AMERICA: 1763-1776
The Stamp Act
Despite the revenue raised
by the Sugar Act, Britain's financial situation continued to spiral out of
control. In 1765, the average taxpayer in England paid 26 shillings per year in
taxes, while the average colonist paid only one- half to one and a half
shillings. Prime Minister Grenville thought that the American colonists should
bear a heavier tax load. To this end, Parliament passed the Stamp Act in March
1765. The act required Americans to buy special watermarked paper for
newspapers and all legal documents. Violators faced juryless trials in
vice-admiralty courts, just as under the Sugar Act. Grenville optimistically
predicted revenues of between 60,000 and 100,000 pounds.
William Pitt was the
colonies' greatest defender in England. He argued that the colonies could not
be taxed without representation in Parliament. Grenville and his followers
claimed that they agreed with Pitt, and that the colonies were represented in
Parliament, even though they did not elect any of the members. The Prime
Minister claimed that Americans shared the same status as many British males,
who did not have enough property to be granted the vote, or who lived in
certain large cities that had no seats in Parliament. He claimed that all of
these people were "virtually represented" in Parliament. The theory
of virtual representation held that the members of Parliament did not only
represent their specific geographical constituencies, but rather that they took
into consideration the well-being of all British subjects when deliberating on
legislation. Grenville further argued that Americans were not exempt from
taxation, as many claimed, simply because they elected their own assemblies
which legislated for and taxed the colonies. He compared colonial assemblies to
Scottish town councils, claiming that they only exercised as much power as was
granted to them by Parliament.
This position clashed
directly with the contention of many colonists that their assemblies exercised
legislative powers equal to those of the House of Commons in Britain. To many
colonists, the Stamp Act seemed to represent all of the problems of
Anglo-American relations. Moreover, it affected every one of the thirteen
colonies equally, and every rank in society, since all colonists would at some
time find reason to draw up a legal document such as a will, or to buy a
newspaper. Throughout the colonies, town meetings and colonial assemblies heard
violent demonstrations against the Stamp Act. Colonial agents in London and
petitions from colonial legislatures warned against passage, but Parliament
dismissed the petitions without even granting them a hearing.
In late May 1765, Patrick
Henry persuaded the Virginia House of Burgesses to adopt several strongly
worded resolutions. The Virginia Resolves, as they were known, were passed on May
30, 1765, and denied Parliament's right to tax the colonies under the Stamp
Act. Word of Henry's resolutions spread throughout the colonies, taking on
certain dramatic embellishments in many cases, and by the end of the year,
eight other colonial legislatures had adopted similar positions.
Commentary
Unlike the Sugar Act, which
was an external tax (i.e. it taxed only goods imported into the colonies), the
Stamp Act was an internal tax, levied directly upon the property and goods of
the colonists. Internal taxes had far wider effects. While external taxes were
paid primarily by merchants and ship captains, internal taxes, especially the
Stamp Act, were not so discriminatory. Anyone who made a will or bought a
newspaper would pay the tax on paper. The colonies had never been taxed
internally by Britain before, and had traditionally taxed themselves through
their colonial assemblies. Taxation was a primary function of the
self-government to which the colonists so passionately clung. The Stamp Act
refuted the claim to a measure of self-government, painting the colonies not as
an entity in a loosely bound federation centered in London, but rather as an
extension of the British nation, subject to Parliamentary legislation and
taxation.
The Stamp Act forced colonists
to consider the issue of Parliamentary taxation without representation. Few
colonists agreed with Grenville that they were virtually represented. Though
most admired and respected Parliament, few imagined it represented their needs.
They claimed that the theory that members of Parliament concerned themselves
with the needs of all British subjects was not valid. In the common colonial
view, unless a legislator shared, to some extent, the interests of his
constituents, he could not be expected to consider their welfare. Since the
needs of the American colonists differed substantially from the needs of
inhabitants of England, they feared that were Parliament permitted to legislate
for the colonies its members would be easily persuaded to vote against the Americans'
best interest, especially if England stood to gain. It seemed to many that this
was precisely what had happened in the case of the Stamp Act.
Colonists conceded that as
they were British subjects, Parliament did reserve limited powers of legislation
over them. They believed that Parliament could standardize legal protocol
throughout the Empire in the interest of granting all subjects access to royal
justice. The colonists also accepted the role that in the interest of broad
economic goals Parliament had to play in the regulation of trade throughout the
Empire, and even accepted that this regulation might at some times prove
disadvantageous to the colonies. Further, they acknowledged the need for
loyalty to the crown and considered their responsibility to defend the Empire
in time of war undeniable. However, they insisted that in all other ways they
should be self-governed--that colonial assemblies alone could tax the
colonists, and that in return they would not interfere with laws that regulated
the empire's trade. James Otis expressed the core of the American argument at a
Boston town meeting in the spring of 1765. He said "by [the British]
Constitution, every man in the dominion is a free man: that no parts of His
Majesty's dominions can be taxed without consent: that every part has a right
to be represented in the supreme or some subordinate legislature."
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