Grenville's Silver Hammer
The Problem of Money in the Stamp Act Crisis
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4156180 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Andrew David Edwards (Princeton University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 104 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 337-362 |
| Publication date | 2017-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jahist/jax172 |
| OpenAlex | W2747347381 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
The New England merchant Nathaniel Sparhawk wrote to Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquis of Rockingham, in 1765: There has never happened among us anything that has thrown the people of this province, and indeed the whole continent, into such a consternation as this Act has occasioned. And besides its being universally disliked, it is thought by the best judges here to be wholly impracticable, from the nature of the Act and the peculiar circumstances of the colonies relative to it. It is much doubted whether all the circulating cash among us (which is no more than is absolutely necessary for the carrying on our trade and business, and answering the common occasions of life), supposing the Act should be carried into execution, would be sufficient to answer its demands. It is very plain, then, that the consequence thereof would be the ruin of the trade and commerce of the country.1 The crisis surrounding the legislation Sparhawk laments, the 1765 Stamp Act, is the traditional pivot point of American colonial history—when colonists first began to wonder aloud what it might be like as citizens of an independent republic. On February 17, 1765, British Parliament passed an act “granting and applying certain stamp duties, and other duties, in the British colonies and plantations in America,” intending to defray the expenses of troops stationed in North America since the end of the Seven Years' War. The taxes were designed to be light, spread evenly throughout the colonies, requiring anyone who participated in civil society—from graduating college students to lawyers writing a last will and testament—to pay a small fee to the British State. Yet despite Parliament's efforts at restraint, the act outraged many colonists. Fearing mob violence, stamp distributors resigned their posts; newspapers printed death's-heads above the fold in place of “the fatal Stamp” and colonial merchants organized nonimportation agreements meant to force repeal of the act. Parliament repealed the act, but the revolutionary debate had begun. The colonists had made clear they would never accept parliamentary taxation without a fight.2
Colonialism · Economic history · Legislation · Parliament · Political science · Politics · Watson · Wonder · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Law
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2024 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |