The Sugar Act was expected to yield one-
third of the amount demanded by the British ministry.
[Sidenote: The Stamp Act, 1765]
[Sidenote: Opposition in the Colonies]
The other two-thirds of the L150,000 was to be raised under the Stamp
Act of 1765. Bills of lading, official documents, deeds, wills,
mortgages, notes, newspapers, and pamphlets were to be written or
printed only on special stamped paper, on which the tax had been paid.
Playing cards paid a stamp tax of a shilling; dice paid ten shillings;
and on a college diploma the tax amounted to L2. The Stamp Act bore
heavily on just the most dangerous classes of the population--
newspaper-publishers, pamphleteers, lawyers, bankers, and merchants.
Naturally the newspapers protested and the lawyers argued that the
Stamp Act was unconstitutional, that Parliament had no right to levy
taxes on the colonies. The very battle-cry, "Taxation without
Representation is Tyranny," was the phrase of a Boston lawyer, James
Otis.
At once the claim was made that the colonists were true British
subjects and that taxation without representation was a flagrant
violation of the "immemorial rights of Englishmen.
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