Stamp+Act

MHS2 http://www.masshist.org/revolution/stamp.php
 * STAMP ACT**


 * Guidelines for our weekly work**:

1. Bring hard copy (750-words) to class. Along with it, include notes and prior drafts. Remember, since this is a writing class, we are focusing on PROCESS.

2. Our syllabus is online at POLI300 Syllabus: http://thelearningprofessor.wikispaces.com/POLI300+Syllabus

3. Our weekly schedule follows the course module sections on our Learning Professor wiki.

Massachusetts Historical Society: Stamp Act Sons of Liberty Boston Massacre Boston Tea Party Lexington and Concord Bunker Hill

Library of Congress: Continental Army Northern Front Turning Point Southern Phase Home Front

Refer to my //Road to Revolution wiki page// for an outline of how this period unfolds:

http://thelearningprofessor.wikispaces.com/Road+to+Revolution

Feel free to use this //Wikipedia article// for context for this particular module:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamp_Act_1765


 * STAMP ACT**


 * Introduction**

George Grenville knows that the Sugar Act won't generate enough revenue in the colonies, and so he instructs his secretary in the Treasury, Thomas Whately, to draft legislation for a new tax.

This duty will require that a wide range of legal and trade documents, as well as newspapers and even dice, carry official stamps.

Whately makes inquiries about conditions in America, assuring his correspondents that he wants to devise a A Tax Not Too Burdensome.

Whately's informants tell him that the proposed tax will be fiercely opposed.

At the same time, and into February 1765, colonial agents meet with Grenville.

The colonists, they insist, are loyal subjects; they are **willing to raise a revenue in proper constitutional form, through their own legislatures**.

But Grenville **turns a deaf ear, Parliament refuses to entertain colonial petitions**, and the Stamp Act easily passes in March.

The stamps are on their way across the Atlantic.

Toward the end of May, news of the act reaches the colonies.

The Virginia House of Burgesses, ready to adjourn, rushes through a set of resolutions protesting the tax.

As newspapers throughout the colonies "reprint" **Virginia's Resolves**, the resolutions grow ever more numerous and radical.

Other colonies issue their own responses.

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts legislature circulates a call for a unified response to the economic and constitutional issues facing the colonies.

In mid-October 1765, twenty-seven delegates from nine colonies meet in New York City at what comes to be known as the **Stamp Act Congress**.

On 19 October, the congress adopts fourteen **resolutions**, which it promptly **forwards to King and Parliament**.

While **elite legislators** debate rights and craft petitions, **working-class men** find their own way to register their displeasure with the unwanted tax.

In **Boston**, **rival gangs** conspire and turn their fury toward the appointed stamp master, **Andrew Oliver**.

One night in mid-August 1765, Oliver watches from afar as his **effigy** swings and his house crumbles under the hands of an angry mob.

He resigns his commission to distribute the stamps, and throughout the colonies other stamp masters—attacked, or afraid of being attacked—likewise surrender their lucrative positions.

Boston's special art of persuasion translates readily to New York.

There a mob also hangs effigies and destroys a home, actions that achieve their desired end: no stamps will be distributed; no tax will be paid.

Whether refusing to render aid or fleeing in the aftermath of violence, **two royal officers** shirk the obligations of their posts to adopt a policy of **safety first.**

Merchant James Murray also pursues his own interests.

Believing that prosperity is the end and protectionism the means, he supports the status quo in British trade policy.


 * Patriot lawyer John Adams**, on the other hand, delights in the colonists' principled resistance. There is, nonetheless, a cost to resistance, and Adams feels its impact.

After 1 November 1765, the date the Stamp Act is due to go into effect, and throughout the early months of 1766, **public life is in disarray.**

The stamps required to conduct business legally are locked away, and officials debate whether ports and courts should close or remain open.

Colonists groan under the burden of the Stamp Act's restrictions and the fear of disobeying it.

In **England, sympathetic merchants**, eager to reestablish a free flow of trade and to regain their former profits, **lobby Parliament to rescind the tax on the colonies**.

