document_title: Chariot racing

question_text: where did the roman spectators watch chariot races

text: Chariot racing

text: Ancient Greek Era[edit]

text: Early chariot racing[edit]

text: It is unknown exactly when chariot racing began, but It may have been as old as chariots themselves. It is known from artistic evidence on pottery that the sport existed in the Mycenaean world,[a] but the first literary reference to a chariot race is one described by Homer, at the funeral games of Patroclus.[1] The participants in this race were Diomedes, Eumelus, Antilochus, Menelaus, and Meriones. The race, which was one lap around the stump of a tree, was won by Diomedes, who received a slave woman and a cauldron as his prize. A chariot race also was said to be the event that founded the Olympic Games; according to one legend, mentioned by Pindar, King Oenomaus challenged suitors for his daughter Hippodamia to a race, but was defeated by Pelops, who founded the Games in honour of his victory.[2][3]

text: Olympic Games[edit]

text: In the ancient Olympic Games, as well as the other Panhellenic Games, there were both four-horse (tethrippon, Greek: τέθριππον) and two-horse (synoris, Greek: συνωρὶς) chariot races, which were essentially the same aside from the number of horses. [b] The chariot racing event was first added to the Olympics in 680 BC with the games expanding from a one-day to a two-day event to accommodate the new event (but was not, in reality, the founding event).[4][5] The chariot race was not so prestigious as the foot race of 195 meters (stadion, Greek: στάδιον), but it was more important than other equestrian events such as racing on horseback, which were dropped from the Olympic Games very early on.[6]

text: The races themselves were held in the hippodrome, which held both chariot races and riding races. The single horse race was known as the "keles" (keles, Greek: κέλης).[c] The hippodrome was situated at the south-east corner of the sanctuary of Olympia, on the large flat area south of the stadium and ran almost parallel to the latter. Until recently, its exact location was unknown, since it is buried by several meters of sedimentary material from the Alfeios River. In 2008, however, Annie Muller and staff of the German Archeological Institute used radar to locate a large, rectangular structure similar to Pausanias's description. Pausanias, who visited Olympia in the second century AD, describes the monument as a large, elongated, flat space, approximately 780 meters long and 320 meters wide (four stadia long and one stadefour plethra wide). The elongated racecourse was divided longitudinally into two tracks by a stone or wooden barrier, the embolon. All the horses or chariots ran on one track toward the east, then turned around the embolon and headed back west. Distances varied according to the event. The racecourse was surrounded by natural (to the north) and artificial (to the south and east) banks for the spectators; a special place was reserved for the judges on the west side of the north bank.[7][8]

text: The race was begun by a procession into the hippodrome, while a herald announced the names of the drivers and owners. The tethrippon consisted of twelve laps around the hippodrome,[9] with sharp turns around the posts at either end. Various mechanical devices were used, including the starting gates (hyspleges, Greek: ὕσπληγγες; singular: hysplex, Greek: ὕσπληγξ) which were lowered to start the race.[10] According to Pausanias, these were invented by the architect Cleoitas, and staggered so that the chariots on the outside began the race earlier than those on the inside. The race did not begin properly until the final gate was opened, at which point each chariot would be more or less lined up alongside each other, although the ones that had started on the outside would have been traveling faster than the ones in the middle. Other mechanical devices known as the "eagle" and the "dolphin" were raised to signify that the race had begun, and were lowered as the race went on to signify the number of laps remaining. These were probably bronze carvings of those animals, set up on posts at the starting line.[11]

text: In most cases, the owner and the driver of the chariot were different persons. In 416 BC, the Athenian general Alcibiades had seven chariots in the race, and came in first, second, and fourth; obviously, he could not have been racing all seven chariots himself.[12] Philip II of Macedon also won an Olympic chariot race in an attempt to prove he was not a barbarian, although if he had driven the chariot himself he would likely have been considered even lower than a barbarian. The poet Pindar did praise the courage of Herodotes of Thebes, however, for driving his own chariot.[13] This rule also meant that women could win the race through ownership, despite the fact that women were not allowed to participate in or even watch the Games.[4] This happened rarely, but a notable example is the Spartan Cynisca, daughter of Archidamus II, who won the chariot race twice.[14] Chariot racing was a way for Greeks to demonstrate their prosperity at the games. The case of Alcibiades indicates also that chariot racing was an alternative route to public exposure and fame for the wealthy.[15]

text: The charioteer was usually either a family member of the owner of the chariot or, in most cases, a slave or a hired professional.[5] Driving a racing chariot required unusual strength, skill, and courage. Yet, we know the names of very few charioteers,[16] and victory songs and statues regularly contrive to leave them out of account.[17] Unlike the other Olympic events, charioteers did not perform in the nude, probably for safety reasons because of the dust kicked up by the horses and chariots, and the likelihood of bloody crashes. Racers wore a sleeved garment called a xystis. It fell to the ankles and was fastened high at the waist with a plain belt. Two straps that crossed high at the upper back prevented the xystis from "ballooning" during the race.[18]

text: The chariots themselves were modified war chariots, essentially wooden carts with two wheels and an open back,[19] although chariots were by this time no longer used in battle. The charioteer's feet were held in place, but the cart rested on the axle, so the ride was bumpy. The most exciting part of the chariot race, at least for the spectators, was the turns at the ends of the hippodrome. These turns were very dangerous and often deadly. If a chariot had not already been knocked over by an opponent before the turn, it might be overturned or crushed (along with the horses and driver) by the other chariots as they went around the post. Deliberately running into an opponent to cause him to crash was technically illegal, but nothing could be done about it (at Patroclus' funeral games, Antilochus in fact causes Menelaus to crash in this way,[20]) and crashes were likely to happen by accident anyway.

text: Other festivals[edit]

text: As a result of the rise of the Greek cities of the classic period, other great festivals emerged in Asia Minor, Magna Graecia, and the mainland providing the opportunity for athletes to gain fame and riches. Apart from the Olympics, the best respected were the Isthmian Games in Corinth, the Nemean Games, the Pythian Games in Delphi, and the Panathenaic Games in Athens, where the winner of the four-horse chariot race was given 140 amphorae of olive oil (much sought after and precious in ancient times). Prizes at other competitions included corn in Eleusis, bronze shields in Argos, and silver vessels in Marathon.[d] Another form of chariot racing at the Panathenaic Games was known as the apobatai, in which the contestant wore armor and periodically leapt off a moving chariot and ran alongside it before leaping back on again.[21] In these races, there was a second charioteer (a "rein-holder") while the apobates jumped out; in the catalogues with the winners both the names of the apobates and of the rein-holder are mentioned.[22] Images of this contest show warriors, armed with helmets and shields, perched on the back of their racing chariots.[23] Some scholars believe that the event preserved traditions of Homeric warfare.[24]

text: Roman era[edit]

text: The Romans probably borrowed chariot racing from the Etruscans as well as the racing tracks, who themselves borrowed it from the Greeks, but the Romans were also influenced directly by the Greeks.[25][26][e] According to Roman legend, chariot racing was used by Romulus just after he founded Rome in 753 BC as a way of distracting the Sabine men. Romulus sent out invitations to the neighbouring towns to celebrate the festival of the Consualia, which included both horse races and chariot races. Whilst the Sabines were enjoying the spectacle, Romulus and his men seized and carried off the Sabine women, who became wives of the Romans.[27][28] Chariot races were a part of several Roman religious festivals, and on these occasions were preceded by a parade (pompa circensis) that featured the charioteers, music, costumed dancers, and images of the gods. While the entertainment value of chariot races tended to overshadow any sacred purpose, in late antiquity the Church Fathers still saw them as a traditional "pagan" practice, and advised Christians not to participate.[29]

