all right so this is openstax u.s history chapter 5 section 2 the stamp act and the sons and daughters of liberty so out of all of the imperial reforms following the seven years war the stamp act is by far the most consequential and if you only remember one reform uh have it be the stamp act so again just very very quickly seven years war leads to debt oops right war debt that needs to be paid off leads to new essentially new taxes we talked about some of these last chapter the stamp act is one such tax so in 1765 the british parliament passes the stamp act which is a tax on printed documents in the colonies in the colonies right attacks on printed materials it is different than some of the other taxes before specifically those made on sugar in that it is a direct tax meaning that it taxes consumers rather than a commodity slash business another important point about the stamp act is that it is entirely an internal tax and the reason why this is such a problem is because for 100 you know for 100 years maybe even more the body responsible for passing internal taxes in the colonies had been colonial assemblies think about something like the house of burgesses which was established in the early sixteen hundreds for over a hundred years oldness have essentially been you know implementing their own taxes now great britain is stepping in with the crisis of having to pay down this war debt and issuing a new type of tax and this creates a colonial response that really is unlike any colonial response before that so just really quick the stamp act pretty much how it works you can see actually imaged here these are stamps you can see a kind of a bigger one right here pretty much the way that it works is that if you want to print something or at least have it legally printed you take your paper over to the stamp tax collector you give them money they stamp your piece of paper with this little thing right here and that means you are able to legally print it right whether it's a newspaper or a legal document whatever it is um and that way the british empire gets some money and can pay down the war debt in addition to passing the stamp act great britain also passes the quartering act the quartering act requires colonists to quarter or to house right to give them a place to live place to sleep requires colonists to house british troops again recall that last section great britain left 10 000 troops in the colonies that weren't there before now there's a another demand that the british colonists then you know give these troops a place to stay so not well liked so let's start with the stamp act because this really is kind of the focal point here you could even see just in this image how the stamp act was received by some colonial newspapers you know these newspapers published uh you know stamped as being like a skull and crossbones that it was literally you know literally death um so why was the stamp act so um you know let's just sort of outline before we get to some of the responses you know you know why the stamp act right why the stamp act why did this create such a huge colonial response one like we said before it was placed directly on consumers as opposed to particular commodities two it was internal right that when it came to taxing these printed materials they never left the colonies right when it when it came to other commodities like sugar tea you know anything else that was overseas once those commodities went out into the ocean once they left the colonies colonial assemblies were pretty much okay with the british taxing them now not all people are okay with it but for the most part these sort of documents never actually left the colony so they're completely internal so in some way it bypassed colonial assemblies right remember it's the assemblies that people have the right to democratically elect it was passed by parliament and again when it comes to the british parliament there are no holiness in the parliament parliament and lastly we'll say that it had a wide widespread impact in other words a lot of people use printed documents so you think about some of the other reforms before the proclamation line really only impacted people living on the frontier the sugar act really only impacted merchants who were smuggling french french sugar not everybody the currency act didn't really affect a lot of people uh you know that was mainly for people wanting to pay back the british so farmers were impacted well who uses printed documents well it's you know a lot of people use printed documents and so it had a widespread effect it impacted both north and south and that would be uh worth mentioning right this affected rich and poor it affected north and south uh it impacted men and women so because everyone felt the impact of the stamp act that created a much bigger response to it so it was a direct tax it was internal it was passed by parliament which had no colonial representation and lastly it had a widespread impact so what did the colonists do then in response to great britain passing this tax well colonial assemblies you know started debating this idea of british liberty and the colonists in parliament put forward two different maybe perspectives or two different ideas about what liberty ought to be in regards to representative governments and the two competing ideas was a direct representation versus virtual representation so direct right pretty straightforward only the representatives that you vote for can pass taxes on you this was the position that was held by colonists right the colonists uh insisted that only the those people that they elected had the right to levy or pass taxes on them virtual representation was held by the parliament right and people back in great britain and that is to say that well even though nobody in the british parliament actually comes from the colonies or nobody in the colonies of north america actually votes for representatives of parliament all the people of parliament come from great britain itself right that they're still virtually represented and the way that parliament sort of you know justified this was that uh you know parliament doesn't only represent britain but represents the british empire and because the