After lengthy consideration, **Parliament votes to revoke the tax**, and when the glorious news reaches the colonies, church bells ring.

The victory, sweet as it is, will be short lived.


 * DOCUMENTS**:


 * A. A Tax Not Too Burdensome**

Grenville knows he won't be able to wring enough revenue from the colonies with the Sugar Act. Even before that measure goes into effect, the treasury office sets about drafting new legislation to raise additional taxes from His Majesty's subjects in America. England already has stamp legislation in place for its own residents, but governmental and judicial systems in the colonies differ, which will affect how the tax is implemented in America. Carefully researching his boss's new plan, Thomas Whately, Grenville's secretary, sends letters of inquiry to various acquaintances in the colonies. In the summer of 1764, he writes John Temple, Surveyor General in Boston. The Massachusetts legislature had enacted its own stamp tax in 1755, and Whately is curious about its particulars.

Questions to Consider

1. If Grenville's intention is to raise revenue in the colonies, why does Whately insist that "It will be a principal object of attention here to make this tax as little burthensome as possible?" Whately also apologizes to Temple for asking him to do so much research but calls the subject important. Why does Whately think it is important?

Further Exploration

2. Whately inquires about "stampt cards & dice." **Have you ever noticed that certain brands of playing cards have a stamp covering the opening flap of the deck box? Go to a stationery store and find such a deck of cards**. Ask the store manager if you can sketch the stamp. Report to the class on what you have discovered.

3. Whately refers to "indentures of apprentice." What are these? Research trade apprenticeships and write a short essay explaining how they worked. Benjamin Franklin served an apprenticeship and wrote about it. Locate a children's or young adult biography of Franklin, and report on this aspect of his life.

4. Research the life of John Temple. Does he become **a loyalist or a patriot**? Give evidence for your conclusion.

5. In our own time, politicians and government agencies still request **feedback from the public** before they pass new laws or policies. Can you think of any recent examples from your own community or state? Explain how the public provides feedback (e.g., public hearings, polls, etc.)

6. Research the Massachusetts Stamp Act of 1755. **What articles were taxed**? Were there any protests over or objections to the act?


 * B. The Stamps Are on Their Way**


 * Whately's American informants urge caution. Many influential colonists, they insist, are firm in their intention to resist Grenville's proposed stamp duty. Agents lobbying for the colonial position meet with Grenville. The king's loyal subjects in America, the agents assert, understand their responsibility to help support the empire. They are willing, through their own representative legislatures, to levy taxes to raise the requisite revenue. Grenville, however, stands on principle: Parliament, he declares, has the authority to tax the colonists directly. In the House of Commons, Grenville carries his point. Parliament refuses to hear any petitions against the stamp bill, for to do so might call its prerogative into question. Facing scant opposition, Grenville ushers his bill through Parliament. The dreaded stamps are on their way across the Atlantic, to be landed in colonial ports.**

Questions to Consider

1. The act lists over fifty items to be taxed. Make a list of twenty-five of them. Include at least five items with which you are unfamiliar. Look up their meaning in a dictionary.

2. The range of the tax extends from £6 to 3d. Find three items taxed at the high end (over £2) and two at the low end (under a shilling). Speculate why the treasury may have taxed those particular items high and low. Research British monetary equivalents, that is, how many pennies (d.) make a shilling (s.); how many shillings make a pound (£)?

3. Provisions 17-27 outline penalties for violating the Stamp Act. What is the harshest penalty? Why do you think the punishment is so harsh?

Further Exploration

4. Provision 13 is a crucial measure that will have wide-ranging implications for how Americans resist the tax in the future. Summarize that provision. Look forward in the Stamp Act unit and explain that resistance.


