Some colonists drew a distinction between the English regulation of trade, which was viewed as legal, and the English imposition of internal taxes on the colonies, which was perceived to be illegal. The colonists raised the issue of taxation without representation.
#Stamp act 1765 trial
They were also concerned about the implicit assault on their rights to trial by jury, the unprecedented use of a direct tax as a means of raising imperial revenue, and the allinclusive character of the law that applied to all thirteen colonies. The colonies thought otherwise, interpreting the Stamp Act as a deliberate attempt to undercut their commercial strength and independence. Similar stamp acts had become an accepted part of raising revenues in England, leading parliamentary leaders to mistakenly believe that the measure would generate some grumbling but not defiance. Parliament passed the act without debate. The act was to be enforced by stamp agents, with penalties for violating the act to be imposed by vice-admiralty courts, which sat without juries.
These documents and objects had to carry a tax stamp. The act placed a tax on newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets and broadsides, legal documents of all kinds, insurance policies, ship's papers, licenses, and even playing cards and dice. The Stamp Act was designed to raise almost one-third of the revenue to support the military establishment permanently stationed in the colonies at the end of the French and Indian War. However, the Stamp Act was the first direct tax, a tax on domestically produced and consumed items, that Parliament ever levied upon the colonists. Duties were also imposed on the shipment of certain articles, such as rum and spirits. Later legislation stipulated that rice, molasses, beaver skins, furs, and naval stores could be shipped only to England. The Navigation Acts of 1660, for example, stipulated that no goods or commodities could be imported into or exported out of any British colony except in British ships. The colonists had become accustomed to a limited degree of British regulation of trade. These actions convinced the British government to bring the colonies into proper subordination and to use them as a source of revenue.Ĭolonists protest the Stamp Act of 1765 by burning Stamp Act papers in Boston. During the French and Indian War, the colonies asserted their economic independence by trading with the enemy, flagrantly defying customs laws, and evading trade regulations. The colonies chafed under the rules of British mercantilism, which sought to exploit the colonies as a source of raw materials and a market for the mother country. By the mid-eighteenth century, the economies of the American colonies had matured.
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