text: In ancient Rome, chariot races commonly took place in a circus.[30] The main centre of chariot racing was the Circus Maximus in the valley between Palatine Hill and Aventine Hill,[f] which could seat 250,000 people.[27] It was the earliest circus in the city of Rome.[30] The Circus was supposed to date to the city's earliest times,[g] but it was rebuilt by Julius Caesar around 50 BC so that it had a length of about 650 metres (2,130 ft) and a width of about 125 metres (410 ft).[31] One end of the track was more open than the other, as this was where the chariots lined up to begin the race. The Romans used a series of gates known as carceres, an equivalent to the Greek hysplex. These were staggered in the same way as the hysplex, but they were slightly different because Roman racing tracks also had a median (the spina) in the centre of the track.[32] The carceres took up the angled end of the track,[33] and the chariots were loaded into spring-loaded gates. When the chariots were ready, the emperor (or whoever was hosting the races, if they were not in Rome) dropped a cloth known as a mappa, signalling the beginning of the race.[34] The gates would spring open, creating a perfectly fair beginning for all participants.

text: Once the race had begun, the chariots could move in front of each other in an attempt to cause their opponents to crash into the spinae (singular spina). On the top of the spinae stood small tables or frames supported on pillars, and also small pieces of marble in the shape of eggs or dolphins.[33][35] The spina eventually became very elaborate, with statues and obelisks and other forms of art, but the multiplication of the adornments of the spina had one unfortunate result: They became so numerous that they obstructed the view of spectators on lower seats.[36] At either end of the spina was a meta, or turning point, in the form of large gilded columns.[37] [35] Spectacular crashes in which the chariot was destroyed and the charioteer and horses incapacitated were known as naufragia, also the Latin word for shipwrecks.[38]

text: The race itself was much like its Greek counterpart, although there were usually 24 races every day that, during the fourth century, took place on 66 days each year.[39] However, a race consisted of only 7 laps (and later 5 laps, so that there could be even more races per day), instead of the 12 laps of the Greek race.[33] The Roman style was also more money-oriented; racers were professionals and there was widespread betting among spectators.[40][41][42] There were four-horse chariots (quadrigae) and two-horse chariots (bigae), but the four-horse races were more important.[33] In rare cases, if a driver wanted to show off his skill, he could use up to 10 horses, although this was extremely impractical.

text: The technique and clothing of Roman charioteers differed significantly from those used by the Greeks. Roman drivers wrapped the reins round their waist, while the Greeks held the reins in their hands.[h] Because of this, the Romans could not let go of the reins in a crash, so they would be dragged around the circus until they were killed or they freed themselves. In order to cut the reins and keep from being dragged in case of accident, they carried a falx, a curved knife. They also wore helmets and other protective gear.[43][35] In any given race, there might be a number of teams put up by each faction, who would cooperate to maximize their chances of victory by ganging up on opponents, forcing them out of the preferred inside track or making them lose concentration and expose themselves to accident and injury.[43][35] Spectators could also play a part as there is evidence they threw lead "curse" amulets studded with nails at teams opposing their favourite.[44]

text: Another important difference was that the charioteers themselves, the aurigae, were considered to be the winners, although they were usually also slaves (as in the Greek world). They received a wreath of laurel leaves, and probably some money; if they won enough races they could buy their freedom.[17] Drivers could become celebrities throughout the Empire simply by surviving, as the life expectancy of a charioteer was not very high. One such celebrity driver was Scorpus, who won over 2000 races[3] before being killed in a collision at the meta when he was about 27 years old. The most famous of all was Gaius Appuleius Diocles who won 1,462 out of 4,257 races. When Diocles retired at the age of 42 after a 24-year career his winnings reportedly totalled 35,863,120 sesterces ($US 15 billion), making him the highest paid sports star in history.[45] The horses, too, could become celebrities, but their life expectancy was also low. The Romans kept detailed statistics of the names, breeds, and pedigrees of famous horses.

text: Seats in the Circus were free for the poor, who by the time of the Empire had little else to do, as they were no longer involved in political or military affairs as they had been in the Republic. The wealthy could pay for shaded seats where they had a better view, and they probably also spent much of their times betting on the races. The circus was the only place where the emperor showed himself before a populace assembled in vast numbers, and where the latter could manifest their affection or anger. The imperial box, called the pulvinar in the Circus Maximus, was directly connected to the imperial palace.[46]

text: The driver's clothing was color-coded in accordance with his faction, which would help distant spectators to keep track of the race's progress.[47] According to Tertullian, there were originally just two factions, White and Red, sacred to winter and summer respectively.[48] As fully developed, there were four factions, the Red, White, Green, and Blue.[49] Each team could have up to three chariots each in a race. Members of the same team often collaborated with each other against the other teams, for example to force them to crash into the spina (a legal and encouraged tactic).[33] Drivers could switch teams, much like athletes can be traded to different teams today.

text: By 77 BC, the rivalry between the Red and the Whites was already developed, when a funeral for a Red driver involved a Red supporter throwing himself on the funeral pyre. No writer of the time, however, refers to these as factions such as came into existence later, with the factions being official organizations.[33] Writing near the beginning of the third century, he wrote that the Reds were dedicated to Mars, the Whites to the Zephyrs, the Greens to Mother Earth or spring, and the Blues to the sky and sea or autumn.[48] Domitian created two new factions, the Purples and Golds, which disappeared soon after he died.[33] The Blues and the Greens gradually became the most prestigious factions, supported by emperor and populace alike. Numerous occasions occurred when a Blue vs. Green clash would break out during a race. Indeed, Reds and Whites are only rarely mentioned in the surviving literature, although their continued activity is documented in inscriptions and in curse-tablets.[50]

text: Byzantine era[edit]

text: Like many other aspects of the Roman world, chariot racing continued in the Byzantine Empire, although the Byzantines did not keep as many records and statistics as the Romans did. In place of the detailed inscriptions of Roman racing statistics, several short epigrams in verse were composed celebrating some of the more famous Byzantine Charioteers.[51] The six charioteers about whom these laudatory verses were written were Anastasius, Julianus of Tyre, Faustinus, his son, Constantinus, Uranius, and Porphyrius.[52] Although Anastasius's single epigram reveals almost nothing about him, Porphyrius is much better known, having thirty-four known poems dedicated to him.[53]

