Stamp Act

“ It is that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally and immediately. That the reason for the repeal be assigned, viz., because it was founded on an erroneous principle. At the same time, let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation whatsoever; that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent." Representative British Orations, pages 98-119. ”

“ As to the fact of a strenuous opposition to the Stamp Act, I sat as a stranger in your gallery when the act was under consideration. Far from anything inflammatory, I never heard a more languid debate in this House. No more than two or three gentlemen, as I remember, spoke against the act, and that with great reserve and remarkable temper. ”

“ The Stamp Act bore heavily on just the most dangerous classes of the population— newspaper-publishers, pamphleteers, lawyers, bankers, and merchants. Naturally the newspapers protested and the lawyers argued that the Stamp Act was unconstitutional, that Parliament had no right to levy taxes on the colonies. ”

“ Early in March 1765, the English parliament, passed the celebrated STAMP ACT, which provided that every note, bond, deed, mortgage, lease, licence, all legal documents of every description, every colonial pamphlet, almanac, and newspaper, after the first day of the following November, should be on paper furnished by the British government, the stamp cost being from one cent to thirty dollars. When the news of the passage of this act was brought to America the excitement was intense, and action was resolved on by the colonies. ”

“ The highest honours were conferred on those parliamentary leaders who had exerted themselves to obtain a repeal of the act; and, in Virginia, the house of Burgesses voted a statue to his majesty, as an acknowledgment of their high sense of his attention to the rights and petitions of his people.
Though all the colonies rejoiced at the repeal of the stamp act, the same temper did not prevail in all of them. In the commercial cities of the north, the regulations of trade were nearly as odious as the stamp act itself. ”

“ The Stamp Act was welcomed in the Colonies by the Tories of that day, precisely as the unconstitutional Slave Act has been welcomed by an imperious class among us. Hutchinson, at that time Lieutenant-Governor and Judge in Massachusetts, wrote to Ministers in England:—
"The Stamp Act is received among us with as much decency as could be expected. ”

“ The assemblies neglected doing any thing, and the parliament passed the stamp act. There is not so much as a colourable pretence that any American had a hand in the matter. Had governor Bernard, governor Hutchinson, or the late lieutenant governor been any way instrumental in obtaining the stamp act, it is very strange that not a glimpse of evidence should ever have appeared, especially when we consider that their private correspondence has been published, letters which were written in the full confidence of unsuspecting friendship. ”

“ A. Yes; the office cannot demand postage for a letter that it does not carry, or farther than it does carry it. Q. Are not ferrymen in America obliged, by act of parliament, to carry over the posts without pay? A. Yes. Q. Is not this a tax on the ferrymen? A. They do not consider it as such, as they have an advantage from persons travelling with the post. Q. If the Stamp Act should be repealed, and the crown should make a requisition to the colonies for a sum of money, would they grant it? ”

“ B. V.
[84] "The stamp act says, that the Americans shall have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase nor grant nor recover debts; they shall neither marry nor make their wills, unless they pay such and such sums" in specie for the stamps which must give validity to the proceedings. The operation of such a tax, had it obtained the consent of the people, appeared inevitable; and its annual productiveness, if I recollect well, was estimated by its proposer in the house of commons at the committee for supplies, at 100,000l. sterling. ”

“ It has been said that the preamble of the Act for the new duties stated the The Stamp Act. necessity for raising a revenue from the English colonies, and at the same time Grenville had proposed a Stamp [1048] Act as one of the means of raising such revenue. With singular want of wisdom, though with kindly feeling, he put off bringing in a Bill for the establishment of this tax, which would be an article of excise or inland duty, till the assemblies of the different colonies had stated their views with regard to it. ”

“ The Stamp Act of 1862 imposed a duty of two cents upon a bank-check, when drawn for an amount not less than twenty dollars. A careful individual, having the amount of twenty dollars to pay, pays the same by handing to his creditor two checks of ten dollars each. He thus draws checks in payment of his debt to the amount of twenty dollars, and yet pays no stamp duty. ”

“ The heavy burdens which the operation of the Stamp Act would have imposed on the colonists, together with the precedent it would establish of future exactions, furnished the American patriots with arguments calculated as well to move the passions as to convince the judgments of their fellow-colonists. In great warmth they exclaimed: "If the Parliament have a right to levy the stamp duties, they may by the same authority lay on us imposts, excises, and other taxes without end, till their rapacity is satisfied or our abilities are exhausted. ”

“ It is to be observed that the signature of the testator after this attestation has been signed by the witnesses, is not a compliance with the act; he must sign first.
2742. STAMP-DUTIES.—In the case of persons dying intestate, when their effects are administered to by their family, the stamp-duty is half as much more as it would have been under a will. Freehold and copyhold estates are now subject to a special impost on passing, by the Stamp Act of 1857. ”

“ Copeland, "your sister is right, in a sense, as under this act the Post-office Department will buy its stamps wholesale from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, at a nominal price per thousand, without reference to their face value. I think you also are mistaken, Parson, as the public will doubtless be as free to inspect the manufacture of stamps as they now are to see the process of bank-note-making. When the stamp-printing plant is established, there should be a great deal in it to interest you youngsters. ”

“ On March 10, 1764, preliminary resolutions passed the House of Commons looking towards the Stamp Act. ”

“ But these "treasonable" resolutions soon found response. New York followed. Massachusetts came next. In an address from the Legislature to the Governor, the true ground of opposition to the Stamp Act, coincident with the two radical objections to the Slave Act, are clearly set forth, with the following pregnant conclusion:—
"We deeply regret it that the Parliament has seen fit to pass such an act as the Stamp Act ”

