November 1, 2019: On November 1, 1765—254 years ago today—the Stamp Act went into effect in Britain’s American colonies. It was the first direct tax imposed by Parliament on the colonies, an action Americans scornfully considered to be taxation without representation.[1]
“The colonists greeted the arrival of the stamps with violence and economic retaliation. A general boycott of British goods began, and the Sons of Liberty staged attacks on the customhouses and homes of tax collectors in Boston.” Colonial leaders from nine states met in a Stamp Act Congress to formally adopt resolutions of displeasure sent to both Parliament and the King.[1]
Parliament repealed the law four months after it was enacted, but relations between the British and their colonies never recovered. Less than a decade later, the events at Lexington and Concord sparked the colonial War of Independence.
The Stamp Act “was designed to force colonists to use special stamped paper in the printing of newspapers, pamphlets, almanacs, and playing cards, and to have a stamp embossed on all commercial and legal papers.”[1]
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