text: Constantine I (r. 306–337) preferred chariot racing to gladiatorial combat, which he considered a vestige of paganism.[54] However, the end of gladiatorial games in the Empire may have been more the result of the difficulty and expense that came with procuring gladiators to fight in the games, than the influence of Christianity in Byzantium.[55] The Olympic Games were eventually ended by Emperor Theodosius I (r. 379–395) in 393, perhaps in a move to suppress paganism and promote Christianity, but chariot racing remained popular. The fact that chariot racing became linked to the imperial majesty meant that the Church did not prevent it, although gradually prominent Christian writers, such as Tertullian, began attacking the sport.[56] Despite the influence of Christianity in the Byzantine Empire, venationes, bloody wild-beast hunts, continued as a form of popular entertainment during the early days of the Empire as part of the extra entertainment that went along with chariot racing. Eventually, Emperor Leo (r. 457–474) banned public entertainments on Sundays in 469, showing that the hunts did not have imperial support, and the venationes were banned completely by Emperor Anastasius (r. 491–518) in 498. Anastasius was praised for this action by some sources, but their concern seems to be more for the danger the hunts could put humans in rather than for objections to the brutality or moral objections.[55] There continued to be burnings and mutilations of humans who committed crimes or were enemies of the state in the hippodrome throughout the Byzantine Empire, as well as victory celebrations and imperial coronations.[57]

text: The chariot races were important in the Byzantine Empire, as in the Roman Empire, as a way to reinforce social class and political power, including the might of the Byzantine emperor, and were often put on for political or religious reasons.[58] In addition, chariot races were sometimes held in celebration of an emperor's birthday.[59] An explicit parallel was drawn between the victorious charioteers and the victorious emperor. The factions addressed their victors by chanting "Rejoice ... your Lords have conquered" while the charioteer took a victory lap, further indicating the parallel between the charioteer's victory and the emperor's victory.[60] Indeed, reliefs of Porphyrius, the famous Byzantine charioteer, show him in a victor's pose being acclaimed by partisans, which is clearly modeled on the images on the base of Emperor Theodosius's obelisk.[61] The races could also be used to symbolically make religious statements, such as when a charioteer, whose mother was named Mary, fell off his chariot and got back on and the crowd described it as "The son of Mary has fallen and risen again and is victorious."[62]

text: The Hippodrome of Constantinople (really a Roman circus, not the open space that the original Greek hippodromes were) was connected to the emperor's palace and the Church of Hagia Sophia, allowing spectators to view the emperor as they had in Rome.[i] Citizens used their proximity to the emperor in the circuses and theatres to express public opinion, like their dissatisfaction with the Emperor's errant policy.[63] It has been argued that the people became so powerful that the emperors had no choice but to grant them more legal rights. However, contrary to this traditional view, it appears, based on more recent historical research, that the Byzantine emperors treated the protests and petitions of their citizens in the circuses with greater contempt and were more dismissive of them than their Roman predecessors. Justinian I (r. 527–565), for instance, seems to have been dismissive of the Greens' petitions and to have never negotiated with them at all.[64]

text: There is not much evidence that the chariot races were subject to bribes or other forms of cheating in the Roman Empire. In the Byzantine Empire, there seems to have been more cheating; Justinian I's reformed legal code prohibits drivers from placing curses on their opponents, but otherwise there does not seem to have been any mechanical tampering or bribery. Wearing the colours of one's team became an important aspect of Byzantine dress.

text: Chariot racing in the Byzantine Empire also included the Roman racing clubs, which continued to play a prominent role in these public exhibitions. By this time, the Blues (Vénetoi) and the Greens (Prásinoi) had come to overshadow the other two factions of the Whites (Leukoí) and Reds (Roúsioi), while still maintaining the paired alliances, although these were now fixed as Blue and White vs. Green and Red.[j] These circus factions were no longer the private businesses they were during the Roman Empire. Instead, the races began to be given regular, public funding, putting them under imperial control.[65] Running the chariot races at public expense was probably a cost-cutting and labor-reducing measure, making it easier to channel the proper funds into the racing organizations.[66] The Emperor himself belonged to one of the four factions, and supported the interests of either the Blues or the Greens.[67][68]

text: Adopting the color of their favorite charioteers was a way fans showed their loyalty to that particular racer or faction.[69] Many of the young men in the fan clubs, or factions, adopted extravagant clothing and hairstyles, such as billowing sleeves, "Hunnic" hair-styles, and "Persian" facial hair.[70][71] There is evidence that these young men were the faction members most prone to violence and extreme factional rivalry.[72] Some scholars have tried to argue that the factional rivalry and violence was a result of opposing religious or political views, but more likely the young men simply identified strongly with their faction for group solidarity. The factional violence was probably engaged in similarly to the violence of modern football or soccer fans.[73] The games themselves were the usual focus of the factional violence, even when it was taken to the streets.[74] Although fans who went to the hippodrome cheered on their favorite charioteers, their loyalty appears to be to the color for which the charioteer drove more than for the individual driver. Charioteers could change faction allegiance and race for different colors during their careers, but the fans did not change their allegiance to their color.[75]

text: The Blues and the Greens were now more than simply sports teams. They gained influence in military, political,[k] and theological matters, although the hypothesis that the Greens tended towards Monophysitism and the Blues represented Orthodoxy is disputed. It is now widely believed that neither of the factions had any consistent religious bias or allegiance, in spite of the fact that they operated in an environment fraught with religious controversy.[76][77] According to some scholars, the Blue-Green rivalry contributed to the conditions that underlay the rise of Islam, while factional enmities were exploited by the Sassanid Empire in its conflicts with the Byzantines during the century preceding Islam's advent.[l]

text: The Blue-Green rivalry often erupted into gang warfare, and street violence had been on the rise in the reign of Justin I (r. 518–527), who took measures to restore order, when the gangs murdered a citizen in the Hagia Sophia.[76] Riots culminated in the Nika riots of 532 AD during the reign of Justinian, which began when the two main factions united and attempted unsuccessfully to overthrow the emperor.[78]

text: Chariot racing seems to have declined in the course of the seventh century, with the losses the Empire suffered at the hands of the Arabs and the decline of the population and economy.[79] The Blues and Greens, deprived of any political power, were relegated to a purely ceremonial role. After the Nika riots, the factions grew less violent as their importance in imperial ceremony increased.[80] In particular, the iconoclast emperor Constantine V (r. 741–775) courted the factions for their support in his campaigns against the monks. They aided the emperor in executing his prisoners and by putting on shows in which monks and nuns held hands while the crowd hissed at them. Constantine V seems to have given the factions a political role in addition to their traditionally ceremonial role.[81] The two factions continued their activity until the imperial court was moved to Blachernae during the 12th century.[82]

text: The Hippodrome in Constantinople remained in use for races, games, and public ceremonies up to the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. In the 12th century, Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143–1180) even staged Western-style jousting matches in the Hippodrome. During the sack of 1204, the Crusaders looted the city and, among other things, removed the copper quadriga that stood above the carceres; it is now displayed at St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice.[83] Thereafter, the Hippodrome was neglected, although still occasionally used for spectacles. A print of the Hippodrome from the fifteenth century shows a derelict site, a few walls still standing, and the spina, the central reservation, robbed of its splendor. Today, only the obelisks and the Serpent Column stand where for centuries the spectators gathered.[3] In the West, the games had ended much sooner; by the end of the fourth century public entertainments in Italy had come to an end in all but a few towns.[84] The last recorded chariot race in Rome itself took place in the Circus Maximus in 549 AD.[85]


document_title: Stamp Act 1765

question_text: who urged the virginia house of burgesses to condemn the stamp act

question_tokens: who urged the virginia house of burgesses to condemn the stamp act

root

text: Stamp Act 1765

text: Background[edit]

