Samuel Adams.
127. Organization for Resistance.—The colonists instantly organized a general resistance to the tax. Samuel Adams[[59]] and James Otis[[60]] in Massachusetts, and Patrick Henry[[61]] in Virginia, were the most active of the colonial leaders. Adams sent letters in every direction denouncing the tax; Otis inflamed the people of Boston and the vicinity with his essays and his oratory; and Henry appealed to the Virginians with overpowering eloquence. A general congress representing the colonies met in New York, October 7, 1765, and passed a series of resolutions denouncing the Stamp Act as a violent encroachment on the principle, “No taxation without representation.” Lawyers agreed not to regard paper as made illegal by the absence of a stamp. Newspapers were issued bearing the sign of a skull and crossbones in place of a stamp, and boxes of stamps, on their arrival, were seized and burned.
James Otis.
128. Repeal of the Stamp Act.—It was not long before even Grenville was convinced that the Stamp Act was a failure. As it could not be enforced, and as it brought very little revenue, it was repealed the very year after it had become a law. There are, however, two ways of doing an act demanded by the people: to do it with a tact that will convey the largest amount of satisfaction; or to do it with some reservation or qualification that leaves a sting behind it. The latter course was taken by the British government, which said in substance: We repeal the act, because its enforcement will be injurious to our commercial interests, but in doing so we expressly declare “the supreme right of Parliament to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and the people of America in all ways whatever.”
129. The Townshend Acts.—The “Stamp Act” was followed by the “Townshend Acts” in 1767. One of these acts forbade the colonies to trade with the West Indies and was evidently designed to force the Americans to buy West Indian goods in Great Britain. Another provided for a new duty on all imports of glass, paper, paints, and teas. Still another, and the most obnoxious of the Townshend Acts, was one which legalized “Writs of Assistance.” Such writs had formerly been unlawfully used as a means of enforcing the statute against smuggling. These papers, by being signed in blank, so that names could be inserted at the convenience of the officer, provided a means by which any sheriff or constable could enter any man’s house to search for whatever he wanted to find.
John Dickinson.
130. Opposition to the Townshend Acts.—The Townshend Acts provoked instant opposition. Associations pledged to abstain from using any of the articles taxed, were formed in various parts of the country. The Massachusetts Assembly sent a circular letter to the other colonies, inviting them to concerted resistance; but this letter so provoked the king that he ordered the governor of Massachusetts to demand that the Assembly rescind the vote, on pain of dissolution. The Assembly promptly refused, whereupon Governor Bernard promptly dissolved it. Everywhere a similar spirit of opposition prevailed.