[fife & drum music]
Hello, I am Patrick Henry, Lawyer, Member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, Delegate
to the First Continental Congress, 6 times governor of Virginia, Husband, Father,
farmer, fiddle player.
I have been asked to tell you about the Stamp Act of 1765.
This is the story.
Once upon a time England won the Seven Years War.
That was their first mistake.
In America, it was called the French and Indian War, but it was still a mistake.
Wars cost a lot of money and that war nearly doubled England's national debt.
It also left them with a very large army with nothing to do but eat and a lot of officers
who were used to eating very well.
They couldn't take them back to England because armies are supposed to be somewhere else
defending England, not marching around England getting into mischief.
So, they decided to leave them in America to," defend the frontier", they said.
But they still had to be fed and clothed and housed, and that cost money that King George
didn't have.
Now when a government needs money the first thing they do is raise taxes.
However, the English Parliament didn't want to raise taxes in England, that would make
the English people unhappy and unhappy people don't vote for you.
But the American Colonies weren't allowed to vote, so why not tax them instead.
After all, England had spent a lot of money defending the colonies during the French and
Indian War, so the colonies should be grateful and help pay the debt.
That was the idea anyway.
I had just been elected to my first term in the Virginia House of Burgesses, our colonial
governing body.
I was just a young lawyer from the back country when the Stamp Act was passed by Parliament
over in England.
The idea of the Stamp Act was that a small fee had to be paid to attach official stamps
to certain documents and paper goods like: legal documents, newspapers, magazines,
playing cards, attorney licenses, land grants, pamphlets and dice...
among many other things.
Depending what business you were in you would be paying a stamp fee every time you needed
some sort of paper.
Lawyers and college students paid the most.
It seemed like the British government was trying to discourage the growth of a professional
class here in America.
The less smart people the better, I suppose.
To make matters worse, the Stamps had to be paid for with "hard currency", gold, silver,
copper, not paper money, which was about all we colonials had.
Finally, the money raised was to be used to support the British Army in America and, of
course its officers who were used to living the high life.
The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament in March of 1765 and was to go into effect
in November to give them time to appoint Stamp Agents, to set up offices, to print the stamps
and ship them over here.
That gave us seven months to think about the situation, and the more we thought about it,
the less we liked it.
We were being forced to support an army we had no need for.
We were being compelled to pay a tax we were not allowed to vote for, and if this new tax
were put into effect unopposed, what was to stop England from taxing other things?
Land, produce, trade-goods, and anything else people used every day.
Up in Massachusetts Samuel Adams said," If taxes are laid upon us in any shape without
our having a legal representation, are we not reduced from the character of free subjects
to the miserable state of tributary slaves?
In Virginia we had already sent a protest to London, pointing out that we did not have
enough hard cash to pay the tax.
The other colonies sent similar protests emphasizing that taxation of the colonies without colonial
assent was a violation of our rights as British Subjects.
In other words, "Taxation without representation is Tyranny"!
So there I was in the Virginia House of Burgesses, attending my first session and expected to
sit quietly and listen to my elders.
I was never very good at that.
Instead, I proposed a set of Resolutions, laying out our position on the Stamp Act.
Resolved, that the first adventurers and settlers of His Majesty's colony and dominion of Virginia
brought with them and transmitted to their posterity, and all other His Majesty's subjects
since inhabiting in this His Majesty's said colony, all the liberties, privileges, franchises,
and immunities that have at any time been held, enjoyed, and possessed by the people
of Great Britain.
Resolved, that by two royal charters, granted by King James, the colonists aforesaid are
declared entitled to all liberties, privileges, and immunities of denizens and natural subjects
to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within the Realm of England.
Resolved, that the taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves
to represent them, who can only know what taxes the people are able to bear, or the
easiest method of raising them, and must them- selves be affected by every tax laid on the people,
is the only security against a burdensome taxation, and the distinguishing characteristic
of British freedom, without which the ancient constitution cannot exist.
Resolved, that His Majesty's liege people of this his most ancient and loyal colony
have without interruption enjoyed the inestimable right of being governed by such laws, respecting
their internal policy and taxation, as are derived from their own consent, with the approbation
of their sovereign, or his substitute; and that the same has never been forfeited or
yielded up, but has been constantly recognized by the kings and people of Great Britain.