text: The British victory in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), known in America as the French and Indian War, had been won only at a great financial cost. During the war, the British national debt nearly doubled, rising from £72,289,673 in 1755 to almost £129,586,789 by 1764.[10] Post-war expenses were expected to remain high because the Bute ministry decided in early 1763 to keep ten thousand British regular soldiers in the American colonies, which would cost about £225,000 per year, equal to £30 million today.[11] The primary reason for retaining such a large force was that demobilizing the army would put 1,500 officers out of work, many of whom were well-connected in Parliament.[12] This made it politically prudent to retain a large peacetime establishment, but Britons were averse to maintaining a standing army at home so it was necessary to garrison most of the troops elsewhere.[13]

tag: p

text: Stationing 10,000 troops to separate American Indians and frontiersmen was one role. The outbreak of Pontiac's Rebellion in May 1763 apparently reinforced the logic of this decision, as it was an American Indian uprising against the British expansion.[14] The main reason to send 10,000 troops deep into the wilderness was to provide billets for the officers who were part of the British patronage system.[15] John Adams said, "Revenue is still demanded from America, and appropriated to the maintenance of swarms of officers and pensioners in idleness and luxury."[16]

text: George Grenville became prime minister in April 1763 after the failure of the short-lived Bute Ministry, and he had to find a way to pay for this large peacetime army. Raising taxes in Britain was out of the question, since there had been virulent protests in England against the Bute ministry's 1763 cider tax, with Bute being hanged in effigy.[17] The Grenville ministry therefore decided that Parliament would raise this revenue by taxing the American colonists without their consent. This was something new; Parliament had previously passed measures to regulate trade in the colonies, but it had never before directly taxed the colonies to raise revenue.[18]

text: Politicians in London had always expected American colonists to contribute to the cost of their own defense. So long as a French threat existed, there was little trouble convincing colonial legislatures to provide assistance. Such help was normally provided through the raising of colonial militias, which were funded by taxes raised by colonial legislatures. Also, the legislatures were sometimes willing to help maintain regular British units defending the colonies. So long as this sort of help was forthcoming, there was little reason for the British Parliament to impose its own taxes on the colonists. But after the peace of 1763, colonial militias were quickly stood down. Militia officers were tired of the disdain shown to them by regular British officers, and were frustrated by the near-impossibility of obtaining regular British commissions; they were unwilling to remain in service once the war was over. In any case, they had no military role, as the Indian threat was minimal and there was no foreign threat. Colonial legislators saw no need for the British troops.

text: The Sugar Act of 1764 was the first tax in Grenville's program to raise a revenue in America, which was a modification of the Molasses Act of 1733. The Molasses Act had imposed a tax of 6 pence per gallon (equal to £3.81 today) on foreign molasses imported into British colonies. The purpose of the Molasses Act was not actually to raise revenue, but instead to make foreign molasses so expensive that it effectively gave a monopoly to molasses imported from the British West Indies.[19] It did not work; colonial merchants avoided the tax by smuggling or, more often, bribing customs officials.[20] The Sugar Act reduced the tax to 3 pence per gallon (equal to £1.63 today) in the hope that the lower rate would increase compliance and thus increase the amount of tax collected.[21] The Act also taxed additional imports and included measures to make the customs service more effective.[22]

text: American colonists initially objected to the Sugar Act for economic reasons, but before long they recognized that there were constitutional issues involved.[23] The British Constitution guaranteed that British subjects could not be taxed without their consent, which came in the form of representation in Parliament. The colonists elected no members of Parliament, and so it was seen as a violation of the British Constitution for Parliament to tax them. There was little time to raise this issue in response to the Sugar Act, but it came to be a major objection to the Stamp Act the following year.

text: British decision-making[edit]

text: Parliament announced in April 1764 when the Sugar Act was passed that they would also consider a stamp tax in the colonies.[24] Opposition from the colonies was soon forthcoming to this possible tax, but neither members of Parliament nor American agents in Great Britain (such as Benjamin Franklin) anticipated the intensity of the protest that the tax generated.[25]

text: Stamp acts had been a very successful method of taxation within Great Britain; they generated over £100,000 in tax revenue with very little in collection expenses. By requiring an official stamp on most legal documents, the system was almost self-regulating; a document would be null and void under British law without the required stamp. Imposition of such a tax on the colonies had been considered twice before the Seven Years' War and once again in 1761. Grenville had actually been presented with drafts of colonial stamp acts in September and October 1763, but the proposals lacked the specific knowledge of colonial affairs to adequately describe the documents subject to the stamp. At the time of the passage of the Sugar Act in April 1764, Grenville made it clear that the right to tax the colonies was not in question, and that additional taxes might follow, including a stamp tax.[26]

text: The Glorious Revolution had established the principle of parliamentary supremacy. Control of colonial trade and manufactures extended this principle across the ocean. This belief had never been tested on the issue of colonial taxation, but the British assumed that the interests of the thirteen colonies were so disparate that a joint colonial action was unlikely to occur against such a tax–an assumption that had its genesis in the failure of the Albany Conference in 1754. By the end of December 1764, the first warnings of serious colonial opposition were provided by pamphlets and petitions from the colonies protesting both the Sugar Act and the proposed stamp tax.[27]

text: For Grenville, the first issue was the amount of the tax. Soon after his announcement of the possibility of a tax, he had told American agents that he was not opposed to the Americans suggesting an alternative way of raising the money themselves. However, the only other alternative would be to requisition each colony and allow them to determine how to raise their share. This had never worked before, even during the French and Indian War, and there was no political mechanism in place that would have ensured the success of such cooperation. On 2 February 1765, Grenville met to discuss the tax with Benjamin Franklin, Jared Ingersoll from New Haven, Richard Jackson, agent for Connecticut, and Charles Garth, the agent for South Carolina (Jackson and Garth were also members of Parliament). These colonial representatives had no specific alternative to present; they simply suggested that the determination be left to the colonies. Grenville replied that he wanted to raise the money "by means the most easy and least objectionable to the Colonies". Thomas Whately had drafted the Stamp Act, and he said that the delay in implementation had been "out of Tenderness to the colonies", and that the tax was judged as "the easiest, the most equal and the most certain."[28]

text: The debate in Parliament began soon after this meeting. Petitions submitted by the colonies were officially ignored by Parliament. In the debate, Charles Townshend said, "and now will these Americans, children planted by our care, nourished up by our Indulgence until they are grown to a degree of strength and opulence, and protected by our arms, will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from heavy weight of the burden which we lie under?"[29] This led to Colonel Isaac Barré’s response:

text: They planted by your care? No! Your oppression planted ‘em in America. They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated and unhospitable country where they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable, and among others to the cruelties of a savage foe, the most subtle, and I take upon me to say, the most formidable of any people upon the face of God’s earth....

text: They nourished by your indulgence? They grew by your neglect of ‘em. As soon as you began to care about ‘em, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule over 'em, in one department and another, who were perhaps the deputies of deputies to some member of this house, sent to spy out their liberty, to misrepresent their actions and to prey upon 'em; men whose behaviour on many occasions has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them....

