On
March 22,1765 Parliament passed the first internal tax on
the colonists, known as the Stamp
Act.
The
law required colonists to pay a tax on every piece of printed
paper they used. Such stamps had been required on legal documents
and publications in England for 100 years. The funds raised
by the tax were intended to help pay the costs of defending
and protecting the American frontier. They planned to place
10,000 troops near the Appalachian Mountains.
The
colonists were outraged by the tax because they saw it as
an attempt to raise money in the colonies without the approval
of the various legislatures. Although the Stamp Act itself
was not a harsh measure, colonists feared the standard this
new type of legislation would set. "No taxation without
representation" became the rallying cry.
Most
colonists felt that an internal tax was unjust since the colonies
had no representation in Parliament. They drew a distinction
between an internal tax on the colonists and an external tax
on the trade of the colonies.
Patrick
Henry offered several anti-stamp act resolutions in the House
of Burgesses in Virginia, most of which were passed. Virginia
declared that it would not pay taxes which had not been approved
by its legislature.
The royal
governor of Virginia did not approve the resolutions and dissolved
the House of Burgesses. Newspapers
attempted to avoid the requirements of the act by issuing
sheets without the masthead and other characteristics of a
newspaper. In this way they were able to continue publishiing
without risk of prosecution for their resistance to the act.
One such paper was the Pennsylvania
Gazette. On October 31, 1765 the publishers announced
the suspension of the Gazette in opposition to the provisions
of the Stamp Act which required that it be printed on imported,
stamped paper.
In
addition to rhetoric, the colonists waged a campaign which
included evasion and tarring
and feathering to fight the tax and intimidate
the tax collectors. No stamp commissioner or tax collector
was actually tarred and feathered but by November 1, 1765,
the day the Stamp Act tax went into effect, there were no
stamp commissioners left in the colonies to collect it.
Benjamin
Franklin was a colonial agent in London at the
time and testified before Parliament about the colonies' attitude
toward the tax. They were trying to understand the colonists'
strong feeling against the tax. Franklin testified:
I
never heard any objection to the right of laying duties
to regulate
commerce; but a right to lay internal taxes was never supposed
to be in
Parliament, as we are not represented there. . . .
The
tax was repealed in 1766 after Franklin's testimony.
The
Testimony of Benjamin Franklin in the British Parliament -
1766
Part
of These United Colonies: The
American War of Independence exhibit |
