When Houston arrived in Wilmington in November 1765, an angry crowd of Wilmingtonians persuaded (or forced) the newly appointed bureaucrat to resign his post. William Houston accepted the Crown’s offer to be the colony’s stamp distributor-a position Henry McCullough had turned down. North Carolina initially experienced a less revolutionary response. In short, Virginia legislators claimed sovereignty over many of the decisions that affected those within the colony’s boundaries. One of the five resolves declared that only the Virginia assembly had the “sole exclusive right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants” of Virginia. Under the direction of Patrick Henry, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed the Virginia Resolves. Virginians reacted in a revolutionary way, however. In Boston, Massachusetts, for instance, colonists intimidated agents of the Crown and burned the lieutenant governor’s house, for they wished that their traditional English rights to be recognized. The act also meant that a growing number of bureaucrats were needed on American soil to enforce the legislation.Īcross the colonies, Americans reacted negatively to the tax. According to historian Larry Schweikart, colonists feared more than paying high taxes they also feared that the British government might control religious activities by placing a tax on denominational publications and even Bibles. A stamp was needed for marriage certificates, legal documents, newspapers, and even such items as playing cards. By requiring a stamp on numerous documents, the tax affected many American activities. The British passed the Stamp Tax in part to pay for the costs of the French and Indian War (also known as The Seven Years War). Enacted in 1765, the Stamp Act increased British control over the American colonial economy and further angered American colonists by confirming that salutary neglect had ended.
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