Third in a Series: A Civics Lesson
The Stamp Act. Parliament works overtime to devise plans to answer the king’s question, “How will Britain’s large war debt be paid?”
The Acts of King George III were a series of overarching events that began in 1763, stirring colonial thinking towards revolution.
The first event was not an act of Parliament at all, but a Royal Proclamation George III issued immediately after the Treaty of Paris ended the American French and Indian War. The 1763 Proclamation Line defined an imaginary line that ran roughly the full length of the ridge atop the Appalachian Mountains. It proclaimed that no colonial settlers would be allowed on the western side of the Appalachians beyond the line.
King George wanted to calm relations with the Indian tribes in the "west" as the area was called at the time. He also wanted the gain in economic and political strength from eventual westward expansion to be realized by the Crown, not by colonial leaders. The proclamation went into effect immediately.
The 1763 Proclamation Line primarily affected two groups of colonists. The first group cared a great deal. They were the companies and individuals who had surveyed and purchased tracts of land to sell to westward-migrating settlers. These men such as George Washington and fellow members of the Ohio Company were influential colonial leaders who began to resent King George’s meddling.
The second group affected by the proclamation were those hardy settlers who already lived, or were planning to live, west of the Appalachians at Fort Pitt in Pennsylvania, in western Virginia, or what would become eastern Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Northwest Territory. If they knew about it at all, they did not care a whit about King George’s 1763 Proclamation Line.
Acts of Parliament
At the same time Parliament began to respond to the king’s question, "How was the debt to be paid?” Parliament saw the issue as not only gaining revenue to pay the war debt. There was a realization that the Crown had lost control over its American subjects.
The independent nature and strength of colonial leaders had been evident to military leaders stationed in America during the recent war. However, most members of Parliament and most Englishmen felt a kind of superiority to colonial citizens.
Parliament immediately got to work debating revenue bills that would also serve to inform the colonials that they were expected to return to their proper place as "children" of the empire’s motherland.
The king’s ministers and members of Parliament well knew that the Navigation Acts were largely circumvented by colonial ship owners and businessmen who engaged in smuggling.
In April 1764, the Sugar Act was approved by Parliament and King George to increase revenue and end smuggling. Colonials loved their beer, ale, and spirits. A key ingredient was the sugar extracted from molasses produced on Caribbean plantations.
Under the Sugar Act, colonial producers of ale and other spirits had to pay a duty on every imported gallon of molasses. Parliament intended the act to be enforced. Additional warships in His Majesty’s Royal Navy would be budgeted and dispatched to America to patrol the coast.
One year later, in March 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act, the first direct tax ever levied on colonials by requiring a taxable embossed stamp on all commerce and legal papers.
If there were price increases caused by the Sugar Act, they would have been passed on in the price of a tankard of ale in the taverns, but the Stamp Act would bring steady revenue by touching the larger colonial population somewhere every day.
Lawyers would be required to have all their legal documents stamped. Scholars would pay two pounds to receive a stamped Harvard University degree. Newspapers sold in the taverns must be stamped. Stamps would be required for colonial businessmen who transacted shipping manifests and purchased warehouses, ships, market animals, supplies, and books for their small shops.
Though not as frequently, the greatest impact was felt by farmers who comprised the bulk of colonial population. Farmers were self-sufficient, producing what they needed so there was little need for cash. The church recorded their marriages. Births were written in the family Bible. But all farmers eventually transacted either a sale of the farm or a will designating who would own the farm upon their death. These legal documents would now require a stamp to show a tax had been paid to an agent of the Crown.
The Stamp Act would take effect in six months.
Arguments Against the Stamp Act in the House of Commons
The House of Commons was the chamber that held the majority of power in Parliament. Its members were elected by "the people" but these voting constituents were primarily landowners or freemen who were in the minority in England.
In effect, most English citizens in addition to all colonial citizens had no representation in Parliament. It seems archaic to us in the present day, but it must be noted that in order to vote, a man was required to own land long after the Declaration of Independence. The first occurrence of voting by U.S. citizens who did not own land was in 1803 when Ohio became a state.
