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The Colonies Rally

© Brian Tubbs

Before Parliament approved the Stamp Act in March of 1765, it had pointedly refused to receive, let alone consider, several petitions that flooded London from North America. Several of the petitions avoided the controversial question of Parliament’s authority and merely focused on the economic arguments that the Stamp Tax would be seriously detrimental to colonial affairs. Even these petitions were ignored. General Henry Seymour Conway, a member of Parliament and veteran of the Seven Years’ War with France, reminded his colleagues that they had welcomed colonial input on a potential Stamp Tax when they approved the Sugar Act the preceding year. Prime Minister Grenville had deliberately dangled the possibility of such a tax when he presented the Revenue Act (known popularly as the “Sugar Act”) in 1764. Ostensibly, this was to give the colonies time to discuss the terms of such a revenue measure with their governors and agents. Conway’s appeal bore no fruit. Parliament proceeded to levy the tax, and did so with virtually no delay.

The Stamp Act would dramatically expand London’s authority over her North American colonies. As historians Edmund and Helen Morgan put it in their book, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution: “Although the amounts charged would not in most cases impose severe hardships, they would remind colonists in their business transactions of the authority that Parliament claimed over them.”

While many argued then – and some still do today – that London had such authority all along, the fact of history is that it had never been exercised to such a staggering degree. Now, with the Stamp Act, virtually every aspect of colonial life would be taxed and potentially regulated. Documents now requiring an official stamp of the British Empire included nearly all court papers, college diplomas, appointments to civil office, leases, contracts of every kind, bills of sale, harbor passes, apprenticeship articles, liquor licenses, newspapers (as well as all advertisements within them), almanacs, and much more. Even playing cards and dice didn’t escape the dreaded stamp. The symbolism of everything from official business (attorney licenses and contracts) to recreation (playing cards, dice, and liquor licenses) was not lost on the colonies. In one dramatic legislative blow, Parliament made it unmistakably clear to the colonists that every aspect of their lives fell under the scrutiny and pleasure of British imperial authority.

In addition to the scope of the tax itself, the Stamp Act vaguely opened the door for England to establish ecclesiastical courts and officials in America and it cleared the way for the trial of American colonists suspected of tax evasion before Admiralty Courts. Under the terms of the Stamp Act, prosecutors could send suspected violators either to common-law courts (as was customary) or to Admiralty Courts, which operated without juries. In the eyes of many, this was a blatant departure from common law traditions that the colonists were accustomed to as English subjects.

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