Danver Steven L. (Edited). Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An Encyclopedia (ENG)
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to control the streets and crowds against violence. The Sons reiterated their loyalty
to the Crown and confidence in the belief that Parliament would repeal the act,
which violated their historic and legal rights.
The Stamp Act, the first direct parliamentary tax, numbed colonials who lived
in “splendid Isolation.” In one moment, the 63 pages of the Stamp Act orders
would change the landscape for the colonies; the colonials were informed that
the tax would be used for colonial administration. Direct means of collection were
imposed because London realized prior relations could make the application of the
new taxes a con troversial matter. Legal documents of all sorts, newspa pers, and
apprenticeship status were taxed. Merchants and other would trade in promissory
or financial notes, such as transportation documents were most vulnerable.
In the effort to remove the Stamp Act tax, the first Stamp Act Congress was held
in New York in October 1765. The participants included the wealthiest and most
influential people in the colonies. The delegates wer e attorneys (10), merchants
(10), and planters and land-owning farms (7). All of the p articipan ts had served
in elective office, and all but three were born in the colonies. Four would be signa-
tories to the Declaration of Independence; nine would attend the First and Second
Continental congresses. Three would remain Loyalists.
No delegate appeared from New Hampshire at the Congress; North Carolina,
Georgia, and Virginia were not represented since their respective colonial gover-
nors did not call their legislatures into session for the purpose of selecting
representatives to the Stamp Act Congress. Six of the nine colonies agreed to sign
a petition to the Crown and Parliament. New York, Connecticut, and South Caro-
lina were not authorized to sign any documents.
Robert Livingston’s New York led the assault, questioning Parliament’s legal
authority to regulate internal and external trade . Not c onsidering independence,
many hoped a resolution to the Stamp Act controversy would strengthen the bond
between family members. When Congress met, it was in secret, and no informa-
tion was released about all its deliberations. A document, “The Declaration of
Rights and Grievances” was prepared by Pennsylvanian John Dickinson. It raised
14 points of contention between the two sides. Congress’s members also asserted
their traditional and historic rights as Englishmen. They affirmed the conviction
that Parlia ment did not represent the colonies; only colonial assemblies had the
authority to tax. They were especially angered by the use of Admiralty Co urts,
non-common-law courts that did not require trial by jury. Lord Dartmouth,
colonial governor, rejected their petition as an “inappropriate” document.
While William Beard argued the revolution was solely economic, it may not
have been the complete case, but there is some merit to his argument. Many of
the delegates discussed their natural rights as Englishmen. Massachusetts and
Pennsylvania proposed a resolution referring to the “natural rights of mankind”
134 Stamp Act Protests (1765)
and “common rights of mankind.” Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina raised a
point of legal contention. H e averred that the law origina ted with the Crown and
not Parliament. Therefore, the petition should be sent to the king. Still unsure,
the declaration was sent to the king and the petition to both houses of Parliament.
The s ignator ies feared being viewed as traitors, and n one signed t he document
other than the clerk of court.
Just prior to the news of the colonial reaction to the Stamp Act, Grenville was
relived of the prime minister’s post and replaced by Lord Rockingham, the first
lord of the Treasury. At the same time, public attitudes in Great Britain were shift-
ing; some wished to resist application of the Stamp Act, completely o blivious to
the precedent’s effect. Others, realizing t hat c olonial resistance did not promise
the anticipated finances, urged rescission of the act. Resistance to importation
and other commercial issues caused the trading and financial interests to view
the situation differently. It became obvious when 200 New York merchants agreed
not to import from England until the act’s repeal.
Parliament, meeting in December 17 65, refused a resolution offered by Gren-
ville. He suggested Parliament condemn colonial resistance to the Stamp Act
and take remedial steps. A faction outside of Parliament led by Rockingham,
Burke, and others organized London’s merchants, who formed a committee of cor-
respondence to support the act’s repeal. They adopted a “grass roots” approach to
the problem by calling on all members to communicate with merchants throughout
the country to c ontact their p arliamentary representatives and call for repeal, an
action taken by Rockingham on January 14, 1766. A palliative was sought; the col-
onies would be allowed to pay the tax in their own script to reduce the financial
impact on them. However, these efforts to ameliorate the situation failed.