Resolved, therefor that the General Assembly of this Colony have the only and exclusive
Right and Power to lay Taxes and Impositions upon the inhabitants of this Colony and that
every Attempt to vest such Power in any person or persons whatsoever other than the General
Assembly aforesaid has a manifest Tendency to destroy British as well as American Freedom.
I topped them off by proclaiming "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell
and George the Third may profit by their example.
If this be treason, make the most of it"!
I left the hall in an uproar and decided to ride back to my farm that night to give everybody
a chance to cool off.
And that's how I spent my 29th birthday.
There were a lot of arguments for and against the Resolves the next day, but enough representatives
agreed with me and the Resolves were approved.
By the end of June the Resolves had been published in several newspapers around the colonies.
As more of the people began to hear of the Stamp Act and came to understand its implications
resistance grew.
The Massachusetts Assembly proposed a "Stamp Act Congress" to be held in New York City,
and people began to take to the streets in protest.
Up in Boston, the Stamp Agent was hanged...in effigy, and his office was torn down, and
then they looted his house.
He resigned the next day.
Soon, protests and riots were breaking out all over the Colonies.
People began refusing to buy imported English goods, claiming they needed their cash for
the stamps.
British businesses began losing money.
Benjamin Franklin told Parliament that Americans would wear their old clothes and start making
new clothes themselves.
Parliament finally got the message and repealed the Stamp Act in March of 1766.
Problem solved? No!
Still not learning from their mistake and still hoping to raise money from the colonies
to pay for an army that wasn't needed, Parliament went on to introduce the Townshend Acts that
taxed all sorts of things and compelled John Dickinson to write his "Letters from a Farmer
in Pennsylvania" in protest.
And now, it is my great honor to introduce, Mr. John Dickinson.
On the surface it seemed to be about taxes.
People often complain about taxes.
No one wants to pay them certainly.
Politicians can sometimes be reluctant to levy them, at least on people who might be
able to vote them out of office.
But the conflict between England and her colonies ran far deeper than taxes.
In the end, it was about the relationship between the mother country and 13 colonies
along the coast of British North America.
Good day.
I am John Dickinson.
I have been a lawyer, a representative to the Continental Congress, militia officer,
author, composer, as well as the president of Pennsylvania, and the president of Delaware.
I have also been called by some the Penman of the Revolution.
I earned this sobriquet for my many writings in the cause of American liberty: from the
Olive Branch Petition to the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.
However, the first bit of writing that my fellow colonists took note of was a series
of letters that I wrote back in 1767 and 1768.
These essays took the guise of 12 letters from a farmer in Pennsylvania and they dealt
with the mounting tension between Great Britain and her North American colonies.
These pseudonymous letters, written in the voice of a fictional farmer, treat upon the
issue of undue taxation by the parliament and they were quickly reprinted in all but
four of the newspapers published in the colonies.
These unwarranted taxes came about in the aftermath of the French and Indian war.
The French and Indian war was part of a much larger conflict known as the Seven Years War.
It was the largest most expensive war that Britain had ever waged, and when it ended
it left behind British soldiers in every corner of the globe.
Of course these forces had to be maintained and and since those forces left over here
in North America had just fought for the benefit of the colonies, it was thought that the colonies
should pay the expense.
The first attempt to raise this revenue was through the Stamp Act.
The Stamp Act required that a tax be paid on paper goods manufactured within the colonies
and a stamp affixed to the item to prove the tax had been paid.
This was of course met with great resistance and at times outward hostility in the colonies.
Indeed, the idea that we could be taxed by anything other than our own colonial legislatures
was repugnant to us.
The Stamp Act was an example of a direct tax, that is to say an internal tax on the colonies.
Such taxes exist only for generating of revenue.
If that revenue is then used for the betterment of those citizens paying the tax all is well
and good, provided the citizens in question have a say in the levying of those taxes through
their elected representatives.
We, of course, did not.
As others have said: That, my dear countrymen, is tyranny.
The Stamp Act was passed by a parliament in London which is more than 3000 miles away
from these colonies and is a body in which we have no voice.
Colonial objection to the law, caused the citizenry here to boycott British goods, which
in turn caused the Stamp Act to be repealed after it had been in effect for only 4 months
and 18 days.