colonies are part of the british empire therefore the colonies even though they're not directly represented they are virtually represented and this was not something that the colonists agreed upon james otis of massachusetts and patrick henry of virginia became both vocal opponents of the snap act and really summarize their position with the following slogan and in a lot of ways this is really the crux of the issue when it comes between the colonies and the british empire and that is no taxation without representation and this of course is tied to ideas associated with the enlightenment that governments are a contract between the people and those who hold power and you know they ought to represent you know quote unquote the will of the people so no taxation without representation really became the slogan for the colonists and again james otis of massachusetts in the north patrick henry a slaveholder in the south both agreed on this principle so you might say slogan for the colonists and this is patrick henry giving his rousing speech to the house of burgesses there and so representatives from the colonies met and this is a very important point the stamp act congress was a meeting of colonial leaders in total nine colonies met with one another and issued the declaration of rights and grievances which in short just put forward the principle principle of no taxation without representation that the stamp act needs to go right and this is a very important thing because one of the things that we want to keep track of when talking about this narrative of 13 separate individual colonies coming together to form one united states and to fight a war against their mother country is um you know what are the points or what are the reasons for colonial cooperation so the stamp at congress we might just want to make a side note or identify this as an instance or example of colonial cooperation right the colonies working together in some sense you know it was uh in some sense it was one of the early examples of this so you know on one level kind of the educated slash elites are meeting right so these are the um you know elite members of colonial society they're writing this formal grievance right on the one hand and that's what you would expect kind of the educated elite the american or colonial aristocracy to do on another level there is popular protests and by popular we just mean like regular people so this was again not something that just affected the rich the stamp act but it also affected the poor and popular resistance took form in a number of ways took form in organized ways including groups like the sons of liberty and the daughters of liberty both of them are organizations to resist resist that looks very weird uh organizations to resist uh british uh let's see we'll just call it encroachment right taxation the sons of liberty is the you know sort of male side of it uh the daughters of liberty is more for women to persist participate in and they work together both these organizations to resist in this case it was specifically the stamp act and to resist british stamp collecting officials from actually collecting the taxes so for example the sons of liberty often used violence and intimidation they made the stamp collector of massachusetts andrew oliver scared to even collect the tax so no revenue was even being being made in some places because of the threat of violence in massachusetts they burned down the governor's house as a result of this the daughters of liberty uh boycotted british goods non-importation we might say this is a boycott of british goods that is to not buy anything from great britain to put economic pressure on them in order to make them back down the daughters of liberty also engaged in a homespun movement that was to make cloth rather than by british cloth british cloth and on top of that newspapers also did the task of condemning the stamp act so it's working at a lot of different levels formal petitions are being sent by the you know governing officials the educated elite popular protests stamp collectors are fearing for their lives the british economy is hurting because people are not buying goods and this forced great britain to act and finally they acted by repealing the stamp act this was a major victory for the colonists in fact there were huge celebrations this image right here demonstrates that this is a i don't know like a parade or something some sort of celebration but it was a figurative or symbolic killing of the stamp act all these people right here would be dressed like british officials you know people in the day would know or be able to recognize who they were and uh you can barely see it but this little this guy is carrying a casket and that's supposed to be the stamp act being lowered into the ground the fact that it was killed but even though the colonists uh you know were victorious in getting the stamp act repealed in fact a lot of it had to do with some of the economic pressure that was being put on and the fact that british stamp collectors couldn't even collect the taxes to begin with pretty much made the stamp out kind of a moot point wasn't raising any money so the british got rid of it even though that occurred great britain passed at the same time the declaratory act which still maybe not still but declared parliament's right right to acts the colonies and when we look at this you know declaration by great britain they're essentially saying look we still can tax you if we want we can still issue the stamp act but we're going to repeal it this time and these two ideas right this declaratory actor this insistence that great britain has the right to tax the colonies despite no direct representation and this insistence uh by the colonists right no taxation without representation this is really the issue that never gets resolved between both sides there is no resolution to the colonial insistence that taxes cannot be passed without direct representation and parliament's insistence that you know they still have the power to tax the colonists by that time before any sort of resolution could get solved the american revolutionary war is broken out and shortly after the 13 colonies declare independence