"It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives."
—John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1756
Although the American colonists were unhappy with the restrictions on trade and various import and export duties, they were not necessarily philosophically opposed to the right of the British to control trade, especially as they found it easy to avoid the attendant duties. The Stamp Act of 1765, however, opened a new door. John Adams and others believed that the Stamp Act was the point at which the real American Revolution began, in "the hearts and minds" of the people, as Adams put it. The Stamp Act caused a furious storm in the streets of New York, Boston, Richmond, and elsewhere.
The Act required that revenue stamps be placed on all newspapers, pamphlets, licenses, leases, and other legal documents, and even on such innocuous items as playing cards. The revenue from the act, which was to be collected by colonial American customs agents, was intended for "defending, protecting and securing" the colonies. The use of the revenue did not bother anyone; the fact that it was being collected solely for revenue purposes without the consent of the colonies bothered all kinds of people, especially those who conducted business of any kind. Those who objected to the act included journalists, lawyers, merchants, and other businessmen, men likely to be community leaders, and well-known public figures such as James Otis, John Adams, and wealthy businessman John Hancock.
The protests soon moved beyond the mere voices of opposition. Men selected to be collectors of the new taxes were openly threatened with violence, and many resigned their posts before they had collected anything. Associations were formed to encourage nonimportation (boycotts) of British goods. Colonial legislatures nullified the Stamp Act, and shipments of stamps were destroyed. Sons of Liberty organizations and committees of correspondence were formed to create a feeling of solidarity among the afflicted. Mobs threatened other British officials in New York and Massachusetts, and the residences of some of them were torn down or ransacked. When the lieutenant governor of New York threatened to fire on a crowd, the mob in turn threatened to hang him, then burned an effigy of him in his favorite carriage in a public square.
In Virginia, resolutions were adopted denouncing taxation without representation. The colonists were not denying their status as British citizens subject to the Crown, but rather were expressing their rights as British citizens not to be taxed without their consent through duly appointed or elected representatives. The Massachusetts Assembly called for a Stamp Act Congress to meet in New York City in October 1765. Among the resolutions passed by the Congress were the following:
• That His Majesty's subjects in these colonies, owe the same allegiance to the Crown of Great-Britain, that is owing from his subjects born within the realm, and all due subordination to that august body the Parliament of Great Britain.
• That His Majesty's liege subjects in these colonies, are entitled to all the inherent rights and liberties of his natural born subjects within the kingdom of Great-Britain.
• That it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people, and the undoubted right of Englishmen, that no taxes be imposed on them, but with their own consent, given personally, or by their representatives.
• That the people of these colonies are not, and from their local circumstances cannot be, represented in the House of Commons in Great-Britain.
• That the only representatives of the people of these colonies, are persons chosen therein by themselves, and that no taxes ever have been, or can be constitutionally imposed on them, but by their respective legislatures.
Although the British realized that they had blundered into a minefield, they still sought to assert the right of the British government to govern the colonies as it saw fit. The British. followed a principle of "virtual representation," which meant that Parliament governed for the entire empire and noted that there were areas of England itself not represented in Parliament (to which the colonists replied that they should be.) The theory was that "what's good for the British empire is good for all its parts."
In truth the colonists benefited greatly from being part of the British Empire. They could trade freely within the entire British colonial system, which meant worldwide ports were open to them. Furthermore, when they traveled outside the trade routes of the empire itself, they were always protected by the mighty Royal Navy. Flying the British flag, the colonists knew that they had a staunch protector when they ventured into foreign waters. Unfortunately, the British focused their attention on the duties of the colonists rather than on the benefits they enjoyed from their position within the Empire.
Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in 1766, in part because their constituents in England quickly perceived that if Parliament could extract revenue from the colonists with a free hand, they could also do so at home. But as a warning to the colonies, they passed the Declaratory Act of 1766 on the same day. The Act stated that Parliament had the right to rule the colonies "in all cases whatsoever."
Although the Americans had won something of a victory in the repeal of the Stamp Act, they were soon to find that the British attempts to raise revenue would not cease.
In 1767 Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend decided that because the colonists had raised objections to the Stamp Act, he would reassert Great Britain's right to impose new taxes on imported goods. The Townshend duties placed taxes on glass, lead, tea, and paper. He also imposed rules intended to tighten collection of customs duties in America.
In response, John Dickinson wrote the following in his Letters from an American Farmer. Referring to claims of a material difference between the Stamp Act and the Townshend Duties and that the new taxes were therefore justified, Dickinson said: "That we may be legally bound to pay any general duties on these commodities relative to the regulation of trade, is granted; but we being obliged by the laws to take from Great-Britain, any special duties imposed on their exportation to us only, with intention to raise a revenue from us only, are as much taxes, upon us, as those imposed by the Stamp Act."
Dickinson's point was followed by a new round of actions by the colonials to thwart British intentions. For some time among the more prosperous folk of American cities, it had been fashionable for women to support the latest fashion from London. Now politics intruded upon the fashion world, as the wearing of homespun became de rigueur. To show one's patriotism, in other words, women were to take the lead in providing clothing that was American made, not British made, a small but significant step in introducing American women into the political system.
In Boston, agents attempting to collect the new duties were met with physical opposition, which led to the dispatching of two British regiments to Boston to maintain law and order.
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