 * C. "Reprinting" Virginia's Resolves**

Throughout the spring months of 1765, while Parliament carries on the business of the empire, colonial legislatures meet to regulate their own affairs. As Virginia's May legislative session draws to a close, news arrives that the stamp tax has been enacted. On the 30th of the month**, goaded by the recently elected member Patrick Henry**, the Virginia House of Burgesses passes a series of resolutions that recasts its earlier objections, objections embodied in the petitions Parliament had refused to consider. Four Virginia Resolves are entered into the assembly's official record, but others have apparently been debated. When the conservative Virginia Gazette declines to print the approved resolves, radicals gain control of their publication. On 24 June, the Newport Mercury prints the resolves, now grown from four to six. By 7 July, when the Maryland Gazette carries them, they are seven in number. **Portrayed as more sweeping than they in fact are, the resolutions adopted by the Virginia House embolden other colonial legislatures**.

//To examine all four pages of this newspaper, please see the online display of the The Boston-Gazette, and Country Journal, 1 July 1765.//

Questions to Consider

1. Compare the four official Virginia Resolves, as listed in the glossary, to the resolves "reprinted" in the Newport Mercury. What is similar? What different? Which set of resolutions is more radical? Give evidence for your conclusion.

Further Exploration

2. The other colonies that prepared resolutions were: Rhode Island, South Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Maryland. Adopt one colony and research its resolutions. How do they compare to Virginia's official resolves?

3. Consider the **power of the press.** How might the protest against the Stamp Act have been different if the "radicals" had not had the opportunity to deliver their version of the Virginia Resolves? Taking the position of a conservative, or loyalist, who knows that the Virginia House of Burgesses adopted a set of resolves different from those represented in the Newport Mercury, write a letter to the editor of that newspaper protesting its misrepresentation of them.

4. **How does the news affect modern citizens' understanding of current events? Choose a contemporary event and compare how it is reported by at least three sources. Be sure to identify and characterize your sources (AP wire, news report, editorial, blog, etc.**)


 * D. A Call for a Unified Response**

Before the Virginia Resolves are made public, the Massachusetts legislature circulates a letter (dated 8 June 1765) calling for a unified response to the economic and constitutional issues menacing the colonies. In **1754, the Albany Congress** had urged the colonies to work together to combat the French threat in America. **Drawing on that precedent** from the era of the French and Indian war, Massachusetts proposes that representatives from each colony meet in New York City. Nine colonies send delegates, twenty-seven in all, to the **Stamp Act Congress**; the governors of Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia bar their assemblies from convening to elect representatives, and New Hampshire does not participate but later approves the body's actions. On 19 October 1765, the congress adopts fourteen resolutions, which it conveys, in separate and appropriate forms, to King, Commons, and Lords. Not until the resolutions are published in London do they make their way back across the Atlantic to America, where they appear in March 1766.

//To examine all four pages of this newspaper, please see the online display of the The Massachusetts Gazette, 20 March 1766.//

Questions to Consider

1. Rewrite the fourteen resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress in your own words. Which resolution do you think is most accommodating? Most radical? Most important?

Further Exploration

2. **The congress must address the King, the House of Commons, and the House of Lords in different ways**. Why do you think this is so? Explain. Research the differences among addresses, memorials, petitions, remonstrances, and declarations.

3. Choose one individual from the twenty-seven listed in the glossary definition of the Stamp Act Congress. Research his life. Use a resource beyond this website to write a two-paragraph biography of him.

4. Compare the list of delegates in the glossary definition of the Stamp Act Congress to the list of delegates in the glossary definition of the First Continental Congress. How many/which men attended both? Does the number surprise you? Why or why not?


 * E. An Effigy Swings and a House Crumbles**


 * Boston's working-class men** enter the debate over the Stamp Act in their own fashion. For years, **gangs** from the town's North and South Ends have converged on 5 November to celebrate Pope's Day (in England called Guy Fawkes Day, which commemorates the 1605 defeat of a Catholic plot to blow up Parliament). With a depression in full swing and unemployment high, some Bostonians take the occasion as an excuse to crack heads. In August 1765, when radicals (later identified as the Loyal Nine, forerunners of Boston's Sons of Liberty) approach Ebenezer McIntosh, ringleader of the South End mob, he readily accepts their offer to give his boys another cause for action. Andrew Oliver has been appointed stamp master for Boston. **He presents an object for scorn, effigy, and rampage much nearer to hand than the Pope**.