William Pitt, no longer silent, declared that Grenville’s colonial program had
been wrong, and he remonstrated that Parliament lacked authority to tax the colo-
nies. He did not deny the Crown’s control over the colonies, which was to remain
supreme in all matters of government and legislation. His nonplus statement evi-
denced a desire not to break with the colonies. In a confusing statement, Pitt said
taxes were voluntary gifts and grants of the Commons. He did support his claim
by averring that “virtual representation” reflected the English common law.
Lord Grenville, still in Parliament, made a telling response to Rockingham. He
spoke of control, reciprocity, protection, the long historic relationship, and mutual
benefits gained by this union. Denial of these terms constituted ingratitude and
treason. Pitt’s response spoke of three million people submitting to slavery. In
rebuttal, Rockingham continued his attacks about economic repercussions, and
the House passed a resolution showing support for the Crown. England’s secretary
of state, Henry Conway, introduced what became known as the Declaratory Acts.
These acts affirmed the right of Parliament to tax the colonies in all cases and
Stamp Act Protests (1765) 135
admitted the difficulty in enforcing the Stamp Act. Parliament also passed resolu-
tions condemning rioting and granting compensation to those injured by the riots.
But the damage had already affected relations between the mother country and
her children across the Atlantic. Parliament reaffirmed its right to tax colonials by
the Declaratory Taxes by stating it was the sovereign legislature of the British
Empire. The Crown agreed to the repeal of the Stamp Act on March 17, 1766. Wil-
liam Pitt and John Burke, ardent supporters of liberty, made speeches attacking the
legality of the act, whose effects greatly contributed to colonial unification and
opposition to the Crown.
Sometime in May 1766, the colonies found out about the repeal, and the masses
that John Adams feared rejoiced and proclaimed their loyalty to George. The envi-
ronment was especially charged because on the day of the repeal, all celebrated the
king’s birthday. The happy mob celebrated and the Assembly voted the construc-
tion of statutes to William Pitt and George III.
—Arthur K. Steinberg
See also all entries under Boston Massacre (1770); Boston Tea Party (1773).
Further Reading
Alexander, John K. Samuel Adams: America’s Revolutionary Politician.Lanham,MD:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.
Ammerman, David. In the Common Cause: American Response to the Coercive Acts of
1774. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1974.
Hoerder, Dirk. Crowd Action in Revolutionary Massachusetts 1765–1780. New York:
Academic Press, 1977.
Knollenberg, Bernhard. Origin of the A merican Revolution, 1759–1766 .NewYork:
Macmillan, 1960.
Labaree, Benjamin Woods. The Boston Tea Party. New York: Oxford University Press,
1964.
Maier, Pauline. From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of
American Opposition to Britain, 1765–1776. New York: Knopf, 1972.
Martin, James Kirby. Men in Rebellion: Higher Governmental Leaders and the Coming of
the American Revolution. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1973.
Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious C ause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789.New
York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Morgan, Edmund S., and Helen M. Morgan. The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
Nash, Gary B. The Unknown American Revolution: Th e Unruly Birth o f Democracy and
the Struggle to Create Amer ica. New York: Viking, 2005.
136 Stamp Act Protests (1765)
Reid, John Phillip. Constitutional History of the American Revolution: The Authority to
Tax. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987.
Roche, John F. The Colonial Colloquies in the War for American Independence.
Millwood, NY: Associated Faculty Press, Inc., 1986.
Ryerson, Richard Alan. The Revolution Is Now Begun: The Radical Co mmittees of
Philadelphia, 1765–1776. Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl vania Press, 1978.
Schlesinger, Arthur Meier. The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, 1763–
1776. New York: Columbia University Press, 1918.
Shaw, Peter. American Patriots and the Rituals of Revo lution.Cambridge,MA:Harvard
University Press, 1981.
