Resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress

A3B30

Resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress (1765)

I)              Context 

Eleven years before the Declaration of Independence, a crisis took place that defined the issue that would help provoke the American Revolution: taxation without representation.

In 1763, Americans joyously celebrated the British victory in the Seven Years' War, revelling in their identity as Britons and jealously guarding their much-celebrated rights which they believed they possessed by virtue of membership in what they saw as the world's greatest empire.

Americans had contributed significantly to the recent victory both militarily and financially, yet within a dozen years of the British victory war broke out between British soldiers and Massachusetts militiamen at Lexington and Concord. Between 1763 to 1775, successive British governments took decisions which resulted in the loss of the 13 rebellious colonies in America.

The British victory in the Seven Years' War had been costly in human and financial terms. In 1763, George Grenville, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, reckoned that Britain's budget deficit was in excess of £122 million. Desperate to find new sources of revenue, Grenville looked to the colonies and viewed from cash-strapped London, the North American settlements were very attractive.

In order to raise new revenue, Parliament in 1764 passed the Sugar Act, which imposed new charges on foreign wines, coffee, textiles, and indigo imported into the colonies and enlarged the customs service, requiring shippers to fill out documents detailing each ship's cargo and destination. The British navy was ordered to patrol the American coast to search for smugglers, who, if caught, were to be tried in a special court without a jury. That same year, the Currency Act banned the colonists from issuing paper money. Since the colonies had trouble getting gold or silver coins, the prohibition on paper money forced many colonists to resort to barter.

What was the Stamp Act ?

In 1763, the average Briton paid 26 shillings per annum in taxes whilst a Massachusetts taxpayer contributed one shilling each year to imperial coffers. Americans, British officials concluded, benefited from the protection afforded by the British army and the Royal Navy, and it would only be fair if they contributed to their own defence.

So in 1765 Grenville, acting as prime minister, proposed a far-reaching tax for Americans and Parliament adopted a Stamp Act in March of 1765. Under the terms of the Act, scheduled to take effect on 1 November, almost anything formally written or printed would have to be on special stamped paper for which a tax must be paid. Among the items covered by the tax were wills, deeds, diplomas, almanacs, advertisements, bills, bonds, newspapers, playing cards and even dice. Anyone who was involved in any legal transactions, purchased a newspaper or pamphlet or accepted a government appointment would have to pay the tax. In short, the Stamp Act would affect nearly all Americans. Grenville intended, with the full agreement of Parliament, that the Stamp Act should not only raise revenue, it should clearly demonstrate that the British government through Parliament exercised political sovereignty over the colonies.

Unsurprisingly, Americans responded negatively to the Stamp Act, arguing that they had contributed to their own defence during the late war by providing manpower, money and supplies to the British war effort. They argued that they already paid taxes which were raised locally - each colony had its own assembly which levied local taxes. Colonists in America felt that they discharged their obligations when they paid colonial taxes and they resented being compelled to pay taxes levied by a Parliament in which they were not represented. Moreover, they contended, the distance between America and Britain precluded American representation in Parliament. And so, in the spring and early summer of 1765, most of the colonial assemblies adopted resolutions condemning the Stamp Act.

II)            Main ideas

The delegates approved a 14-point Declaration of Rights and Grievances, formulated largely by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania. The statement echoed the recent resolves of the Virginia House of Burgesses, which argued that colonial taxation could only be carried on by their own assemblies. The delegates singled out the Stamp Act and the use of the vice admiralty courts for special criticism, yet ended their statement with a pledge of loyalty to the king.

Colonial leaders were particularly concerned as the stamp tax was the first internal tax to be levied on the colonies. Also, the act stated that admiralty courts would have jurisdiction over offenders. This was viewed as an attempt by Parliament to lessen the power of the colonial courts.

III) The Text

A-   Introduction (1-8) : the delegates voice their concerns and explain why they have been forced to adopt these résolutions, not without recalling their alliegeance to the Crown (2-3)

B-   The 14 rights and grievances

1- Rights

Pts I-II : subjects in colonies enjoy the same rights and duties as those of the realm.

Pt III : right to be represented in Parliament in Britain.

Pt VII : colonists have a right to fair trials by jury

Pt XII : if rights are respected it’ll benefit both Britain and the colonies

Pt XIII : they have a right to petition the King and/or Parliament

2- Grievances

Pts III-IV-V : The key issue that quickly emerged as the centerpiece of colonial complaints against the Stamp Act was that of taxation without représentation (III). This derived from the 1689 English Bill of Rights (II, lines 12-13) which forbade the imposition of taxes without the consent of Parliament. As the colonists lacked representation in Parliament, taxes imposed upon them were deemed to be a violation of their rights as Englishmen. While some in Britain stated that the colonists received virtual representation as members of Parliament theoretically represented the interests of all British subjects, this argument was largely rejected.Only colonial assemblies had the right to tax (V).

VIII : abusive use of the Courts of Admiralty. They were courts exercising jurisdiction over all maritime contracts, torts, injuries and offences. In 1763, with the Proclamation, these courts were given jurisdiction over a number of laws affecting the colonies. For example, cases involving New York could be heard in England. Moreover, judges were paid on the fines they levied, which ked to tremendous abuses. Violations of the Stamp Act would be tried in Vice-Admiralty Courts, which had traditionally been used only in cases involving maritime law. Thus, the Stamp Act also appeared to threaten the right to trial by jury.