Questions to Consider

1. What do you think it means that the mob "stampd" the effigy, the timbers of Oliver's house, his garden fence, etc. Explain.

2. Trace the actions of the mob. Make a detailed listing of the havoc it caused.

Further Exploration

3. The imagery of the boot refers to John Stuart, Earl of Bute (1713-92), who was referred to by the nickname Jack Boot. Bute was tutor to King George III and for a time wielded a good deal of influence. Beyond information provided on this website, research his life to discover why the colonists associate him with the devil.

4. AO is Andrew Oliver, appointed stamp master in Boston. Beyond information provided on this website, research his life. What is his position in Boston?

5. Pretend you are Andrew Oliver. Write a letter to the Governor explaining why you are resigning your position as Stamp Master.

6. On 26 August 1765, another Boston mob attacks Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson's house. Research this event. How is it similar to the events of 14 August? How is it different?


 * F. The Art of Persuasion**

Paraded through the streets of Newport, Charleston, Boston, and elsewhere, **tortured effigies convince terrified stamp masters to resign their commissions**. Meanwhile, however, the stamps are arriving at colonial ports. With no one to receive them, **what is to be done with them**? It is a question that occupies everyone, no matter his or her station in life or political point of view. The situation is especially tense in New York, where General Thomas Gage, commander-in-chief of British forces in North America, is headquartered. The Governor's Council has withdrawn to the shelter of Fort George, and the stamps have also been deposited there for safekeeping. Lieutenant Governor Cadwallader Colden and regimental officer Major Thomas James have been particularly uncompromising on the matter of the stamps, and Archibald Kennedy, captain of the HMS Coventry patrolling New York Harbor, stands ready, they assume, to do his part. New Yorkers, however, have learned the art of persuasion from their "cousins" to the north. Moreover, their merchants and shopkeepers are conspiring to stymie trade with the motherland.

//To examine all four pages of this newspaper, please see the online display of The Boston Post-Boy & Advertiser, 18 November 1765.//

Questions to Consider

1. What have the merchants of New York agreed to do? Be specific. Do you think their agreement will have an effect? Why or why not? What support will they expect?

2. Trace the progress of the stamps from their arrival in New York on 23 October 1765. Who has won the battle of the stamps? Explain.

Further Exploration

3. Compare the riot in New York to the earlier one in Boston in which Andrew Oliver was hanged in effigy. What is similar between the two events? What is different? Which event do you believe had the largest impact? Defend your answer.

4. Violence and the threat of violence are important factors in resisting the Stamp Act. Reflect on the mob actions in Boston and New York. Do you think those responses were appropriate? Why or why not? Defend your point of view. **Are there any instances in contemporary American life in which you think such mob action would be justified**? Explain.


 * G. Safety Comes First**

The late night and early morning assault on Fort George and the dramatic destruction of Vaux Hall enlighten Captain Archibald Kennedy and point him toward his own, quite compelling self-interest. Stuck onboard the Coventry in New York Harbor, Kennedy weighs his options. The Lieutenant Governor and the Governor's Council plead for his assistance, but Kennedy also thinks about his elegant, and ever so vulnerable, mansion on Broadway. Meanwhile, Major Thomas James, with little left to keep him tied to the colonies, plots his exit strategy.

To examine additional correspondence on this topic, please see the The Letter from Thomas James to Archibald Kennedy, 4 November 1765, and the Letter from the mayor and corporation of the city of New York to Archibald Kennedy, 4 November 1765.

Questions to Consider

1. Do you think that Kennedy's reply to Lieutenant Governor Cadwallader Colden is sufficient? Honest? Why or why not?

2. What does Major Thomas James propose to do? Who is his letter addressed to? How do you think the recipient will respond?

Further Exploration

3. Read more about the history of Fort George in an encyclopedia or on the Internet. When was it built? What were some of its other names? Who has used the fort over time and for what purposes? Where was the fort located? Can you visit the site today? Draw a picture of the site as it might have looked in 1765.


