The Stamp Act, issued on March 22, 1765, was among the first rubs, some would note the last straw after a series of lesser trade acts, that led to North American colonies flexing their independent muscle. The Act in itself was the result of a new fair-minded British Prime Minister and his determination that Americans take responsibility for their government’s protection. The Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) had left England’s treasury empty with enormous debt. British citizens had been taxed to the limit while Americans, who enjoyed a higher quality of life, had paid a fraction towards a war that had been started by an inexperienced colonial officer, Colonel George Washington. Taxed at 6 pence a year compared to the average British citizen of 25 shillings annually, a ratio of 1 – 50, it was only right that Americans dug a little deeper in their purses. After all, the bloody war started in America, leading to the financial mess British Prime Minister George Grenville found when he took office in 1763.
But of more importance and the real spark of colonial discontent, the Stamp Act was issued to pay for a standing army sent to American frontier forts. There was a large bill on Parliament’s table complements of the North American colonies. At a cost of £400,000 per year, British troops had to be sent to protect frontier colonials from their illegal expansion onto Native Americans lands guaranteed by British negotiated treaties and the Proclamation Line.[1] Prime Minister George Grenville found it inconceivable that Americans did not pay a part of that cost for their own defense. Not surprisingly, American writers were later to prefer to concentrate on the taxation, rather than the land grab across the Appalachians, as the catalyst of discontent; but the latter was the first link in the chain of war’s causation.[2]
England Backed into a Financial Corner
George Grenville, Prime Minister of England in 1763, had gone down in history as the man responsible for Great Britain’s loss of the thirteen American colonies; listed as among England’s greatest failures. He was painted a corrupt tyrant by early American rebellious propaganda. But the highly intelligent aristocrat represented a break from the wallowing corruption of previous prime ministers – beginning with the first to hold the esteemed office; Sir Robert Walpole, 1721-1742.[3] Lord Grenville, neither corrupt nor a stooge of the court, was brought in after the overbearing William Pitt the Elder[4] and Prime Minister Earl of Bute’s[5] disastrous and deeply unscrupulous administration made a financial shambles of the Seven Years’ War (French and Indian War in America).
By 1763, the British treasury was non-existent. The national debt stood at nearly £123 million (£50 billion by today’s standard), and would increase to £137 by 1765. Taxes on Britain’s in England reached the punitive level; nearly everything produced and purchased, from windows to beer. In May, 1763, British taxpayers rioted over the cider tax, a proverbial soiled fan warning that British citizens had reached their limit. Historically, Americans had been taxed very little, and then only by colonials themselves. The only revenue expected from England was in the form of customs duties, which were a fraction of what mother Englanders had to pay. Therefore, to Grenville and the British government, it was unacceptable that American subjects were levied at a far lower rate than other British subjects, while enjoying the protection, laws, and commercial advantages of the Empire. And on top of that, American colonials expected the British government to foot the entire cost of policing the western border. Twenty battalions were required to police the North American colonies. Of the £400,000 needed annually, Grenville calculated Americans should cough up three fourths of that cost. Therefore, enter the Stamp Act.
Stamp Act Becomes Law
The Stamp Act was approved by Parliament on March 22, 1765, 245 votes yea to 49 votes nay. It was written by London based Thomas Whateley on behalf of Grenville. It stipulated several items to be taxed; wills, newspapers, calendars, pamphlets, playing cards, dice, and college degrees – basically anything requiring a paper record. A stamp was affixed to documents or packages to show that the tax had been paid, payable in hard-to-obtain British sterling, rather than colonial currency. Further, those accused of violating the Stamp Act could be prosecuted in Vice-Admiralty Courts, which had no juries and could be held anywhere in the British Empire, including shipped to England. As if to add insult to injury, The Quartering Act, approved by Parliament on March 24, 1765, two days after the Stamp Act, placed some of the burden of housing and feeding British troops stationed in America onto colonial legislatures, thereby lessening the overall cost to the British government.