English citizens, to an even greater degree than colonials, accepted that their lot in many ways was well-grounded as servants of the King. But this attitude collided with the nature of colonials who, even though they respected the king as their sovereign, did so from afar.
A few lone members in the House of Commons spoke out against the Stamp Act and in defense of colonial rights. In debates, members like Edmund Burke made fiery speeches on the illegality and imprudence of taxing colonial activity when those colonials had no representation in the House of Commons.
An Irishman and House of Commons Member Colonel Isaac Barre had become acquainted with American militia officers and businessmen while serving three years in America in the British Army.
In a speech criticizing the Stamp Act as an unfair tax on colonials without their knowledge or representation, Colonel Barre used the phrase, "those sons of liberty." The term "Sons of Liberty" was catchy. It would be adopted by New England patriots in the summer of 1765 as a slogan for their cause of rebellion against the Stamp Act.
The Stamp Act Congress in New York
Since all travel across the Atlantic was by ship, no one in the colonies knew about the Stamp Act until May. Agents dispatched by the Crown to enforce the new act began arriving at about the same time. British warships had already begun patrolling the coast to step up enforcement of the Navigation Acts by apprehending smugglers, including preventing the colonies from trading with each other. In all the seaboard towns, the impact of the Stamp Act was felt quickly!
In May 1765, 29-year-old Patrick Henry delivered a passionate speech in the Virginia House of Burgesses and proposed several resolutions condemning the Stamp Act: it violated the ancient rights of Englishmen in Virginia and that only Virginia’s representatives could tax Virginians. His resolutions passed as the "Virginia Resolves on the Stamp Act."
John Adams of Massachusetts who, like most colonial leading citizens, considered himself to be a loyal servant of the king. He helped craft the Massachusetts resolutions in response to the Stamp Act.
Adams wrote, “We have called this a burdensome tax, because the duties are so numerous and so high, and the embarrassments to business in this infant, sparsely settled country so great, that it would be totally impossible for the people to subsist under it, if we had no controversy at all about the right and authority of imposing it…We further apprehend this tax to be unconstitutional. We have always understood it to be a grand and fundamental principle of the constitution that no freeman should be subject to any tax to which he has not given his own consent, in person or by proxy.”
In October 1765, twenty-seven delegates from nine colonies met in New York City in the first inter-colonial meeting of its kind. They were charged by their colonial assemblies to discuss the Stamp Act and what should be done to convince Parliament to rescind the act. A Declaration of Rights and Liberties was drawn up and sent to England.
Word spread throughout the colonies that a grievance had been sent to Parliament. Meanwhile there was opposition to the new tax among the citizenry. In Boston particularly, colonial sentiment was hostile towards the new tax collectors and towards the motherland.
Colonials like Samuel Adams, who himself had been employed as a provincial tax collector, said he would refuse to collect any tax levied by the Stamp Act. He had recently been elected to the Massachusetts Assembly and began sending couriers throughout the Boston area to keep the Sons of Liberty informed.
Commerce in England in the months following news of the Stamp Act began to suffer as American importers delayed colonial purchases from English merchants that they might otherwise have made. Colonial leaders anxiously awaited news from Parliament.
The Stamp Act is Repealed
Parliament rejected the Declaration of Rights and Liberties petition, but there was growing pressure on Parliament by English businessmen to repeal the act.
In early 1766 Parliament did repeal the hated Stamp Act. However, the king and Parliament were adamant that the colonies be made to understand they were under the control of England. Immediately after killing the Stamp Act, Parliament passed the Declaratory Act reasserting its right to impose direct taxation when it saw fit anywhere within the empire, “in all cases whatsoever.”
The American colonies had learned valuable lessons. First, they had opposed a law of the king and Parliament and had been successful. Second, they realized the effectiveness of working together to achieve a common goal.
Little did colonial America know what lay ahead!
Britain Acts and Acts! the upcoming fourth article in the series details Parliament’s initiatives to bring the colonies back into the "indulgence of the mother country."
Similar to the colonies, the collective power of the states today can hold the federal government accountable to its misuse of power and our money. To learn more about Convention of States and to become involved, click on www.conventionofstates.com.