Parliament then tried a different tactic - passing the Quartering Act.
This required the colonies to play host to British soldiers, incurring considerable expense
along the way.
The worst part is if the British parliament has a legal authority to issue an order that
we shall furnish even a single article for the troops here, and to compel obedience to
that order, they have the same right to issue an order for us to supply those troops with
arms, clothes, and every necessity, and to compel obedience to that order also in short
to lay any burden they please upon us.
What is this but taxing us at a certain sum and leaving us only the manner of raising it?
How is this mode more tolerable than the Stamp Act?
Neither of these measures was tolerable to the General Assembly of New York and so
they refused them. Hmm.
In response parliament passed the New York restraining act, which, while not outright
dissolving the assembly, forbade it from passing any new bills until they complied with the
quartering act.
Thus, parliament deprived New York of their legislature in order to compel them to execute
an act contrary to their established laws.
The great English jurist William Jones who was the attorney general of England at the
end of the last century issued an opinion that the people of a place might only be governed
by laws made in that place by a local legislature under the King's authority.
As the assembly of New York had already passed a bill prohibiting the quartering of troops
without the consent of the inhabitants of the colony, they were unable legally to comply
with this demand and the people of New York were in risk of being deprived of their privilege
of legislation.
If they might be legally deprived in such a case of the privilege of legislation, why
not with equal reason, may any of us be deprived or them be deprived of every other privilege?
Or why may not every colony be treated in the same manner, when any of them shall dare
to deny their assent to any impositions that shall be directed?
Parliament then passed the Revenue Act.
It placed an import duty on such items as glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea.
The measure differed from the stamp act in that the stamp act was a direct tax or an
internal tax that taxed goods produced in the colonies by the colonists.
The import duties specified in the revenue act consisted of an indirect tax upon the
goods produced in England and imported into the colonies.
Though I do not believe the parliament has the right to levy taxes internal to the colonies,
they do have an absolute right to regulate trade within the empire.
There is no privilege the colonies claim, which they ought, in duty and prudence, more
earnestly to maintain and defend, then the authority of British parliament to regulate
the trade of all her dominions.
Without this authority, the benefits she enjoys from our commerce, must be lost to her;
the blessings we enjoy from our dependence on her, must be lost to us; her strength must
decay; her glory vanish; and she cannot suffer, without our partaking in her misfortune.
Parliament has the absolute right and authority to regulate trade, but in the case of the
Revenue Act there is no trade.
Parliament requires the colonists to buy these taxed goods- the paper, the paint, glass,
and tea from Britain alone.
Without competition, there is no trade to regulate.
As such, the Revenue Act exists not to regulate trade, but to, as its name boldly suggests,
raise revenue.
The raising of revenue from a province may only be done by the government of a province
with the consent of the inhabitants thereof.
Some will argue that the burdens imposed by these Taxes are but a pittance.
Colonies should happily acquiesce to them.
I tell you these acts are but a precedent, the force of which shall be established by
the tacit submission of the colonies.
If the parliament succeeds in this attempt, other statutes will impose other duties and
thus the parliament will levy upon us such sums of money as they choose to take, without
any other limitation than their pleasure.
So you see while on the surface it appears to be a question of taxes, it is actually a
question of the relationship that the English parliament has to these colonies.
Where does "jura summa imperii," the right of sovereignty reside?
I say it resides with the King and the various legislatures of the empire Exercise sovereign
powers within their own spheres.
Thus, The British parliament may legislate for the empire, but has no power to wield
executive authority in these colonies.
I encourage you, my countrymen, to seek redress in the form of petitions to secure the repeal
of these Townsend Duties.
And yet I fear our supplication shall fall on deaf ears.
If at length it becomes undoubted that an inveterate resolution is formed to annihilate
the liberties of the governed, the English history affords frequent examples of resistance
by force.
What particular circumstances will in any future cases justify such resistance can never
be ascertained till they happen.
Perhaps it may be allowable to say generally, that it can never be justified until the people
are fully convinced that any further submission will be destructive to their happiness.
For my part, I am resolved to strenuously contend for the liberty delivered down to
me from my ancestors; but whether I shall do this effectually or not, depends on you,
my countrymen.
[fife & drum music]