Stamp Act essays

Stamp Act essays In the spring of 1765, Parliament enacted another tax on Americans, the Stamp Act. This legislation required all valid legal documents, as well as newspapers, playing cards, and various other papers, to bear a government issued stamp, for which there was a charge. The Sugar Act, though intended to raise revenue, appeared to fall within Britains accepted authority to regulate commerce; Stamp Act, by contrast, was the first internal tax (as opposed to an external trade duty) that Parliament had imposed on the colonies. Grenville, a lawyer, realized that it raised a constitutional issue: Did Parliament have the right to impose direct taxes on Americans when Americans had no elected representatives in Parliament? Following the principle of virtual representation that members of Parliament served the interests of the nation as a whole, not just the locality from which they came Grenville maintained that it did. Americans he would faid, vigorously disagreed, and so did some members of P arliament. One, Colonel Isaac Barre, who had served in the colonies, opposed the Stamp Act and referred to Americans as Sons of Liberty a label Americans would soon adopt for themselves. Unlike the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act had an equal impact throughout the colonies, and the response to it was swift and vociferous. Newspapers and pamphlets were filled with denunciations of the supposedly unconstitutional measure, and in taverns everywhere outraged patrons roundly condemned it. The minds of the freeholders, wrote one observer, were inflamed...by many a hearty damn of the Stamp Act over bottles, bowls, and glasses. Parliament, Americans were convinced, did nor represent them. Its members did not share their economic interests and would not pay the taxes that they imposed on Americans. Parliament therefore could not legitimate tax Americans. The colonial legislatures were also quick to ...