text: They protected by your arms? They have nobly taken up arms in your defence, have exerted a valour amidst their constant and laborious industry for the defence of a country whose frontier while drenched in blood, its interior parts have yielded all its little savings to your emolument .... The people I believe are as truly loyal as any subjects the king has, but a people jealous of their liberties and who will vindicate them if ever they should be violated; but the subject is too delicate and I will say no more."[30]

text: Details of tax[edit]

text: The Stamp Act was passed by Parliament on 22 March 1765 with an effective date of 1 November 1765. It passed 205–49 in the House of Commons and unanimously in the House of Lords.[31] Historians Edmund and Helen Morgan describe the specifics of the tax:

text: The highest tax, £10, was placed ... on attorney licenses. Other papers relating to court proceedings were taxed in amounts varying from 3d. to 10s. Land grants under a hundred acres were taxed 1s. 6d., between 100 and 200 acres 2s., and from 200 to 320 acres 2s. 6d., with an additional 2s 6d. for every additional 320 acres (1.3 km2). Cards were taxed a shilling a pack, dice ten shillings, and newspapers and pamphlets at the rate of a penny for a single sheet and a shilling for every sheet in pamphlets or papers totaling more than one sheet and fewer than six sheets in octavo, fewer than twelve in quarto, or fewer than twenty in folio (in other words, the tax on pamphlets grew in proportion to their size but ceased altogether if they became large enough to qualify as a book).[32]

text: The high taxes on lawyers and college students were designed to limit the growth of a professional class in the colonies.[33] The stamps had to be purchased with hard currency, which was scarce, rather than the more plentiful colonial paper currency. To avoid draining currency out of the colonies, the revenues were to be expended in America, especially for supplies and salaries of British Army units who were stationed there.[34]

text: Two features of the Stamp Act involving the courts attracted special attention. The tax on court documents specifically included courts "exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction." These type of courts did not currently exist in the colonies and no bishops were currently assigned to the colonies, who would preside over the courts. Many colonists or their ancestors had fled England specifically to escape the influence and power of such state-sanctioned religious institutions, and they feared that this was the first step to reinstating the old ways in the colonies. Some Anglicans in the northern colonies were already openly advocating the appointment of such bishops, but they were opposed by both southern Anglicans and the non-Anglicans who made up the majority in the northern colonies.[35]

text: The Stamp Act allowed admiralty courts to have jurisdiction for trying violators, following the example established by the Sugar Act. However, admiralty courts had traditionally been limited to cases involving the high seas. The Sugar Act seemed to fall within this precedent, but the Stamp Act did not, and the colonists saw this as a further attempt to replace their local courts with courts controlled by England.[36]

text: Colonial reaction[edit]

text: Political responses[edit]

text: Grenville started appointing Stamp Distributors almost immediately after the Act passed Parliament. Applicants were not hard to come by because of the anticipated income that the positions promised, and he appointed local colonists to the post. Benjamin Franklin even suggested the appointment of John Hughes as the agent for Pennsylvania, indicating that even Franklin was not aware of the turmoil and impact that the tax was going to generate on American-British relations or that these distributors would become the focus of colonial resistance.[37]

text: Debate in the colonies had actually begun in the spring of 1764 over the Stamp Act when Parliament passed a resolution that contained the assertion, "That, towards further defraying the said Expences, it may be proper to charge certain Stamp Duties in the said Colonies and Plantations." Both the Sugar Act and the proposed Stamp Act were designed principally to raise revenue from the colonists. The Sugar Act, to a large extent, was a continuation of past legislation related primarily to the regulation of trade (termed an external tax), but its stated purpose was entirely new: to collect revenue directly from the colonists for a specific purpose. The novelty of the Stamp Act was that it was the first internal tax (a tax based entirely on activities within the colonies) levied directly on the colonies by Parliament. It was judged by the colonists to be a more dangerous assault on their rights than the Sugar Act was, because of its potential wide application to the colonial economy.[38]

text: The theoretical issue that soon held center stage was the matter of taxation without representation. Benjamin Franklin had raised this as far back as 1754 at the Albany Congress when he wrote, "That it is suppos’d an undoubted Right of Englishmen not to be taxed but by their own Consent given thro’ their Representatives. That the Colonies have no Representatives in Parliament."[39] The counter to this argument was the theory of virtual representation. Thomas Whately enunciated this theory in a pamphlet that readily acknowledged that there could be no taxation without consent, but the facts were that at least 75% of British adult males were not represented in Parliament because of property qualifications or other factors. Members of Parliament were bound to represent the interests of all British citizens and subjects, so colonists were the recipients of virtual representation in Parliament, like those disenfranchised subjects in the British Isles.[40] This theory, however, ignored a crucial difference between the unrepresented in Britain and the colonists. The colonists enjoyed actual representation in their own legislative assemblies, and the issue was whether these legislatures, rather than Parliament, were in fact the sole recipients of the colonists' consent with regard to taxation.[41]

text: In May 1764, Samuel Adams of Boston drafted the following that stated the common American position:

text: For if our Trade may be taxed why not our Lands? Why not the Produce of our Lands & every thing we possess or make use of? This we apprehend annihilates our Charter Right to govern & tax ourselves – It strikes our British Privileges, which as we have never forfeited them, we hold in common with our Fellow Subjects who are Natives of Britain: If Taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal Representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the Character of free Subjects to the miserable State of tributary Slaves.[42]

text: Massachusetts appointed a five-member Committee of Correspondence in June 1764 to coordinate action and exchange information regarding the Sugar Act, and Rhode Island formed a similar committee in October 1764. This attempt at unified action represented a significant step forward in colonial unity and cooperation. The Virginia House of Burgesses sent a protest of the taxes to London in December 1764, arguing that they did not have the specie required to pay the tax.[43] Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Connecticut also sent protest to England in 1764. The content of the messages varied, but they all emphasized that taxation of the colonies without colonial assent was a violation of their rights. By the end of 1765, all of the Thirteen Colonies except Georgia and North Carolina had sent some sort of protest passed by colonial legislative assemblies.[44]

text: The Virginia House of Burgesses reconvened in early May 1765 after news was received of the passage of the Act. By the end of May, it appeared that they would not consider the tax, and many legislators went home, including George Washington. Only 30 out of 116 Burgesses remained, but one of those remaining was Patrick Henry who was attending his first session. Henry led the opposition to the Stamp Act; he proposed his resolutions on 30 May 1765, and they were passed in the form of the Virginia Resolves.[45] The Resolves stated:

text: Resolved, That the first Adventurers and Settlers of this his majesty's colony and Dominion of Virginia brought with them, and transmitted to their Posterity, and all other his Majesty's subjects since inhabiting in this his Majesty's said Colony, all the Liberties, privileges, Franchises, and Immunities that have at any Time been held, enjoyed, and possessed, by the People of Great Britain.

text: Resolved, That by the two royal Charters, granted by King James the First, the Colonists aforesaid are declared entitled to all Liberties, Privileges, and Immunities of Denizens and natural Subjects, to all Intents and Purposes, as if they had been abiding and born within the Realm of England.

text: Resolved, That the Taxation of the People by themselves, or by Persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who could only know what Taxes the People are able to bear, or the easiest method of raising them, and must themselves be affected by every Tax laid on the People, is the only Security against a burdensome Taxation, and the distinguishing characteristick of British Freedom, without which the ancient Constitution cannot exist.

