12 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION STIFLING THE STAMP ACT Trade offered one source of revenue The old Molasses Act having yielded little income was modified in 1764 The colonists had to pay import duties on for eign molasses sugar wine and other commodities More important measures were adopted to prevent smuggling Revenue officers sought writs of assistance allowing them to search homes for smuggled goods and James Otis gained fame in his flaming attack upon their use Because the new Sugar Act would not afford a large revenue it was supplemented in 1765 by the Stamp Act This measure levied a direct tax on all newspapers printed in the colonies and on most commercial and legal documents used in business It was realized that these two revenue acts would provide less than half the money needed for the army Another measure the Quartering Act required each colony to bear part of the expenses incurred by British troops when stationed or moving within its borders The Currency Act of 1764 increased the load of taxes to be carried by the colonists This act directed the colonists to pay within a fairly short time the whole domestic debt which they had created in waging the French and Indian War Opposition to the Stamp Act spread through the colonial assemblies especially that of Virginia People in Boston and later other colonies formed
SUGAR STAMPS AND TEA 13 groups known as the Sons of Liberty to protest the act The opposition came to a head in the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 which asserted that the colonists as English subjects could not be taxed without their The Sons of Liberty show their disapproval of the Stamp Act of 1765 by burning a copy of it in Boston Massachusetts The act was repealed in 1766
14 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION consent Alarmed by the refusal of the colonial towns to buy additional goods while the act remained in force British merchants petitioned Parliament for its repeal Meanwhile George Grenville Britain’s prime minister was succeeded by Lord Charles Rockingham a minister more friendly toward the colonists The Stamp Act was repealed in 1766 At the same time however Parliament declared that it had full power to tax the colonies when ever and however it thought best THE ISSUE OF TAXATION During the Stamp Act controversy Maryland law yer Daniel Dulany wrote that although Parliament might lay external taxes on the trade of the colonies it could not rightfully impose internal taxes to be collected directly from the people This distinction became immensely popular at the time When Charles Townshend was chancellor of the British Exchequer he framed his famous revenue measures of 1767 known as the Townshend Acts in line with the colonial view Duties were placed on lead paint glass paper and tea when imported into the colonies The money collected was to be used to support British officials in the American service Opposition to these taxes was not foreseen The colonists however objected strenuously Their spokesman this time was John Dickinson of Pennsylvania In his widely read Letters of a Farmer in Pennsylvania he made a new distinction between
SUGAR STAMPS AND TEA 15 taxes levied to regulate trade and those intended to raise revenue If the purpose was to promote imperial commerce the tax was justifiable But if Britain could levy taxes simply to obtain revenue the colonial rights of self-government would soon be at an end Only through their power to withhold the salaries of British governors had the colonial assemblies been able to keep them in hand If Britain paid such salaries from Parliamentary taxes the governor would dominate the assembly TEA AND THE TEA PARTY In 1770 a new prime minister Lord North believing it unwise for Britain to hamper the sale of its own wares in outside markets secured the repeal of most of the Townshend Acts At the request of King George III the duty on tea was retained in order to assert the right of England to tax the colonies The American merchants accepted this compromise and the agitation in the col onies soon died down The remaining duty was evaded by smuggling the odious tax was not paid on about 90 percent of the tea imported after 1770 Then in 1773 Parliament passed another act that set all the elements of discord in motion This mea sure allowed the British East India Company to ship tea to the colonies without paying any of the import duties collected in England The nearly bankrupt com pany had on hand an immense quantity of unsold tea It could now sell this tea more cheaply in the colonies