“ Section 25 provided that the Commissioner of Internal Revenue should cause to be prepared 'for the payment of the taxes prescribed in this act suitable stamps denoting the tax on the document, article, or thing to which the same may be affixed.' The stamp is the evidence, and its purchase the convenient means, of payment. When a statute says that a person shall pay a given tax, it obviously imposes upon that person the duty to pay, and this may be enforced through the ordinary means adapted to the recovery of a definite sum due, unless that course is clearly prohibited. ”

“ In a little while it was taken up in the streets and along the countryside. All through the North and in some of the Southern colonies, there sprang up, as if by magic, committees and societies pledged to resist the Stamp Act to the bitter end. These popular societies were known as Sons of Liberty and Daughters of Liberty: the former including artisans, mechanics, and laborers; and the latter, patriotic women. Both groups were alike in that they had as yet taken little part in public affairs. ”

“ Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That from and after the establishment of the office aforesaid at the seat of government, and after six months’ notice of the new stamps hereby directed to be prepared and issued; which notice shall be given by the Secretary of the Treasury, in the manner directed by the tenth section of the act, intituled “An act laying duties on stamped vellum, parchment, and paper,”Vol. i. 527. so much of the act or acts heretofore passed, as empower and require the supervisors of the revenue to stamp or mark any vellum, parchment, or paper, shall cease and determine. ”

“ Pitt is much blamed for accepting the offers of the court. 8. ‘The Conduct of the late Administration examined relative to the Repeal of the Stamp Act,’ 1767. Much of this pamphlet, which runs to two hundred pages, was dictated by Grenville himself. It is the best existing collection of arguments on behalf of the Stamp Act. ”

“ Congress, by Act of July 17, 1862, prohibited the issue of shinplasters by private corporations or individuals, provided for the issuance to the public of postage and other stamps and declared that, under certain limitations, these were receivable in payment of dues to the United States and were redeemable in greenbacks. People naturally preferred the stamps to the promises to pay of private individuals and hastened to the post offices to be supplied therewith, but what they here gained in soundness they lost in convenience. ”

“ Our youth were reminded of the wise saws and sayings of "Poor Richard" and it taught them that if they learned to save the cents, the dollars were more likely to take care of themselves. But now think of the miserable, confused looking thing, with its wretched printing, that the Post Office has given us for the present three cent stamp. It is neither historical, national, beautiful, nor anything but a paltry evidence of the fact, that some engraver has got paid or will get paid for a job that ought never to have been done. Can our authorities not let well enough alone? ”

“ One cause of difficulty in the case arises from the use of stamps as one of the means of segregating and identifying the property intended to be exported. It is the form in which many taxes and duties are imposed and liquidated; stamps being seldom used, except for the purpose of levying a duty or tax. But we must regard things rather than names. A stamp may be used, and, in the case before us, we think it is used, for quite a different purpose from that of imposing a tax or duty: indeed, it is used for the very contrary purpose,-that of securing exemption from a tax or duty. ”

“ R. H.'s proposals, 196, 198, etc.; adhesive stamps recommended in “Post Office Reform,” and “Ninth Report of the Commissioners of Post Office Inquiry,” official approval of prepayment by stamps, 196; Treasury invites public to send in designs, results disappointing, why monarch's portrait was chosen, 199; precautions against forgery, 197-199; description of stamp-making, 200; Messrs Perkins & Co. make stamps first forty years of new system, are succeeded by Messrs De La Rue, stock nearly destroyed by fire, 201 ”

“ The New York Herald says:
"The old style of three cent postage stamps had thereon a face of Washington, out of compliment to a good man. It now has a railway scene to represent how Congressmen make money. The two cent stamp represents a man on horseback. This represents Booth's death ride into Maryland. The one cent stamp should represent a cow with the favorite son of the Covington postmaster fast to her tail. This out of compliment to Grant."
An Eastern paper says:
"The Government introduced the present nondescript things called postage stamps, for the purpose of frightening counterfeiters." ”

“ Such stamps were issued at New York, St. Louis, Brattleboro, New Haven, Providence, Alexandria, Baltimore, Millbury and probably other places. Although not governmental or official stamps, they are none the less interesting or valuable mementoes. They show how determined the public were to have the postage stamp, and their history shows how the Public Will compelled the government to adopt the postage stamp in spite of the supposed difficulties in the way. ”

“ Stamps, while they do duty for coin, are used almost exclusively for small transactions, and generally among people well known to each other. Other precautions are nevertheless very necessary; and besides the initial letters on each stamp—different in every one of the two hundred and forty in the sheet—which are regarded as so many checks on the forger, this pest to society would have to engrave his own die, and cast his own blocks, and find a drilling-machine, perhaps the most difficult undertaking of all. ”

“ That Congress recognized the difference between these two terms is evident, because in the very next paragraph of Schedule A it provides, in reference to merchandise, for a stamp 'upon each sale, agreement of sale, or agreement to sell.' That no stamp duty was imposed on agreements to buy (or, in the vernacular of the stock exchange, 'puts') furnishes no ground for denying the validity of the stamp duty on agreements to sell. The power of Congress in this direction is unlimited. ”

“ In all probability most of the claimants to invention of the postage stamp—they have, to our knowledge, numbered over a dozen, while the claimants to the entire plan of reform make up at least half that tale—came from the many competitors who, in response to the Treasury's invitation to the public to furnish designs, sent in drawings and written suggestions. ”