However, the Stamp Act was not the first ‘tyrannical’ effort by England to tax her new world subjects, causing resentment. A tax on foreign Sugar had been in existence for some years, but was basically ignored in America. The 1764 Sugar Act, which in fact halved the original tax of sixpence a gallon on molasses imported into America, was now rigorously enforced by a squadron of British warship. This was huge for merchants for molasses underpinned the profitable rum industry in America. That same year, the Currency Act came into effect; prohibiting colonists from issuing their own currency. So too, which stirred up additional trouble, custom officials (mainly deputies as most officials resided in England) had been bullied by colonials or offered incentives to be soft on their collections. This practice was ended, resulting in many deputies and officials resigning or replaced. The effect was a rise in imported prices for average Americans, especially with enforced restrictions on smuggling by the British navy. In essence, by the time the Stamp Act appeared on the scene, a storm of protest was already in the forecast.
Rumor of a New Tax Reaches America
When word of a possible Revenue Act reached America, deeply pro-British colonial Jared Ingersoll of Connecticut wrote of the minds of Americans on July 1764: “Are filled with the most dreadful apprehensions from such a step’s taking place, from whence I leave you to guess how easily a tax of that kind would be collected; ‘tis difficult to say how many ways could be invented to avoid the payment of a tax laid upon a country without the consent of the legislature of that country and in the opinion of most of the people contrary to the foundation principles of their natural and constitutional rights and liberties.”[6] Prior to the Stamp Act’s passing, Ingersoll had joined Benjamin Franklin in a voyage across the Atlantic to explain American apprehension towards the act. In February, 1765, they argued the case before the Prime Minister. Grenville received them cordially while they declared that the British government did not need to go over the heads of local assemblies as the colonies could tax themselves. When pressed how they would do so, the delegates did not have an answer. Also, when pressed how they could pay for their own defense, the colonial representatives were mute. To Grenville, it was obvious that without a tax plan of their own, the delegates were imposed to the principal of any taxation by Parliament; something the Prime Minister would not tolerate.
American Colonials React to the Stamp Act
Prior to the Stamp Act, England’s taxation of North American colonies had directly affected wealthy planters and merchants in the form of custom duties for trade goods. Everyday Americans, many who were farmers relying on homegrown and homespun products, were pretty much untouched. The average colonial experienced slight increases when purchasing items not available for colonial manufacture. England had placed limits on manufactured natural resources, like pig iron, requiring it be shipped to England whereas it was forged into household items to be resold to Americans at a higher price. But the cost was minimal as colonials were generally landowners enjoying a higher standard of living than their brethren in the mother country. Therefore, though annoyed by the strict enforcement of smuggling and previous acts of revenue, these practices were focused on customs and were not seen as taxation by the majority of Americans.
But the Stamp Act, and accompanying Quartering Act, broadened the ‘pain of taxation’ beyond the wealthy and dipped into the purses of the middleclass merchants and farmers. Colonials were already angered by England’s negotiated peace resolution with Native Americans along the frontier, resulting in the Proclamation Line that restricted colonial settlement west. This required a standing British army to police the frontier that inflamed local militias. But the Stamp Act, as a direct tax paid by all classes of citizens across the board went too far. Leading ‘activists’ latched onto it, rallying the masses and arguing that the draconian act was issued without any colonial input or means to express their concerns. To wealthy Americans, those who held the reins of power in legislative seats, the Stamp Act was simply the establishment of a precedent whereby the British could gradually introduce a regime of taxation into the colonies.[7] The argument was set forth; if the Stamp Act was allowed, it could be just the opening of a floodgate of future revenue imposed on Americans without the approval of regional legislatures.
Organized protest erupted throughout the thirteen mainland colonies in North America. A network of secret organizations known as the Sons of Liberty was created. Their goal was to secure support among the masses against the Stamp Act while intimidating agents who collected the taxes. As a result, before the Stamp Act could take effect on November 1, 1765, appointed stamp agents throughout the colonies had resigned after they were terrorized by mobs of ‘liberty thugs.’
In June, 1765, the Massachusetts Assembly drafted a letter that suggested a meeting of the thirteen colonies to discuss actions for the repeal of the Stamp Act. Seven colonies sent delegates[8] to the October, 1765 meeting in New York City; Virginia, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Georgia were not represented. This was the first unified action by the colonies against laws drawn up by Parliament. A direct effect was the organization throughout the colonies of nonimportation efforts of British manufactured goods. So too, the congress acknowledged that while Parliament had a right to regulate colonial trade, it did not have the power to tax the colonies since they were unrepresented in Parliament.