Thomas, Peter D. G. British Politics and the S tamp Act Crisis: The First Phase of the
American Revolution, 1763–1767. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1975.
Tucker, Robert W., and David C. Hendrickson. TheFalloftheFirstBritishEmpire:
Origins of the War of American Independence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1982.
We bking, Robert H. The American Revolution and Politics of Liberty.BatonRouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1988.
Weslager, C. A. The Stamp Act Congress. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1976.
Stamp Act Protests (1765) 137
Adams, Samuel (1722–1803)
Samuel Adams was born on September 27, 1722, in Boston, Massachusetts. He
was educ ated at the Boston Latin School and Harvard University. At Harvard,
John Locke’s Two Treatises of Governme nt influenced him when he wrote of the
rights of man and governmental responsibility to care for its people. In his MA
thesis, he raised the perrenial question of one’s duty to obey government and rec-
ognized that revolution might be necessary to secure individual rights. He believed
that British colonial control was illegal. Adams, a zealot for American indepen-
dence, used any tools at his disposal to gain that freedom.
Adams’s a bilities as a speaker and political theorist gained him notoriety. In
1746, he became a clerk of the Boston market. His views found expression in his
publication. The P ublic Advertiser’s intention was to be “open t o whatever may
be adapted to the state and defined the rights and liberties of mankind.” He sug-
gested Parliament had overstepped its bounds by restricting the rights of American
colonists. Another admonition was a mirror reflection of John Adams; people
should not be mesmerized by the wealthy and/or permit themselves to be con-
trolled by government. The constitution is the authoritative rule of law.
Adams was active at Boston town meetings, and a member of the “Whipping
Post Club.” He opposed British taxation instituted as a result of the debt caused
by the French and Indian War because London hoped to balance the budget by
passing the Sugar Act (April 5, 1764 ). Adams recognized the result of no public
reaction would allow for continued violations by Parliament concerning taxation
without representation, attacking freedom and liberty. His opposition was the first
public effort to unite the colonies. Massachusetts’s legislature joined Adams in
opposing the act, but the colonial governor closed the legislature. Adams con-
vinced local merchants to boycott importations of British goods.
All the colonies were urged to assemble; the Stamp Act Congress passed
motions to the king. Adams, in the assembly, referred to the traditional rights of
Englishmen. Adams’s effort contributed to London’s repeal of the Stamp Act.
The relationship between colonies and parliament did not improve. After the
imposition of the Townshend Act, Adams sought to obtain the passage of a circu-
lar letter describing British policy to all colonies, citing the problem as a
“national” problem. Britain sent troops to Boston to enforce the new acts. Adams
then published the Journal of Occurrences, describing events on a daily basis in
Boston. The atmosphere deteriorated after the Boston Massacre. Massachuse tts
resolved to remove British troops and refuse to pay for their housing. Adams
responded with proclamation s referring to “the inherent and unalienable rights of
the people.”
139
Samuel Adams contributed to the atmosphere that led to the Boston Tea Party.
His latest circular cautioned that the new act would have a detrimental effect on
colonial commerce. He urged a united front. The Sons of Liberty became more
active. Adams traveled throughout the colony, receiving support for opposition to
the act from other communities. Unity came with the convening of the Continental
Congress. In September 1774, Ada ms was selected as a member of the First
Continental Congress and was among the most vocal. He signed the Declaration
of Independence, debated for check on a strong central government, and opposed
a standing army. He died on October 2, 1803, at the age of 81.
—Arthur K. Steinberg
Further Reading
Alexander, John K. Samuel Adams: America’s Revolutionary Politician.Lanham,MD:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.
Ammerman, David. In the Common Cause: American Response to the Coercive Acts of
1774. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1974.
Hoerder, Dirk. Crowd Action in Revolutionary Massachusetts 1765–1780. New York:
Academic Press, 1977.