text: Resolved, That his majesty's liege people of this his most ancient and loyal Colony have without interruption enjoyed the inestimable Right of being governed by such Laws, respecting their internal Polity and Taxation, as are derived from their own Consent, with the Approbation of their Sovereign, or his Substitute; and that the same hath never been forfeited or yielded up, but hath been constantly recognized by the King and People of Great Britain.[46]

text: On 6 June 1765, the Massachusetts Lower House proposed a meeting for the 1st Tuesday of October in New York City:

text: That it is highly expedient there should be a Meeting as soon as may be, of Committees from the Houses of Representatives or Burgesses in the several Colonies on this Continent to consult together on the present Circumstances of the Colonies, and the difficulties to which they are and must be reduced by the operation of the late Acts of Parliament for levying Duties and Taxes on the Colonies, and to consider of a general and humble Address to his Majesty and the Parliament to implore Relief.[47]

text: There was no attempt to keep this meeting a secret; Massachusetts promptly notified Richard Jackson of the proposed meeting, their agent in England and a member of Parliament.[48]

text: Protests in the streets[edit]

text:
External video

 The Stamp Act: Troubling Their Neighbors, 58:01, Benjamin L. Carp, WGBH Forum[49]

 The Stamp Act: The Lowest Of The Mob, 49:35, Molly Fitzgerald Perry, WGBH Forum[50]

tag: table

text: While the colonial legislatures were acting, the ordinary citizens of the colonies were also voicing their concerns outside of this formal political process. Historian Gary B. Nash wrote:

text: Whether stimulated externally or ignited internally, ferment during the years from 1761 to 1766 changed the dynamics of social and political relations in the colonies and set in motion currents of reformist sentiment with the force of a mountain wind. Critical to this half decade was the colonial response to England’s Stamp Act, more the reaction of common colonists than that of their presumed leaders.[51]

text: Both loyal supporters of English authority and well-established colonial protest leaders underestimated the self-activating capacity of ordinary colonists. By the end of 1765 ... people in the streets had astounded, dismayed, and frightened their social superiors.[52]

text: Massachusetts[edit]

text: Early street protests were most notable in Boston. Andrew Oliver was a distributor of stamps for Massachusetts who was hanged in effigy on 14 August 1765 "from a giant elm tree at the crossing of Essex and Orange Streets in the city’s South End." Also hung was a jackboot painted green on the bottom ("a Green-ville sole"), a pun on both Grenville and the Earl of Bute, the two people most blamed by the colonists.[53] Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson ordered sheriff Stephen Greenleaf to take down the effigy, but he was opposed by a large crowd. All day the crowd detoured merchants on Orange Street to have their goods symbolically stamped under the elm tree, which later became known as the "Liberty Tree".

text: Ebenezer MacIntosh was a veteran of the Seven Years' War and a shoemaker. One night, he led a crowd which cut down the effigy of Andrew Oliver and took it in a funeral procession to the Town House where the legislature met. From there, they went to Oliver's office—which they tore down and symbolically stamped the timbers. Next, they took the effigy to Oliver’s home at the foot of Fort Hill, where they beheaded it and then burned it—along with Oliver’s stable house and coach and chaise. Greenleaf and Hutchinson were stoned when they tried to stop the mob, which then looted and destroyed the contents of Oliver's house. Oliver asked to be relieved of his duties the next day.[54] This resignation, however, was not enough. Oliver was ultimately forced by MacIntosh to be paraded through the streets and to publicly resign under the Liberty Tree.[55]

text: As news spread of the reasons for Andrew Oliver's resignation, violence and threats of aggressive acts increased throughout the colonies, as did organized groups of resistance. Throughout the colonies, members of the middle and upper classes of society formed the foundation for these groups of resistance and soon called themselves the Sons of Liberty. These colonial groups of resistance burned effigies of royal officials, forced Stamp Act collectors to resign, and were able to get businessmen and judges to go about without using the proper stamps demanded by Parliament.[56]

text: On 16 August, a mob damaged the home and official papers of William Story, the deputy register of the Vice-Admiralty, who then moved to Marblehead, Massachusetts. Benjamin Hallowell, the comptroller of customs, suffered the almost total loss of his home.[57]

text: On 26 August, MacIntosh led an attack on Hutchinson's mansion. The mob evicted the family, destroyed the furniture, tore down the interior walls, emptied the wine cellar, scattered Hutchinson's collection of Massachusetts historical papers, and pulled down the building's cupola. Hutchinson had been in public office for three decades; he estimated his loss at £2,218[58] (in today's money, at nearly $250,000). Nash concludes that this attack was more than just a reaction to the Stamp Act:

text: But it is clear that the crowd was giving vent to years of resentment at the accumulation of wealth and power by the haughty prerogative faction led by Hutchinson. Behind every swing of the ax and every hurled stone, behind every shattered crystal goblet and splintered mahogany chair, lay the fury of a plain Bostonian who had read or heard the repeated references to impoverished people as "rable" and to Boston’s popular caucus, led by Samuel Adams, as a "herd of fools, tools, and synchophants."[59]

text: Governor Francis Bernard offered a £300 reward for information on the leaders of the mob, but no information was forthcoming. MacIntosh and several others were arrested, but were either freed by pressure from the merchants or released by mob action.[60]

text: The street demonstrations originated from the efforts of respectable public leaders such as James Otis, who commanded the Boston Gazette, and Samuel Adams of the "Loyal Nine" of the Boston Caucus, an organization of Boston merchants. They made efforts to control the people below them on the economic and social scale, but they were often unsuccessful in maintaining a delicate balance between mass demonstrations and riots. These men needed the support of the working class, but also had to establish the legitimacy of their actions to have their protests to England taken seriously.[61] At the time of these protests, the Loyal Nine was more of a social club with political interests but, by December 1765, it began issuing statements as the Sons of Liberty.[62]

text: Rhode Island[edit]

text: Rhode Island also experienced street violence. A crowd built a gallows near the Town House in Newport on 27 August, where they carried effigies of three officials appointed as stamp distributors: Augustus Johnson, Dr. Thomas Moffat, and lawyer Martin Howard. The crowd at first was led by merchants William Ellery, Samuel Vernon, and Robert Crook, but they soon lost control. That night, the crowd was led by a poor man named John Weber, and they attacked the houses of Moffat and Howard, where they destroyed walls, fences, art, furniture, and wine. The local Sons of Liberty were publicly opposed to violence, and they refused at first to support Weber when he was arrested. They were persuaded to come to his assistance, however, when retaliation was threatened against their own homes. Weber was released and faded into obscurity.[63]

text: Howard became the only prominent American to publicly support the Stamp Act in his pamphlet "A Colonist's Defence of Taxation" (1765). After the riots, Howard had to leave the colony, but he was rewarded by the Crown with an appointment as Chief Justice of North Carolina at a salary of ₤1,000.[64]

text: New York[edit]

text: In New York, James McEvers resigned his distributorship four days after the attack on Hutchinson's house. The stamps arrived in New York Harbor on 24 October for several of the northern colonies. Placards appeared throughout the city warning that "the first man that either distributes or makes use of stamped paper let him take care of his house, person, and effects." New York merchants met on 31 October and agreed not to sell any English goods until the Act was repealed. Crowds took to the streets for four days of demonstrations, uncontrolled by the local leaders, culminating in an attack by two thousand people on Governor Cadwallader Colden's home and the burning of two sleighs and a coach. Unrest in New York City continued through the end of the year, and the local Sons of Liberty had difficulty in controlling crowd actions.[65]

text: Other Colonies[edit]

text: In Frederick, Maryland, a court of 12 magistrates ruled the Stamp Act invalid on 23 November 1765, and directed that businesses and colonial officials proceed in all matters without use of the stamps. A week later, a crowd conducted a mock funeral procession for the act in the streets of Frederick. The magistrates have been dubbed the "12 Immortal Justices," and 23 November has been designated "Repudiation Day" by the Maryland state legislature. On 1 October 2015, Senator Cardin (D-MD) read into the Congressional Record a statement noting 2015 as the 250th anniversary of the event. Among the 12 magistrates was William Luckett, who later served as lieutenant colonel in the Maryland Militia at the battle of Germantown.