So too, colonists argued that the Navigation Acts, which limited American imports and exports to only English merchants and manufacturers, was unfair. English merchants would sell American resources to other countries at a considerable profit, cutting out the colonial supplier; this resulted in colonists already paying a defacto tax. This, and the acts that limited trade to England, were the birth of the political moto, taxation without representation, that within ten years fueled a cause that erupted in violence and revolution.
Stamp Act Withdrawn
Things had gone badly. What few tax agents who remained only collected a total of £45, all of it in Georgia. Colonists boycotted imports so ferociously that some British factories closed, idling thousands. In July of 1765, Prime Minister Grenville had fallen from grace to the satisfaction of King George III who disliked him intensely. The King and government had come under immense pressure from British financiers who deeply resented the loss of trade. All brought about by the American’s actions over the Stamp Act; particularly the damage caused by the boycott of British goods and riotous disturbances. Merchants claimed the amount in loss was several million pounds.[9] Grenville’s replacement, 35-year-old Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, lead a weak Whig government focused on repealing the Stamp Act. The King supported a decision to bow to the merchants and take the line of least resistance. If they repealed the Stamp Act, perhaps the colonists would settle down and the whole problem would go away.[10]
Even after Grenville’s replacement, arguments flared in Parliament as to if it were advisable to repeal the act. Former Prime Minister William Pitt argued for complete repeal, while still reaffirming England’s right to govern her colonies stating, “It is my opinion that this kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the colonies. At the same time, I assert the authority of this kingdom over the colonies, to be sovereign and supreme…” Grenville answered in his continued stance that Americans can not be given a free ride arguing that “Protection and obedience are reciprocal. Gret Britain protects America; America is bound to yield obedience…The nation has run itself into an immense debt to give them their protection; and now they are called upon to contribute a small share towards the public expense…”[11]
Pitt once more rose and pressed his case in one of his greatest speeches: “The Americans have been wronged. They have been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned?…Not to sheath the sword in its scabbard, but to sheath it in the bowels of our countrymen?…the Stamp Act should be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately…At the same time, let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised…that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever – except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent.” [12]
Author Robert Harvey succinctly outlined England’s position upon the repeal of the Stamp Act writing, “The government’s position – repeal of the Stamp Act in response to rioting and business pressures, but a continuing assertion of Britain’s right to rule the colonies – was weak, contradictory, and dishonest. Considering the Pitt had gone too far, the government acceded to the merchants’ petitions against the Stamp act on economic grounds and abandoned the act as inexpedient, while petulantly asserting that it retained the right to tax and legislate for the colonies.”
On February 7, 1766, Grenville’s last-ditch attempt to retain the Stamp Act fell in defeat in the House of Commons by 274 to 134. Benjamin Franklin, as the colonist’s spokesman, was present to speak prior to the vote. He asserted that all would return to normal when the Stamp Act was repealed. When asked why the Americans should pay any taxes at all if this revenue act was dismissed Franklin replied in a shrouded threat, “At present they do not reason so, but in time, they may possibly be convinced by these arguments.” Though the Stamp Act was repealed, Parliament acted on Pitt’s advice that they still had the power to legislate their colonies. The Declaratory Act was passed on March 18, 1766, asserting England’s absolute authority to legislate laws binding for her colonies in all cases whatsoever. When word of the act’s repeal reached the colonies in March 1766, it triggered drunken revels from Boston to Savannah, with fireworks and much bad celebratory verse.
Important dates in the Stamp Act Crisis
- March 22, 1765: British Parliament passes the “Stamp Act.”
- October 1765: Delegates from nine colonies meet in New York City in what has become known as the Stamp Act Congress, the first united action by the colonies; the congress acknowledges that while Parliament has a right to regulate colonial trade, it does not have the power to tax the colonies since they were unrepresented in Parliament.
- November 1, 1765: The Stamp Act goes into effect in the colonies.
- February 7, 1766. Colonial resistance to the Stamp Act and pressure from London merchants prompt Parliament to vote to abolish the Stamp Act.
- March 18, 1766: Parliament issues the Declaratory Act, which states that the king and Parliament have full legislative power over the colonies.