 * THIS SECTION IS KEY**


 * H. Prosperity the End; Protectionism the Means**


 * In major colonial ports, mob action has complicated England's orderly plan to extract a revenue from the provinces**.


 * While some colonists celebrate the mob's effectiveness, others worry about its impact.**


 * If the mother country is a benevolent parent, why should an upstart America spurn the security of her loving-kindness for a short-term gain, the avoidance of a piddling tax.**


 * Rights may be an issue for the radical fringe, but rights, after all, are relative.**

For a man like merchant James Murray, prosperity is the end and protectionism the means. With an eye toward the future's distant horizon, the Boston merchant shares his political opinions with his brother.

Questions to Consider

1. What does Murray identify as the beneficial effect of the Stamp Act?

2. What concern does Murray express about colonial prosperity? Identify the economic system he is describing.

3. What effect has the Sugar Act had on Murray's business? What is his response?


 * I. The Cost of Resistance**

John Adams diary 11, 18 - 29 December 1765


 * John Adams ponders the cost of resistance to the Stamp Act** in this diary entry for 18 December 1765.

From the Adams Family Papers //The transcription of this entry (for 18 December 1765) from Adams's diary (diary 11, page 1) is featured on the Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive website. Online display of the diary.//

The Cost of Resistance On 1 November, with stamp masters having resigned their commissions and the stamps locked away in forts under the command of royal forces**, no one is quite sure how to go on with business without getting into trouble**. Rhode Island has voted to protect from harm all colonial officials who disregard the stamps and proceed with daily affairs as usual. But Massachusetts' assemblymen refuse to pass such a measure, arguing that to do so acknowledges the Stamp Act's legitimacy. Meanwhile the ports and courts are closed; lawyers are idle and trade is at an impasse. As public officials in executive, legislative, and judicial jurisdictions pass the buck from one to another and back again, John Adams turns to his diary to bemoan the loss of his recently won reputation and of his income.

Questions to Consider

1. Consider the provisions of the Stamp Act. What activities should be avoided because they require stamps? Write a paragraph about how everyday life will be affected if people simply refuse to engage in activities requiring stamps.

2. Another option is to ignore the Stamp Act and proceed with business as usual. Consider the penalties provisions (17-27) of the Stamp Act. What do merchants stand to lose? Farmers? Royal appointees?

3. What does Adams mean by the phrase "passive Obedience to the Stamp Act." How does he characterize it? What does he fear may result from it? Does he believe that this condition will continue? Why or why not?

Further Exploration

4. Adams considers his own self-interest. Compare his reflections to those of James Murray. What in their views might characterize one as a loyalist and the other as a patriot? (Click here to read James Murray's letter to his brother concerning the Stamp Act.

5. **Today the right to be taxed by a vote of our own representatives might seem like a somewhat obscure or remote concept. Think about the times in which we now live. What right would you be willing to stand up for? What would you be willing to sacrifice for it?**


 * J. Glorious News**

Throughout the early winter months of 1766, as colonists suffer under or simply ignore the provisions of the Stamp Act, **Parliament reconsiders it.**


 * The Marquis of Rockingham, now in control, sees the act as a bludgeon with which he can beat back Grenville, who has been thrust from office and now sits in the opposition in Parliament. Rockingham carefully builds his case against Grenville and the Stamp Act.**


 * British merchants are not happy. They are having difficulty collecting on their American debts, and colonial nonimportation agreements have disrupted the cross-Atlantic trade.**


 * To enforce the act and crush the incipient colonial rebellion, military experts believe it will require a significantly larger military presence in the provinces.**

After lengthy consideration, Parliament takes up Rockingham's motion.

This broadside reprints the announcement of the repeal of the Stamp Act that originally appeared in the London Gazette, 18 March 1766.

Questions to Consider

1. Do you think the account of the repeal as presented in the broadside is biased? Give evidence for your view.

2. Why did colonists ring church bells? On what other occasions were church bells rung?

Further Exploration

3. Consider the various factors leading up to repeal of the Stamp Act. Which do you consider most influential? Why? Defend your position. Argue your point with a classmate who has a different view.