text: Other popular demonstrations occurred in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Annapolis, Maryland, Wilmington and New Bern, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, demonstrations were subdued but even targeted Benjamin Franklin's home, although it was not vandalized.[66] By 16 November, twelve of the stamp distributors had resigned. The Georgia distributor did not arrive in America until January 1766, but his first and only official action was to resign.[67]

text: The overall effect of these protests was to both anger and unite the American people like never before. Opposition to the Act inspired both political and constitutional forms of literature throughout the colonies, strengthened the colonial political perception and involvement, and created new forms of organized resistance. These organized groups quickly learned that they could force royal officials to resign by employing violent measures and threats.[68]

text: Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the Caribbean[edit]

text: The main issue was constitutional rights of Englishmen, so the French in Quebec did not react. Some English-speaking merchants were opposed, but were in a fairly small minority. The Quebec Gazette ceased publication until the act was repealed, apparently over the unwillingness to use stamped paper.[69] In neighboring Nova Scotia a number of former New England residents objected, but recent British immigrants and London-oriented business interests based in Halifax, the provincial capital were more influential. The only major public protest was the hanging in effigy of the stamp distributor and Lord Bute. The act was implemented in both provinces, but Nova Scotia's stamp distributor resigned in January 1766, beset by ungrounded fears for his safety. Authorities there were ordered to allow ships bearing unstamped papers to enter its ports, and business continued unabated after the distributors ran out of stamps.[70] The Act occasioned some protests in Newfoundland, and the drafting of petitions opposing not only the Stamp Act, but the existence of the customhouse at St. John's, based on legislation dating back to the reign of Edward VI forbidding any sort of duties on the importation of goods related to its fisheries.[71]

text: Violent protests were few in the Caribbean colonies. Political opposition was expressed in a number of colonies, including Barbados and Antigua, and by absentee landowners living in Britain. The worst political violence took place on St. Kitts and Nevis. Riots took place on 31 October 1765, and again on 5 November, targeting the homes and offices of stamp distributors; the number of participants suggests that the percentage of St. Kitts' white population involved matched that of Bostonian involvement in its riots. The delivery of stamps to St. Kitts was successfully blocked, and they were never used there. Montserrat and Antigua also succeeded in avoiding the use of stamps; some correspondents thought that rioting was prevented in Antigua only by the large troop presence. Despite vocal political opposition, Barbados used the stamps, to the pleasure of King George. In Jamaica there was also vocal opposition, which included threats of violence. There was much evasion of the stamps, and ships arriving without stamped papers were allowed to enter port. Despite this, Jamaica produced more stamp revenue (£2,000) than any other colony.[72]

text: Sons of Liberty[edit]

text: It was during this time of street demonstrations that locally organized groups started to merge into an inter-colonial organization of a type not previously seen in the colonies. The term "sons of liberty" had been used in a generic fashion well before 1765, but it was only around February 1766 that its influence extended throughout the colonies as an organized group using the formal name "Sons of Liberty", leading to a pattern for future resistance to the British that carried the colonies towards 1776.[73] Historian John C. Miller noted that the name was adopted as a result of Barre's use of the term in his February 1765 speech.[74]

text: The organization spread month by month after independent starts in several different colonies. By 6 November, a committee was set up in New York to correspond with other colonies, and in December an alliance was formed between groups in New York and Connecticut. In January, a correspondence link was established between Boston and Manhattan, and by March, Providence had initiated connections with New York, New Hampshire, and Newport. By March, Sons of Liberty organizations had been established in New Jersey, Maryland, and Norfolk, Virginia, and a local group established in North Carolina was attracting interest in South Carolina and Georgia.[75]

text: The officers and leaders of the Sons of Liberty "were drawn almost entirely from the middle and upper ranks of colonial society," but they recognized the need to expand their power base to include "the whole of political society, involving all of its social or economic subdivisions." To do this, the Sons of Liberty relied on large public demonstrations to expand their base.[76] They learned early on that controlling such crowds was problematical, although they strived to control "the possible violence of extra-legal gatherings." The organization professed its loyalty to both local and British established government, but possible military action as a defensive measure was always part of their considerations. Throughout the Stamp Act Crisis, the Sons of Liberty professed continued loyalty to the King because they maintained a "fundamental confidence" that Parliament would do the right thing and repeal the tax.[77]

text: Colonial newspapers[edit]

text: Colonial newspapers were a major source of public unrest after the passage of the Stamp Act. Some of the earliest forms of American propaganda appeared in these printings in response to the law. The articles written in colonial newspapers were particularly critical of the act because of the Stamp Act's disproportionate effect on printers. David Ramsay, a patriot and historian from South Carolina, wrote of this phenomenon shortly after the American Revolution:

text: It was fortunate for the liberties of America, that newspapers were the subject of a heavy stamp duty. Printers, when influenced by government, have genereally arranged themselves on the side of liberty, nor are they less remarkable for attention to the profits of their profession. A stamp duty, which openly invaded the first, and threatened a great diminution of the last, provoked their united zealous opposition.[78]

text: Most printers were critical of the Stamp Act, although a few Loyalist voices did exist. Some of the more subtle Loyalist sentiments can be seen in publications such as The Boston Evening Post, which was run by British sympathizers John and Thomas Fleet. The article detailed a violent protest that occurred in New York in December, 1765, then described the riot's participants as "imperfect" and labeled the group's ideas as "contrary to the general sense of the people."[79] These Loyalists beliefs can be seen in some of the early newspaper articles about the Stamp Act, but the anti-British writings were more prevalent and seem to have had a more powerful effect.[80]

text: Many papers assumed a relatively conservative tone before the act went into effect, implying that they might close if it wasn't repealed. However, as time passed and violent demonstrations ensued, the authors became more vitriolic. Several newspaper editors were involved with the Sons of Liberty, such as William Bradford of The Pennsylvania Journal and Benjamin Edes of The Boston Gazette, and they echoed the group's sentiments in their publications.[81] The Stamp Act went into effect that November, and many newspapers ran editions with imagery of tombstones and skeletons, emphasizing that their papers were "dead" and would no longer be able to print because of the Stamp Act.[82] However, most of them returned in the upcoming months, defiantly appearing without the stamp of approval that was deemed necessary by the Stamp Act. Printers were greatly relieved when the law was nullified in the following spring, and the repeal asserted their positions as a powerful voice (and compass) for public opinion.[83]

text: Stamp Act Congress[edit]

text: The Stamp Act Congress was held in New York in October 1765. Twenty-seven delegates from nine colonies were the members of the Congress, and their responsibility was to draft a set of formal petitions stating why Parliament had no right to tax them.[84] Among the delegates were many important men in the colonies. Historian John Miller observes, "The composition of this Stamp Act Congress ought to have been convincing proof to the British government that resistance to parliamentary taxation was by no means confined to the riffraff of colonial seaports."[85]

