How did the colonists respond to the repeal of the Stamp Act?

The Stamp Act was a tax put on the American colonies by the British in 1765. It said they had to pay a tax on all sorts of printed materials such as newspapers, magazines and legal documents. It was called the Stamp Act because the colonies were supposed to buy paper from Britain that had an official stamp on it that showed they had paid the tax.

One Penny Stamp by the UK Government

Paying for the War

The French and Indian War was fought between the British American colonies and the French, who had allied with the American Indians. It lasted from 1754 to 1763. The American colonies eventually won the war, but only with the help of the British army. The British government felt that the colonies should share in the expense of the war and help to pay for the British troops in the Americas.

The Stamp Act of 1765 was a tax to help the British pay for the French and Indian War. The British felt they were well justified in charging this tax because the colonies were receiving the benefit of the British troops and needed to help pay for the expense. The colonists didn't feel the same.

People Burning the Stamped Paper
by Unknown

No Representation

The colonists felt that the British government had no right to tax them because there were not any representatives of the colonies in the British Parliament. The colonies had no say in how much the taxes should be or what they should pay for. They didn't think this was fair. They called this "taxation without representation".

The Colonies React

The colonies reacted in protest. They refused to pay the tax. The tax collectors were threatened or made to quit their jobs. They even burned the stamped paper in the streets. The colonies also boycotted British products and merchants.

The Stamp Act Congress

The American colonies felt so strongly against the Stamp Act that they called a meeting of all the colonies. It was called the Stamp Act Congress. Representatives from the colonies gathered together in New York City from October 7 to October 25 in 1765. They prepared a unified protest of the Stamp Act to Britain.

Statue of Samuel Adams in Boston.
He was a leader in the Sons of Liberty.
Photo by Ducksters.

The Sons of Liberty

It was during this time that groups of American patriots called the Sons of Liberty began to form. They took the protests of British taxes to the streets. They used intimidation to get tax collectors to resign from their jobs. The Sons of Liberty would play an important role later during the American Revolution.

The Act is Repealed

Eventually, the protests of the colonies to the Stamp Act began to hurt British merchants and businesses. The Stamp Act was repealed on March 18, 1766. However, the British Parliament wanted to send a message to the colonies. The Stamp Act may not have been a good way to tax the colonies, but they still felt they had the right to tax the colonies. The same day they repealed the Stamp Act, they passed the Declaratory Act which stated that the British Parliament had the right to make laws and taxes in the colonies.

More Taxes

The British government didn't stop trying to tax the colonies. They continued to add taxes including a Tea Tax that would lead to the Boston Tea Party and eventually the American Revolution.

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Most Americans understand the coming of the American Revolution just the way Thomas Jefferson hoped they would. Colonists-turned-Americans made the logical and legitimate choice to revolt against Britain after suffering what Jefferson described in the Declaration of Independence as “a long train of abuses and usurpations” during the 1760s and 1770s. All sanctioned by the King, these policies meant “to reduce them [the colonists] under absolute Despotism.” Each parliamentary act and each moment of conflict seemed to precipitate the next, building momentum to a critical breaking point. The Stamp Act of 1765 is often seen as the earliest, major point on this road from resistance to revolution.

The Stamp Act is undoubtedly part of the Revolution’s history, but its repeal in 1766 reminds us also how long and meandering the path toward independence was. The King and Parliament agreed to repeal the Stamp Act on March 18, 1766, and news of their decision reached North America around two months later, and 250 years ago today, on May 19, 1766. Writing that day to a friend, the Philadelphian James Gordon described how the Act’s repeal “fill’d us all with great joy, the Bells are ringing ever since the vessel arrived in the Morning” with the news. The following “Evening the City is to be illuminated and next Day a great Dinner at the State House, where will be all the gentlemen in the Place.”

Letter from James Gordon in Philadelphia, describing the celebrations accompanying news of the Stamp Act's repeal, May 19, 1766

The news of rapprochement was so well-received because colonists were eager to continue their pleasant and fruitful relationship with the Britain. As Gordon noted, “we are in hopes we shall carry on a greater Trade than ever, e’en in the best of times … which would be greatly to the advantage of us on the Continent and indeed to all the British subjects.” Far from leading inevitably to Revolution, the history of the Stamp Act actually reflects just how attached to the Empire many colonists were.

That is not say the Stamp Act did not shape future resistance to imperial policies. It did. The Act required colonists to use special taxed paper when producing printed materials—including legal documents, newspapers, magazines, and diplomas. It was called the Stamp Act, because a small embossed stamp on paper signified that it was of the proper, taxed variety. Colonists did not take this tax lying down. Especially in urban areas where demand was greatest for the items that the Stamp Act taxed, colonists resisted the implementation of the Act. They intimidated the appointed tax collectors, and making it difficult to implement the policy in many places. Colonists would resurrect these methods of resistance to oppose future policies.

Top: an embossed stamp for ten shillings.

Alongside protests in the streets, some colonists wrote pamphlets laying out constitutional arguments denying Parliament’s right to pass direct taxes on the colonies. Most strikingly, representatives from a number of colonies met in New York for a Stamp Act Congress, where they coordinated opposition to the tax, and wrote a pamphlet explaining their objections. The fourth resolution declared that, as they “are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances cannot be properly represented in the British Parliament,” their local legislatures retained sovereignty “in all cases of taxation and internal polity.” In short, only institutions that represented them could tax; of course the inverse of this was that they could not be taxed without representation. The arguments that colonists made in this moment shaped the terms of debate of the dynamic constitutional argument that ran through the American Revolution.

Yet despite Gordon’s optimism, tensions remained. Accompanying the law repealing the Stamp Act was another piece of legislation passed by Parliament, known as the Declaratory Act. It made clear that whatever the Stamp Act repeal might seem to signify, Parliament was not backing down in claiming the power to levy taxes on the colonies. The Declaratory Act proclaimed that “Parliament assembled” retained the “full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever.” The colonists’ constitutional arguments had not won the day as far as English officials were concerned. That Gordon did not mention the Declaratory Act is telling. Gordon stands in for the many colonists who yearned to maintain their place as subjects of the British Empire.

There is a reason it took eleven years for colonists to decide to write and support the Declaration of Independence. Colonists had not immediately become Americans in 1765, and the Revolution was far from the inevitable outcome of the Stamp Act. Rather, the excitement surrounding the Stamp Act’s repeal anticipated just how long and fraught of a process it would be to move from tension to revolution.

The sources pictured in this post both come from the Thomas Addis Emmet collection.

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