Pts IX-X-XI : the colonists do not ripe the benefits of the trade with Britain, as profits mainly go to the mainland. Colonies are forced to purchase manufactures from Britain.

Pt XIV : delegates thus demand the repeal of the Stamp Act

III)          Reactions and legacy

The government in London was unimpressed by the constitutional arguments made by the colonists or the petitions and resolutions adopted by their assemblies. If the Americans wanted to register their dissatisfaction with the Stamp Act, they would have to resort to less subtle means.

Violent opposition

During the summer, matters came to a head in the colony of Massachusetts which was in the grip of a post-war recession. Its major town, Boston, had a long tradition of rioting and popular demonstrations to defend local interests and it was particularly hard hit by the downturn. The combination of economic hard times, an unpopular and unprecedented tax as well as a local tradition of violent resistance was potentially dangerous.

On 14th August, an angry mob attacked the house of Andrew Oliver - the local man rumoured to be responsible for collecting the tax. Then on the 26th they damaged the houses of colonial officials and completely destroyed the home of the colony's Lieutenant Governor. The demonstrations spread throughout the colonies and, through threats, intimidation and violence, American opponents of the Act rendered it a dead letter by the autumn.

Commercial boycott

Having nullified the proposed tax on the streets, American protestors wanted to secure the repeal on the offending legislation in Parliament. In October several colonies sent delegates to New York to attend a 'Stamp Act Congress' which proposed a commercial boycott as means to pressure Parliament to act. American opponents of the Stamp Act would refuse to purchase British goods in order to put commercial pressure on Parliament to repeal the act.

The tactic worked. In March 1766, Parliament acquiesced and repealed the Stamp Act. Parliament simultaneously declared:

Parliament assembled, had, hath and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America.

In other words, although Parliament was repealing the Stamp Act, it retained its right to govern America.

Liberties endangered

The conflict between Parliament and the colonies had arisen out of the different assumptions made on each side of the Atlantic. For most of the previous 150 years, the colonists had been left largely to their own devices in what some historians have described as 'salutary neglect'. Because land was plentiful most adult males (at least those of European origin) could meet property requirements and vote. In consequence a strong tradition of self-government developed in the colonies and colonists jealously guarded their political rights which they saw as theirs because they were British.

Paradoxically, it was Parliament, supposedly the guardian of British liberty, which seemed to endanger the liberties of Britons in America in 1765. In the aftermath of the Seven Years' War, British political leaders and imperial administrators sought to assert greater control over the far-flung parts of the empire and in so doing they came into conflict with the political traditions and assumptions of the colonists who resisted what they saw as unconstitutional parliamentary innovation. The American Revolution began in a dispute over finance in which the British government advocated change and the colonists sought to maintain tradition. As the imperial crisis developed neither British nor American political leaders demonstrated a willingness or ability to compromise.

George Grenville resigned from the Chancellorship in July 1765 at the height of the Stamp Act crisis. His successors over the next decade confronted the same problem of trying to raise revenue in America. In 1767, Parliament adopted a wide range of customs duties which revived American opposition so that protests and rioting ensued and British troops were moved from frontier posts to the major seaports, especially Boston, where the resistance was concentrated.

Boston Tea Party

In another climbdown, in March 1770 Parliament repealed the duties, with the symbolic exception of the tax on tea. Relations continued to deteriorate and the American resistance became more intransigent. In December 1773 in the famous 'Boston Tea Party' protestors destroyed £10,000 worth of tea in protest of the tea duty. In consequence, Parliament adopted a series of punitive measures and Massachusetts was placed under military rule in 1774.

By the spring of 1775, political resistance gave way to violence as war between the British and colonists broke out. The conflict quickly spread. In 1776 the colonists declared themselves independent and in 1783, following a prolonged and bloody war, Britain was forced to recognise the independence of the United States.

A lesson learned

Some historians have suggested that the British army mismanaged the American War of Independence and that the war could have been won. On the contrary, the war was lost on its first day, owing not to 'inevitability' but to the nature of the conflict. The fundamental difference between the British and the rebellious Americans concerned political authority. Prior to the Stamp Act crisis British authority, rarely asserted, rested on ties of loyalty, affection and tradition, not force. In the wake of the Stamp Act, Parliament repeatedly asserted its sovereignty and was compelled by American resistance to back down. Each time that this occurred the foundation for British rule in America eroded a little bit more.

When Parliament sought to re-establish its sovereignty by force it undermined the loyalty, affection and tradition upon which that authority had rested. Indeed, between one-fifth and one-third of the colonists remained loyal to the crown once the war broke out. Many of these, however, switched allegiances to the rebels when they experienced or learned of the heavy-handed tactics employed by the British army in America. Had the British managed to 'win' the military conflict they would have had to resort to a degree of force antithetical to their ultimate objective - the reestablishment of British authority in the colonies.

Had American independence not been inevitable then a political settlement would have been found between 1765 and 1775. It was not. In fairness to the imperial administrators and politicians who 'lost' the colonies, they were confronting an unprecedented political, economic and diplomatic challenge in seeking to govern the empire and balance the books in the aftermath of the Seven Years' War. They handled the issue of American taxation in a relatively clumsy manner, but they learned their lesson.

In 1776 the English radical Thomas Paine argued that the colonies should declare themselves independent because 'there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island'. During the nineteenth century the island in question would come to rule a large portion of the world. Its leaders would never again attempt to impose direct taxes on its colonies.