text: The youngest delegate was 26-year-old John Rutledge of South Carolina, and the oldest was 65-year-old Hendrick Fisher of New Jersey. Ten of the delegates were lawyers, ten were merchants, and seven were planters or land-owning farmers; all had served in some type of elective office, and all but three were born in the colonies. Four died before the colonies declared independence, and four signed the Declaration of Independence; nine attended the first and second Continental Congresses, and three were Loyalists during the Revolution.[86]

text: New Hampshire declined to send delegates, and North Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia were not represented because their governors did not call their legislatures into session, thus preventing the selection of delegates. Despite the composition of the congress, each of the Thirteen Colonies eventually affirmed its decisions.[87] Six of the nine colonies represented at the Congress agreed to sign the petitions to the King and Parliament produced by the Congress. The delegations from New York, Connecticut, and South Carolina were prohibited from signing any documents without first receiving approval from the colonial assemblies that had appointed them.[88]

text: Massachusetts governor Francis Bernard believed that his colony’s delegates to the Congress would be supportive of Parliament. Timothy Ruggles in particular was Bernard's man, and was elected chairman of the Congress. Ruggles' instructions from Bernard were to "recommend submission to the Stamp Act until Parliament could be persuaded to repeal it."[89] Many delegates felt that a final resolution of the Stamp Act would actually bring Britain and the colonies closer together. Robert Livingston of New York stressed the importance of removing the Stamp Act from the public debate, writing to his colony's agent in England, "If I really wished to see America in a state of independence I should desire as one of the most effectual means to that end that the stamp act should be enforced."[90]

text:
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Declaration of Rights and Grievances

text: The Congress met for 12 consecutive days, including Sundays. There was no audience at the meetings, and no information was released about the deliberations.[91] The meeting's final product was called "The Declaration of Rights and Grievances", and was drawn up by delegate John Dickinson of Pennsylvania. This Declaration raised fourteen points of colonial protest. It asserted that colonists possessed all the rights of Englishmen in addition to protesting the Stamp Act issue, and that Parliament could not represent the colonists since they had no voting rights over Parliament. Only the colonial assemblies had a right to tax the colonies. They also asserted that the extension of authority of the admiralty courts to non-naval matters represented an abuse of power.[92]

text: In addition to simply arguing for their rights as Englishmen, the congress also asserted that they had certain natural rights solely because they were human beings. Resolution 3 stated, "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." Both Massachusetts and Pennsylvania brought forth the issue in separate resolutions even more directly when they respectively referred to "the Natural rights of Mankind" and "the common rights of mankind".[93]

text: Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina had proposed that the Congress' petition should go only to the king, since the rights of the colonies did not originate with Parliament. This radical proposal went too far for most delegates and was rejected. The "Declaration of Rights and Grievances" was duly sent to the king, and petitions were also sent to both Houses of Parliament.[94]

text: Repeal[edit]

text: Grenville was replaced by Lord Rockingham as Prime Minister on 10 July 1765. News of the mob violence began to reach England in October. Conflicting sentiments were taking hold in Britain at the same time that resistance was building and accelerating in America. Some wanted to strictly enforce the Stamp Act over colonial resistance, wary of the precedent that would be set by backing down.[95] Others felt the economic effects of reduced trade with America after the Sugar Act and an inability to collect debts while the colonial economy suffered, and they began to lobby for a repeal of the Stamp Act.[96] The colonial protest had included various non-importation agreements among merchants who recognized that a significant portion of British industry and commerce was dependent on the colonial market. This movement had also spread through the colonies; 200 merchants had met in New York City and agreed to import nothing from England until the Stamp Act was repealed.[97]

text: When Parliament met in December 1765, it rejected a resolution offered by Grenville that would have condemned colonial resistance to the enforcement of the Act. Outside of Parliament, Rockingham and his secretary Edmund Burke, a member of Parliament himself, organized London merchants who started a committee of correspondence to support repeal of the Stamp Act by urging merchants throughout the country to contact their local representatives in Parliament. When Parliament reconvened on 14 January 1766, the Rockingham ministry formally proposed repeal. Amendments were considered that would have lessened the financial impact on the colonies by allowing colonists to pay the tax in their own scrip, but this was viewed to be too little and too late.[98]

text: William Pitt stated in the Parliamentary debate that everything done by the Grenville ministry "has been entirely wrong" with respect to the colonies. He further stated, "It is my opinion that this Kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the colonies." Pitt still maintained "the authority of this kingdom over the colonies, to be sovereign and supreme, in every circumstance of government and legislature whatsoever," but he made the distinction that taxes were not part of governing, but were "a voluntary gift and grant of the Commons alone." He rejected the notion of virtual representation, as "the most contemptible idea that ever entered into the head of man."[99]

text: Grenville responded to Pitt:

text: Protection and obedience are reciprocal. Great Britain protects America; America is bound to yield obedience. If, not, tell me when the Americans were emancipated? When they want the protection of this kingdom, they are always ready to ask for it. That protection has always been afforded them in the most full and ample manner. The nation has run itself into an immense debt to give them their protection; and now they are called upon to contribute a small share towards the public expence, and expence arising from themselves, they renounce your authority, insult your officers, and break out, I might also say, into open rebellion.[100]

text: Pitt’s response to Grenville included, "I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest."[101]

text: Between 17 and 27 January, Rockingham shifted the attention from constitutional arguments to economic by presenting petitions complaining of the economic repercussions felt throughout the country. On 7 February, the House of Commons rejected a resolution by 274–134, saying that it would back the King in enforcing the Act. Henry Seymour Conway, the government's leader in the House of Commons, introduced the Declaratory Act in an attempt to address both the constitutional and the economic issues, which affirmed the right of Parliament to legislate for the colonies "in all cases whatsoever", while admitting the inexpediency of attempting to enforce the Stamp Act. Only Pitt and three or four others voted against it. Other resolutions passed which condemned the riots and demanded compensation from the colonies for those who suffered losses because of the actions of the mobs.[102]

text: The House of Commons heard testimony between 11 and 13 February, the most important witness being Benjamin Franklin on the last day of the hearings. He responded to the question about how the colonists would react if the Act was not repealed: "A total loss of the respect and affection the people of America bear to this country, and of all the commerce that depends on that respect and affection." A Scottish journalist observed Franklin's answers to Parliament and his affect on the repeal; he later wrote to Franklin, "To this very Examination, more than to any thing else, you are indebted to the speedy and total Repeal of this odious Law."[103]

text: A resolution was introduced on 21 February to repeal the Stamp Act, and it passed by a vote of 276–168. The King gave royal assent on 18 March 1766.[104][105]

text: Consequences[edit]

text: Some aspects of the resistance to the act provided a sort of rehearsal for similar acts of resistance to the 1767 Townshend Acts, particularly the activities of the Sons of Liberty and merchants in organizing opposition. The Stamp Act Congress was a predecessor to the later Continental Congresses, notably the Second Continental Congress which oversaw the establishment of American independence. The Committees of Correspondence used to coordinate activities were revived between 1772 and 1774 in response to a variety of controversial and unpopular affairs, and the colonies that met at the 1774 First Continental Congress established a non-importation agreement known as the Continental Association in response to Parliamentary passage of the Intolerable Acts.[citation needed]