"They nourished up by your indulgence? They grew by your neglect of them! As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule them, in one department and another, who were, perhaps, the deputies of deputies to some members in this House, sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them: men whose behavior on many occasions has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them; men promoted to the highest seats of justice—some who to my knowledge were glad, by going to a foreign country, to escape being brought to the bar of a court of justice in their own.
"They protected by your arms? They have nobly taken up arms in your defence, have exerted a valor, amid their constant and laborious industry, for the defence of a country whose frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior parts yielded all its little savings to your emolument. And, believe me, that same spirit of freedom which actuated these people at first will accompany them still: but prudence forbids me to explain myself further. God knows I do not at this time speak from any motives of party heat. I deliver the genuine sentiments of my heart. However superior to me, in general knowledge and experience, the respectable body of this House may be, yet I claim to know more of America than most of you; having seen and been conversant in that country. 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. I will say no more."
During the debate on the bill, the supporters of it insisted much on the colonies being virtually represented in the same manner as Leeds, Halifax, and some other towns were. A recurrence to this plea was a virtual acknowledgment that there ought not to be taxation without representation. It was replied that the connection between the electors and non-electors of Parliament, in Great Britain, was so interwoven from both being equally liable to pay the same common tax as to give some security of property to the latter: but with respect to taxes laid by the British Parliament, and paid by the Americans, the situation of the parties was reversed. Instead of both parties bearing a proportional share of the same common burden, what was laid on the one was exactly so much taken off from the other.
The bill met with no opposition in the House of Lords; and, on March 22, 1765, it received the royal assent. The night after it passed, Dr. Franklin wrote to Charles Thomson: "The sun of liberty is set; you must light up the candles of industry and economy." Thomson answered, "I was apprehensive that other lights would be the consequence"; and he foretold the opposition which shortly took place. On its being suggested from authority that the stamp officers would not be sent from Great Britain, but selected from among the Americans, the colony agents were desired to point out proper persons for that purpose. They generally nominated their friends, which affords a presumptive proof that they supposed the act would have gone down. In this opinion they were far from being singular.
That the colonists would be ultimately obliged to submit to the Stamp Act was at first commonly believed, both in England and America. The framers of it, in particular, flattered themselves that the confusion which would arise upon the disuse of writings, and the insecurity of property which would result from using any other than that required by law, would compel the colonies, however reluctant, to use the stamped paper, and consequently to pay the taxes imposed thereon. They therefore boasted that it was a law which would execute itself. By the term of the Stamp Act, it was not to take effect till November 1st—a period of more than seven months after its passing. This gave the colonists an opportunity of leisurely canvassing the new subject and examining fully on every side. In the first part of this interval, struck with astonishment, they lay in silent consternation, and could not determine what course to pursue. By degrees they recovered their recollection. Virginia led the way in opposition to the Stamp Act. Patrick Henry, on May 29, 1765, brought into the House of Burgesses of that colony vigorous resolutions, which were substantially adopted. [See Bancroft's account.]
They were well received by the people and immediately forwarded to the other provinces. They circulated extensively and gave a spring to the discontented. Till they appeared, most were of opinion that the act would be quietly adopted. Murmurs, indeed, were common, but they seemed to be such as would soon die away. The countenance of so respectable a colony as Virginia confirmed the wavering and emboldened the timid. Opposition to the Stamp Act, from that period, assumed a bolder face. The fire of liberty blazed forth from the press. Some well-judged publications set the rights of the colonists in a plain but strong point of view. The tongues and the pens of the well-informed citizens labored in kindling the latent sparks of patriotism. The flame spread from breast to breast till the conflagration became general. In this business, New England had a principal share. The inhabitants of that part of America, in particular, considered their obligations to the mother-country, for past favors, to be very inconsiderable. They were fully informed that their forefathers were driven by persecution to the woods of America, and had there, without any expense to the parent state, effected a settlement on bare creation. Their resentment, for the invasion of their accustomed right of taxation, was not so much mitigated by the recollection of late favors as it was heightened by the tradition of grievous sufferings to which their ancestors, by the rulers of England, had been subjected.
The heavy burdens which the operation of the Stamp Act would have imposed on the colonists, together with the precedent it would establish of future exactions, furnished the American patriots with arguments calculated as well to move the passions as to convince the judgments of their fellow-colonists. In great warmth they exclaimed: "If the Parliament have a right to levy the stamp duties, they may by the same authority lay on us imposts, excises, and other taxes without end, till their rapacity is satisfied or our abilities are exhausted. We cannot, at future elections, displace these men who so lavishly grant away our property. Their seat and their power are independent of us, and it will rest with their generosity where to stop in transferring the expenses of government from their own to our shoulders."
It was fortunate for the liberties of America that newspapers were the subject of a heavy stamp duty. Printers, when uninfluenced by government, have generally arranged themselves on the side of liberty, nor are they less remarkable for their attention to the profits of their profession. A stamp duty, which openly invaded the first and threatened a diminution of the last provoked their united zealous opposition. They daily presented to the public original dissertations tending to prove that if the Stamp Act were suffered to operate, the liberties of Americans were at an end, and their property virtually transferred to their transatlantic fellow-subjects. The writers among the Americans, seriously alarmed for the fate of their country, came forward with essays to prove that, agreeably to the British Constitution, taxation and representation were inseparable; that the only constitutional mode of raising money from the colonists was by acts of their own legislatures; that the crown possessed no further power than that of requisition; and that the Parliamentary right of taxation was confined to the mother-country, where it originated from the natural right of man to do what he pleased with his own, transferred by consent from the electors of Great Britain to those whom they chose to represent them in Parliament.
They also insisted much on the misapplication of public money by the British ministry. Great pains were taken to inform the colonists of the large sums annually bestowed on pensioned favorites and for the various purposes of bribery. Their passions were inflamed by high-colored representations of the hardship of being obliged to pay the earnings of their industry into a British treasury, well known to be a fund for corruption.
While a variety of legal and illegal methods were adopted to oppose the Stamp Act, November 1st, on which it was to commence its operation, approached. At Boston the day was ushered in by a funereal tolling of bells. Many shops and stores were shut. The effigies of the planners and friends of the Stamp Act were carried about the streets in public derision, and then torn in pieces by the enraged populace. It was remarkable that, though a large crowd was assembled, there was not the least violence or disorder.