas Hutchinson (lieutenant governor and chief justice), and the brothers Andrew Oliver and Peter Oliver. This "royalist faction" was opposed by a coalition of poorer men known as the "popular faction," including the lawyer James Otis, Jr. and Boston politician Samuel Adams. The popular faction spread the idea that the royalist faction was behind the Stamp Act, and they were supported in this belief by two of Boston's largest gangs.

In the summer, 1765, Andrew Oliver was appointed distributor of stamps for the Boston area. On August 14 of that year, a dummy made up to look like Oliver was discovered, along with an old boot (a symbol for Lord Bute, George Grenville's predecessor as Prime Minister), hanging from an elm tree near Boylston Market in Boston. Despite the efforts of the town sheriff, until sundown, the objects remained on the elm, which became famous as the Liberty Tree. At that point a crowd, including members of the popular faction, gathered and removed the effigy. These "Sons of Liberty", led by shoemakers Ebenezer Macintosh and Henry Swift, paraded the effigy of Oliver to the waterfront, where they attacked and destroyed a warehouse the tax collector had built. The crowd—by this time a mob—then built a bonfire in front of Oliver's house and, when they ran low on firewood, began stripping the trees and buildings on his property. For over an hour, the Boston mob continued to dismantle Oliver's home, smashing his furniture and mirrors and scattering his valuables. Within a week another crowd confronted the tax collector and extorted from him a promise that he would resign his office. Later that month the Sons of Liberty attacked and destroyed the homes of Thomas Hutchinson and customs administrator Benjamin Hallowell in an effort to intimidate them as well.

Angry mobs in other colonies followed Boston's example, using force to intimidate would-be stamp distributors. In Rhode Island the nominee for tax collector, Augustus Johnston, abandoned his duty before the end of August. Connecticut Sons of Liberty forced Jared Ingersoll out of office, while in Maryland Zachariah Hood had to leave the colony after anti-tax rioters burned his home. More conservative protesters tried less violent means to express their dissent. In October, 1765, 27 delegates from nine colonies assembled in New York City to present their grievances as a united body: the Stamp Act Congress. Merchants in major port cities, such as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, agreed to start an economic boycott of British goods with the goal of seeing the Stamp Act repealed.

On November 1, 1765, the day that the Stamp Act was to be put into effect, colonial government, communications, and commerce all came to a halt. In late November and December, however, the Sons of Liberty and other activists persuaded businesses, courts, and newspapers to begin work again in defiance of the Stamp Act. By this time, however, the government that had passed the Stamp Act had long since fallen. George III found Grenville distasteful and replaced him with Charles Watson-Wentworth, Marquis of Rockingham, in July, 1765. Rockingham, who was much more sympathetic to the American point of view than Grenville had been, launched a campaign to repeal the Stamp Act. On February 22, 1766, the House of Commons, led by William Pitt, repealed the Stamp Act. As an omen of things to come, however, they passed another law: the Declaratory Act (1766), which asserted Parliament's right to tax and make laws for the colonies.

Topic overview

Angry mobs in other colonies followed Boston's example, using force to intimidate would-be stamp distributors. In Rhode Island the nominee for tax collector, Augustus Johnston, abandoned his duty before the end of August. Connecticut Sons of Liberty forced Jared Ingersoll out of office, while in Maryland Zachariah Hood had to leave the colony after anti-tax rioters burned his home.

See also: American Revolution, Intolerable Acts, Sugar Act, Townshend Acts

FURTHER READING

Bullion, John L. A Great and Necessary Measure: George Grenville and the Genesis of the Stamp Act, 1763–1765. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1982.

Egnal, Marc M. A Mighty Empire: The Origins of the American Revolution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.

Fleming, Thomas. Liberty! The American Revolution. New York: Viking Penguin, 1997.

Morgan, Edmund Sears. The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution. Chapel Hill, NC: Institute of Early American History and Culture/University of North Carolina Press, 1995.

Thomas, Peter David Garner. British Politics and the Stamp Act Crisis: The First Phase of the American Revolution, 1763–1767. New York: Clarendon Press, 1975.