Labaree, Benjamin Woods. The Boston Tea Party. New York: Oxford University Press,
1964.
Maier, Pauline. From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of
American Opposition to Britain, 1765–1776. New York: Knopf, 1972.
Morgan, Edmund S., and Helen M. Morgan. The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
Nash, Gary B. The Unknown American Revolution: Th e Unruly Birth o f Democracy and
the Struggle to Create Amer ica. New York: Viking, 2005.
Shaw, Peter. American Patriots and the Rituals of Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1981.
Weslager, C. A. The Stamp Act Congress. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1976.
Declaratory Act (1766)
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) ended colonial reliance on the British
Empire for protection against the French and Indians on the colonial frontier.
British successes were absolute, and the colonies went from adolescents to adults.
Thecoloniesnowresentedthepresenceof British authority when they realized
that there was no need for a large contingent of British forces on colonial soil.
To London, the most outrageous aspect of the growing conflict was colonial
140 Stamp Act Protests (1765)
determination to enact legislation to regulate colonial society without British con-
sent. Despite Blackstone’s theory of virt ual representation, a lega lism manufac-
tured in the hope of quelling colonial restiveness, no colonials represented their
colonies in London in either house of Parliament.
In res ponse to growing disrespect f or the Crown, Parliament passe d the Dec-
laratory Act, “an act passed for the better securing the dependency of his
Majesty’s dominions in America upon the Crown and parliament of Great
Britain,” 6 George III, c.12., on March 18, 1766. The act gave the Crown the exclu-
sive right to impose all duties and taxes and finding any attempt to do so illegal.
Despite the repeal of the Stamp Act, colonials attacked parliamentary actions
viewed as contradictory to the Magna Carta. Colonial businessmen, merchants,
and attorneys ranted that the traditional rights of Englishmen wer e under assault.
They argued that the traditional rights their forefathers fought for had been killed
by London. The passage of this all-encompassing act could be used to justify pas-
sage of other legislation against the interest of the colonies.
Notable Americans like John Otis, “No Taxation without Representation”;
Samuel Adams of Boston and the Sons of Liberty, who published material s and
held meetings for the common people; and Patrick Henry of Virginia were instru-
mental in guiding the responses. Thomas Paine’s American Crisis represented the
growing belief that independence was necessary.
Colonial business was negatively affected; mercantile trade would be controlled
as smuggling fell unde r the control of the Admiralty Courts that were not
common-law bodies. Attorneys had to deal with the abundance of legalistic paper-
work, all restricting and making it more difficult for the average colonial to make a
living as British control tightened and affected colonial moneyed interests. The
Massachusetts Assembly refused to obey the new act and circulated a letter to all
colonies calling all to not obey the internal and external actions demanded under
the acts, such as the Quartering and Mutiny Acts.
The circulatio n of grievances to other colonies made all consci ously aware of
their common causes. The colonies and their various business and political leaders
realized some sort of action was necessary if they were to prosper, whether as part
of the British Empire or not. But as the atmosphere became increasingly charged,
the more rationalized the forces for independence grew. From intercolonial corre-
spondence committees to Stamp Congresses, from committees of grievance to the
Constitutional Convention, the flame had been ignited. By the time George III
offered to ameliorate the relationship, colonials no l onger viewed themselves as
subjects, but rather as representative citizens of a new nation. The clash of interests
and the controversy arising from two opposed self-interests led to a parting of the
ways.
—Arthur K. Steinberg
Stamp Act Protests (1765) 141
Further Reading
Knollenberg, Bernhard. Origin of the A merican Revolution, 1759–1766 .NewYork:
Macmillan, 1960.
Morgan, Edmund S., and Helen M. Morgan. The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolu-
tion. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
Nash, Gary B. The Unknown American Revolution: Th e Unruly Birth o f Democracy and
the Struggle to Create Amer ica. New York: Viking, 2005.
Reid, John Phillip. Constitutional History of the American Revolution: The Authority to
Tax. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987.
