ABSTRACT
IN 1760, three years before the Peace of Paris was signed, George III became King of England. This was an event of great importance in the history of England and of the United States, on account of two political objects which the new king pursued with stubborn persistence during the first twenty years of his reign. By their native rights, Americans meant the traditional right of Englishmen to govern and tax themselves in assemblies of their own choosing. The right of Parliament to tax the Colonies in fact involved the right to abolish colonial selfgovernment; and fundamentally, therefore, the Colonies were contending for the right of self-government. The Stamp Act required, among other things, that practically all legal documents should be executed on stamped paper. Almost everyone in the colony, including Thomas Hutchinson, was opposed to the Stamp Act; but the Stamp Act could be resisted in one of two ways—one legal and the other illegal.