Aftermath
England’s mistake was to believe that the Stamp Act was the sole cause of American resentments, which in fact lay far deeper, stemming back to the Navigation Act of 1651[13] and later acts on trade and manufacturing that all predated the Stamp Act.[14] That the Stamp Act was the last straw, instead of the focus of colonial controversy and altercations escaped the King and Parliament. But England was caught in a paradox whereas many British lawmakers realized the somewhat absurdity of taxing those who had no representation before the law, while acknowledging the right to do so. Without a clear plan to raise the necessary revenue to maintain their North American colonies, many of England’s movers and shakers buckled down to uphold Parliament’s right to determine America’s role in the empire.
Additional Acts were passed to reaffirm England’s supreme right to govern her colonies. When these acts were met with defiance, additional punitive acts only worsened the relationship between the mother country and her thirteen principal colonies in the Americas. King George was praised while Parliament took the brunt of the blame. Parliament would continue to receive colonial scorn; later labeling the British army not the ‘Royal Army,’ but Ministerial Army. In New York, the commissioning of a huge equestrian statue of George III was titled “the best of kings.” Later to be torn down and melted into bullets for Continental soldiers.[15]
If You Would Like to Read More We Recommend the Following Books:
Of Similar Interest on Revolutionary War Journal
Reference
Atkinson, Rick. The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777. 2019: Henry Holt and Company, New York, NY.
Harvey, Robert. A Few Bloody Noses; The Realities and Mythologies of the American Revolution. 2001: John Murray Publishers, London, UK; 2003: In USA, Overlook Press & Peter Mayer Publishers, Woodstock, NY.
Phillips, Kevin. 1775: A Good Year for Revolution. 2013: Penguin Publishing Group, New York, NY.
“The Stamp Act, 1765” The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History: A Spotlight on a Primary Source by George III
Endnote
[1] The Proclamation Line of 1763, as part of the Treaty of Paris, was issued by King George III on October 7, 1763. It established a boundary line along the Appalachian Mountains that prohibited colonial settlers from homesteading on lands west of the divide. The act was aimed to prevent further conflict between Native Americans and frontiersmen while attempting to manage the newly acquired French territory. Unfortunately, this became a key element in what later morphed into extreme discontent and calls for independence by the thirteen American colonies.
[2] Harvey, pg. 48.
[3] Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745) is regarded as the first Prime Minister of Great Britain (1721-1742). A Whig statesman, he ruled British politics under King George I and II; holding the positions of First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
[4] Though William Pitt the elder was not Prime Minister before and throughout the Seven Years’ War, he dominated British politics and effectively served as de facto prime ministers under the premierships of the Duke of Devonshire and the Lord Newcastle. To benefit trade, he favored military campaigns and war; resulting in being credited with the birth of the British Empire. He replaced Greenville as prime minister in 1766 and ran the country for two years. He begged resignation from the King after he failed to manage the growing crisis in the American colonies and claimed health issues.
[5] Earl Bute, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, was a Tory Scottish nobleman serving as prime minister (1762-1763) tutor of and favorite of George III. The King was forced to dump the highly corrupt and weak Scotsman, unable to withstand political fire, for a compromise politician; Greenville.
[6] Harvy, pg. 51.
[7] Harvy, pg. 49.
[8] The seven colonies present at the Stamp Act Congress were Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina. Pennsylvania, Maryland, and South Carolina had a long-standing grievance with England over the Proclamation Line that restricted settlement into the Ohio Territory and further into the Carolina backcountry and across the mountains into what would become Kentucky and Tennessee.
[9] Harvy, pg. 68.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid, pg. 69.
[12] Ibid., pp 70-71.
[13] The 1651 Navigation Acts was designed to guarantee English shipping and merchants exclusive rights to Britain colonial trade, limiting all exports and imports through England; thereby controlling American colonies’ financial impact on the world market. Pointed out by scholars as the beginning of colonial resentment towards their mother country that morphed into numerous other acts of control sited by American activists as draconian ‘bully’ tactics to maintain control.
[14] Previous acts to the Stamp Act: 1733 Molasses Act, Iron Act 1750, 1751 Currency Act, 1764 Sugar Act.
[15] Atkinson, pg. 8.