Thomas, Peter D. G. British Politics and the Stamp Act Crisis: The First Phase o f the
American Revolution, 1763–1767. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975.
Tucker, Robert W., and David C. Hendrickson. TheFalloftheFirstBritishEmpire:
Origins of the War of American Independence. Baltimore: Johns Hopki ns University
Press, 1982.
Webking, Robert H. The American Revolution and Politics of Liberty. Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1988.
Salutary Neglect
Salutary neglect represented intelligent British efforts to develop a viable colonial
system within the bounds of the mercantile and legal traditions exemplified by the
Magna Carta. This policy, beginning with colonization until the French and Indian
War (Seven Years’ War), allowed growth and expansion void of interference from
London or Parliament. Whig prime minister Robert Walpole, a founder and su p-
porter of the policy of salutary neglect, bel ieved less governmental interfer ence
was best for growth.
Colonial growth from total dependence to independence was evidence of
the success of this benign policy, but politicians did not foresee the political con-
sequences in London. Colonials, due to a lack of governmental interest from
London, functioned independently. Neither party enforced the Navigation Acts—
acts compelling the co lonies to trade only with Britain—legislated by Cromwell
and Charles II but intentionally neglected by Walpole.
The Crown’s successes in the French and Indian War caused unexpected
responses and a ttitudes; colonials settling the west contrary to the Proclamation
of 1763 no longer feared the French or Indians, and London now believed that
the col onies should contribute to satisfying the national debt. Colonials had little
regard for Crown subjects in the British Isles, whose taxes w ere higher than
colonial taxes, but the same subjects did care about the financial cost for the new
142 Stamp Act Protests (1765)
security given colonials. Few colonials knew or spoke of the Jumonville Affair, in
which George Washington led colonial forces into th e west and killed 50 French
soldiers, a cause for the international conflict. At the time that the British were los-
ing, William Pitt the Elder, the secretary of state, directed London’s response. He
confiscated colonial supplies, drafted colonials into the British army, and took
charge of the course of t he war. Angered by Pitt’s action, the colonials began
expressing their resentment to sudden British interference in their lives.
Demands that the c olonies contribute to the economic welfare of the Empire
clashed with the traditional rights of Englishmen; local control of colonial matters
had been accepted as a fait accompli. Colonial resistance to Britain’s attempt to
address her financial needs worldwide caused Britain to exert a heavy hand in
colonial affairs; the abandonment of salutary neglect resulted when London could
refer to Blackstone’s “virtual representation” and the colonies to the traditional
rights of Englishmen.
Lord George Grenville resigned the chancellorship in July 1765 as the relation-
ship further deteriorated with British attempts to circumvent commo n law by the
imposition of Admiralty Courts to try “smugglers,” the increased e fforts to tax
without representation, the Stamp Act, the Intolerable Acts, opposition from such
vocal groups as the Sons of Liberty, the Boston Tea Party, and London’s continual
policy of denying the colonies to print their own coin for business and trade. Col-
onies relied on their legislatures, commercial conduc t, and even various religious
creeds to stress their independence.
King George III’s “Olive Branch” was met by American, not colonial
responses; by citizens, not subjects; by adults, a nd not children. From Thomas
Paine to John Adams, colonials had turned from those seeking an arrangement to
those calling for independence. The die was cast because Britain had been too suc-
cessful in decisively winning the French and Indian War and the commercial and
merchant classes were the hardest hit by Parliament’s taxing system.
—Arthur K. Steinberg
Further Reading
Knollenberg, Bernhard. Origin of the American Revolution, 175 9–1766.NewYork:
Macmillan, 1960.
Maier, Pauline. From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of
American Opposition to Britain, 1765–1776. New York: Knop f, 1972.
Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cau se: The American Revolution, 1763–1789.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Morgan, Edmund S., and Helen M. Morgan. The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
Nash , Gary B. The Unknown Ame rican Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and
the Struggle to Create Amer ica. New York: Viking, 2005.
Stamp Act Protests (1765) 143