Before the First Continental Congress, There Was the Stamp Act Congress

While the American Revolution began on the road to Lexington and Concord on April 19th, 1775, it had been simmering for decades.  Looking back at history, the colonies officially met to discuss their relationship with England when the Stamp Act Congress convened on October 7th, 1765. The passage of the Stamp Act of 1765 drew the 27 delegates from nine colonies – Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina – to the City Hall of the town of New York.

With England victorious in the Seven Years’ War, which we call the French and Indian War, the British government had gone deeply into debt. Parliament’s thinking was that the Thirteen Colonies should pay their portion of the debt, as well as assuming the cost of the 10,000 British soldiers stationed there to protect them. Thus, Parliament passed the Stamp Act of 1765.

The residents of the Thirteen Colonies were not asked for their opinion on what is officially known as the Duties in American Colonies Act of 1765. This piece of legislation required that each piece of paper have a stamp (see image) and that the tax be paid before the document was used. Businessmen, attorneys, and even the colonial governments objected because they were the largest users of paper.

To be fair, the Stamp Act affected all the British colonies, but the loudest complaints came from those living in the Thirteen Colonies along the east coast of North America. In Parliament, it was posited that American Colonists who did not own property were no different from the 90% of the British population who couldn’t own land. The argument went further by opining that these citizens (in England as well as the Thirteen Colonies) were “virtually represented” by the land-owning members of Parliament and the nobility.

Daniel Dulany, a Maryland attorney, wrote a well-read pamphlet titled Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British Colonies that was both a legal and philosophical challenge to the concept of virtual representation. Dulany argued that MPs were not elected by the people they supposedly served (the colonists) and therefore could not be held accountable for their decisions. James Otis, a member of the Massachusetts delegation to the Stamp Act Congress, is the creator of the phrase “no taxation without representation.

Before adjourning, the Stamp Act Congress passed the Declaration of Rights and Grievances on October 19, 1765. It had 14 points, seven of which targeted the legislation.

1. Only representatives chosen by the colonists could levy taxes
2. The Stamp Act was unconstitutional under British law
3. Requested the immediate repeal of the Stamp Act
4. Colonists have the right to petition the crown to repeal unjust laws
5. Defined the adverse economic consequences of the Stamp Act
6. Recognized the supremacy of the Parliament over
7. Asked for a Vice-Admiralty Court in Halifax that did not require a jury to hear cases

The document also listed seven grievances, in which one can see the seeds of the American Revolution.

1. Colonists possess the same rights as Englishmen born in England
2. Trial by jury is a right
3. Unless colonists were members of Parliament, Parliament could not represent colonists
4. Only colonial assemblies had the right to tax its citizens
5. No taxes of any kind could be levied unless voted upon by the colonists’ elected representatives
6. The use of Admiralty Courts to enforce British law was abusive
7. Colonists owed the same loyalty to the “crown” as the crown owed them

The Declaration of Rights and Grievances was sent to both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Through it, the colonists fired a flare outlining their unhappiness with the way they were being governed. Yet, both Houses of Parliament refused to consider its contents.

Next week, the members of the Stamp Congress will be covered. Who were they? What did they do in the coming years?

British one penny stamp required by the Stamp Act of 1765.