The Stamp Act and the American Revolution

The Stamps That Sparked Rebellion Weren’t Stamps at All

Aug 17, 2009

Anyone who has studied American history has heard of the Stamp Act. But what was this fuss all about, was it really so important, and what were those stamps anyway?

The fuss was about taxes. Back in the early 1760s, the British had just fought an expensive war against France. The British won and, as a result, took control of Canada and most territory in America east of the Mississippi river. But the war had been costly. The British Parliament figured that one reason for the war had been to protect the American colonies on the Atlantic seaboard. Therefore, Americans should pay for at least some of the cost of that war.

So Parliament passed several laws devised to raise taxes from the Americans. The Stamp Act was just one of those laws, but it was the one that most grated on Americans.

No Taxation Without Representation

Americans for a long time had been paying taxes to Britain. But those taxes had been mainly for regulating trade. That is, they were duties put in place to encourage trade with Great Britain and British controlled islands in the Caribbean and to discourage trade with everyone else. (Actually Americans smuggled a great deal, and thereby dodged many of those taxes.)

These new taxes were different in that they were designed to help support the government. Americans argued that they should not have to pay such taxes because they were not represented in Parliament and therefore never consented to the taxes. This was violation of the principle that people could not be taxed without their consent.

Taxes Affected Many

Other tax measures just before the Stamp Act didn't raise quite the furor of the Stamp Act because those earlier measures affected a relative few. The Stamp Act, by contrast, was crafted to take money from almost all Americans. It therefore raised protests from every segment of society.

Here is how it was supposed to work: Stacks of paper would be prepared in Britain with each sheet embossed—or stamped—with a special mark to indicate that it was paper authorized by the Stamp Act. Thus the “stamp” of the stamp Act was not a stamp at all in the most familiar modern sense—a small piece of paper that could be glued to an envelope. The “stamp” referred to embossing, the indentations made to paper after being “stamped.”

This embossed paper would be shipped to America and assigned to distributors, men who would sell the paper and then turn over proceeds from such sales—minus a nice fee—to the British government.

Stamped Paper Required for Newspapers, Legal Documents

Who would buy this paper? Directly or indirectly, just about everyone, because the Stamp Act required that the paper be used for a wide variety of official and unofficial documents. Lawyers were supposed to buy the paper for all legal documents. Printers were supposed to use the paper for newspapers. Colleges were required to use the paper for diplomas. The list of items that required stamped paper was extensive: bonds, deeds, mortgages, leases, contracts, bills of sale, articles of apprenticeship, liquor licenses, pamphlets, almanacs, even playing cards and dice. (How such paper could be used for dice is a little unclear, but probably dice offered for sale had to be wrapped in such paper.) Thus everyone from the rich merchant buying property to the sailor playing cards in the tavern would be paying the tax one way or another.

Of course, it never actually worked out that way. Americans managed to gum up the implementation of the act. In Boston for example, mobs so intimidated the presumed distributor that he resigned before he even learned of his appointment. In many places the act was simply ignored. Americans went about their business as if the act never happened. Meanwhile, many merchants banded together to boycott British goods as a signal to Parliament to undo the act.

That’s what Parliament did. Approved by the British Parliament in 1765, the act was repealed the very next year.

Stamp Act Congress

Obviously the act did nor start the War of Independence. That didn’t start until 1775.

So, why was it important? The Stamp Act heightened American sensitivities about their rights and about their differences with Britain. It also brought Americans together. The chief example of this was the so-called Stamp Act Congress, a meeting in New York of representatives from nine of the 13 of the colonies to formulate a united response to the act. As it turned out the activities of the Congress may have actually delayed the repeal of the act. However, that Congress established associations, friendships and bonds, and helped crystallize ideas that would later serve as the basis for the meeting of the First Continental Congress and other activities leading to the Revolution.

Ferling, John, A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic. New York, Oxford University Press, 2003.

Morgan, Edmund S. and Helen M., The Stamp Act Crisis, New York, Collier Books, 1963.

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