Posted on 07/19/2016 1:50:52 PM PDT by MichCapCon
The United States Postal Service puts out many beautiful stamps. One current “forever stamp” isn’t as nice to look at, but you should still consider using it the next time you decide to send some snail mail. It commemorates the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766.
If you’re like me, you probably have a vague memory of learning about the Stamp Act in grade school. Back then I wondered why it was such a big deal that the colonists had to pay more for stamps, because when I thought of stamps, I thought postage stamps. But for the American colonists, the Stamp Act was most akin to what people today call a “transactions tax.” It required the colonists to pay a tax on almost every legal transaction.
In the age before instantaneous communications, business transactions required more legal documents than they do today. Suppose you wanted to sell your crops back in the 18th century. How would a potential purchaser know that the crops actually existed, or that you had not already promised to sell them to someone else? It was not possible to pick up a phone or check online — verification could only be made by a certified document asserting both your ownership of the crops and their availability for sale.
Such documents were common and used extensively. The free flow of credit, goods and services depended on them. Land transactions, which were frequent and important in the “land of opportunity,” were particularly dependent on these legal documents.
By taxing these types of documents (requiring them to have a stamp affixed as proof of payment of the tax), the Stamp Act imposed a cost, often a high one, on most business transactions, since most transactions couldn’t happen without these certified documents.
It not only made participating in the economy more costly, but it made the colonists more dependent on the English Crown. And this dependency was a feature, thought the Crown — not an unfortunate side effect. As legal scholars Justin DuRivage and Claire Priest recount, one colonial leader, Jared Ingersoll, mistakenly believed that if Parliament only knew how many transactions would be taxed, they would lower the tax: “I very well knew the information I must give would operate strongly in our favour, as the number of our Law Suits, Deeds, . . . & in short almost all the Objects of the intended taxation & Dutys are so very numerous in the Colony that the knowledge of them would tend to the imposing of a Duty so much the Lower as the Objects were more in Number.”
But Britain saw the imposition of this tax as a way to better control the colonies and protect against their rivaling English power. As England’s Junior Treasury Secretary said at the time, the Stamp Act would act as “some Check to those enormous Grants and Conveyances, which are so detrimental to the Colonies.” DuRivage and Priest put it this way: “Authoritarian imperial reformers in Britain had long expressed concern that colonial settlement and expansion needed to be restrained lest the colonies challenge Britain’s economic supremacy within the empire.”
So take this time to recall the importance of the Stamp Act as a transaction tax, and its centrality to the American Revolution. Then consider why people today would still want to restrain economic activity in order to control it out of fear that a successful economy poses a threat to the ruling class. Then, as nice as the planets or national parks stamps are, give a thought to using these commemorative stamps instead.
And to think alleged conservatives now want the federal government to impose a tax on every transaction.
and now, we pay taxes on almost any transaction, again. I’m currently buying a used vehicle from a different state. Not only was it taxed (sales) when new, then the second owner paid use tax to his local authority...then the third owner paid the same and now I get to pay use tax again on the same vehicle. How is this justified? No, really, how?
They don’t need to justify themselves to serfs like us.
The first conflict of the American Revolution might be said to be the result of the Stamp Act of 1765. In August of 1765, Andrew Oliver, the Crown's stamp agent in Boston was hung in effigy from the Liberty Tree and forced to resign his commission.
"What a greater Joy did ever New England see
Than a Stampman hanging on a Tree".
Lt. Gov Thomas Hutchinson, regarded by the colonists as much too cozy with the Crown agents, and the sheriff attempted to break up the crowd around midnight only to be driven off by a hail of stones and harsh commentary.
A couple of weeks later a crowd gathered and lit a bonfire on King St in Boston. They then moved on to the house of William Story, a Crown agent in the admiralty court. The crowd swarmed the house, destroying Story's papers and his furnishings as well as Court records held there.
The crowd then moved on to the home of Boston's Controller of Customs, Benjamin Hallowell. They tore down his fence, broke out his windows, stormed the house and stripped it of contents.
The next target of the night was Hutchinson's home. The Lt. Gov. had gotten warning and sent his family to safety. But his eldest daughter had returned and declared she would stay unless Hutchinson also departed. Hutchinson retreated with her to a neighbor's house. The crowd did its work again and left only a shell and a partial roof to greet the dawn.
Thus our ancestors met overreaching government. It was not the last battle but merely a beginning. There followed the Declaratory Act and the Townsend Acts and the Tea Act. Martial law and direct resistance pushed back and forth until "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" and then it was game on.
The toffs in Parliament thought it was a “Cunning Plan” (shameless reference to Black Adder) and it would have worked if not for the colonists telling them, in inimitable American style, to go f*** themselves.
The difference is that the money all stays here....a kitty for government waste.
I just finished reading the “Sparrowhawk” series, and it was interesting to read, as The Stamp Act played prominently in the story (Leading up to the American Revolution)
I was a bit put off by the uber-positve portrayal of colonial atheists, but other than that, greatly enjoyed it.
As another poster said, it wasn’t repealed out of generosity, it was repealed because there were enough realistic people in England who said the equivalent of “If we don’t repeal it, we will lose the colonies”.
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Recessional of the Sons of the American Revolution:
“Until we meet again, let us remember our obligations to our
forefathers who gave us our Constitution, the Bill of Rights,
an independent Supreme Court and a nation of free men.”
Very iteresting. Despitemy ever abiding love of American history, I really did not know anything about the Stamp Act, oother than its name. It was always just referred to in a list of onerous taxes. Thanks for posting.
This is one of the events that eventually led to the tea party
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