ABSTRACT
In the decade between the adoption of the Stamp Act on March 22, 1765, and the outbreak of the War of Independence on April 19, 1775, relations between Parliament and Britain’s North American colonies underwent a profound change. Faced with mounting debts and a desire to compel Americans to contribute to their own defense, successive British governments sought an effective and acceptable means to tax Americans. In so doing they inadvertently called into question the political and constitutional relationship between the colonies and Britain. The dispute began with the Stamp Act (document 1), the first effort by Parliament to levy a direct internal tax on its overseas colonies. The act encouraged the American colonists to question their constitutional relationship with Britain both as individual colonies (document 2) and collectively (document 3). The act was unpopular in America and engendered popular protests, boycotts, and riots (documents 4 and 5). The protests were so widespread and effective that it was impossible to enforce the Stamp Tax. In early 1766 Parliament considered how to address the impasse—Parliament had adopted a tax and its colonists refused to pay it. Faced with colonial intransigence (document 6), Parliament repealed the act (document 7). It sought to preserve its right to tax the colonies in the future by adopting the Declaratory Act (document 8) which asserted its right to legislate for the colonies.
