March 22, 1765 – British Parliament Passes the Stamp Act, Imposing a New Tax on American Colonies

In the late 1700’s, Britain made the unfortunate mistake of not only trying to police the American colonists against their worser angels, but also assessing them taxes for the effort. The fact was that Britain had a lot of expenses and irritations associated with her American colonies.

In order to secure the northern border of America, Britain, joined by colonials, had fought the French and Indian War (1756-63) and procured Canada from the French, but it was a costly campaign. Moreover, after the war, the British permitted the French “Papists” to retain their property, thus “cheating” the Americans of the rich plunder anticipated at war’s end.

Map showing British territorial gains following the Treaty of Paris in pink, and Spanish territorial gains after the Treaty of Fontainebleau in yellow

Afterwards, Britain attempted to enforce compliance with treaties made with Native Americans by stationing troops in North America, and they forbade colonists from moving west of the Appalachians. This latter policy in particular was anathema to the Americans, who, long before their policy was articulated by the phrase “manifest destiny,” decided that they, not the Indians, were the superior race and therefore deserved the riches that lay to the west.

To help pay for the troops, the Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament on this day in history, March 22, 1765. The Stamp Act was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British government. The British Empire was deep in debt from the French and Indian War. Since the war benefited the American colonists as much as anyone else in the British Empire, the British government decided it was only fair for those colonists to shoulder part of the war’s cost.

Proof sheet of one-penny stamps submitted for approval to Commissioners of Stamps by engraver. 10 May 1765.

The British not only needed money to support the large force stationed in North America. In addition, as some historians have pointed out, demobilizing the army would have put 1,500 officers out of work, many of whom were well-connected in Parliament. This made it politically prudent to retain a large peacetime establishment, and preferably not at home. Or as John Adams complained later in a letter of June 17, 1768, Britain demands revenue from America, “appropriated to the maintenance of swarms of Officers and Pensioners in idleness and luxury, whose example has a tendency to corrupt our morals, and whose arbitrary dispositions will trample on our rights.”

The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a fee for every piece of printed paper they used. Ship’s papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, other publications, and even playing cards were taxed.

As the website of Colonial Williamsburg reports:

The actual cost of the Stamp Act was relatively small. What made the law so offensive to the colonists was not so much its immediate cost but the standard it seemed to set. In the past, taxes and duties on colonial trade had always been viewed as measures to regulate commerce, not to raise money. The Stamp Act, however, was viewed as a direct attempt by England to raise money in the colonies without the approval of the colonial legislatures. If this new tax were allowed to pass without resistance, the colonists reasoned, the door would be open for far more troublesome taxation in the future.”

In sum, the American colonists, who paid less taxes overall than did citizens in the British homeland, objected mightily to the uses to which the taxes were put and to the precedent it set. Furthermore they thought they had found adequate philosophical support for their position from Enlightenment ideas then roiling the West.

Tensions increased on both sides. After months of protest, and an appeal by Benjamin Franklin before the British House of Commons, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act in March, 1766. However, on the same day, Parliament passed the Declaratory Acts, asserting that the British government had free and total legislative power over the colonies. A year later, in a series of measures introduced into the English Parliament by Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend, the Townshend Acts imposed duties on glass, lead, paints, paper and tea imported into the colonies.

Charles Townshend- Chancellor of the Exchequer in the period following the repeal of the Stamp Act

Provocations and skirmishes marked the next three years, and once again Parliament repealed most of the taxes except the tea tax (for reasons having more to do with the needs of the colonies in India than in America). Again, the tax was low, and in fact, it made tea cheaper than before in America. But American smugglers resented the action, which would undercut their own profits. John Hancock organized a boycott of tea from the British East India Company, and its sales fell precipitously, while Hancock got wealthy smuggling in tea from elsewhere.

A rebel group, the Sons of Liberty, also interpreted the Tea Act (i.e., selling them cheaper goods!) as a hostile act by Britain. Thus the American rebels decided they must take action. On December 16, 1773, the Sons of Liberty, dressed as Native Americans, boarded three ships carrying East India Company tea and dumped 342 chests of it into Boston Harbor.

W.D. Cooper. “Boston Tea Party.”, The History of North America. London: E. Newberry, 1789 engraving

Britain’s retaliatory punitive measures galvanized other colonies to come to the aid of Massachusetts, and the American Revolution was on its way.