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The Repeal of the Stamp
Act, 1766
“I rejoice that America has resisted.
Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty
as to voluntarily submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments
to make slaves of the rest.”
—William Pitt, in the House
of Commons, January, 1766
The
American colonists won their first victory over Parliament when the Stamp Act
was repealed in early 1766. The
boycott of English goods proved to be the decisive factor, as there was no way
for Grenville and his party to persuade the rest of Parliament to ignore the
pain the American boycott was inflicting on English manufacturers.
Still, the repeal came only after another round of long and contentious
debates in which William Pitt delivered a historic speech in defense of the
Americans: “They are subjects of this kingdom equally entitled with
yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind and the peculiar privileges of
Englishmen; equally bound by its laws, and equally participating in the
constitution of this free country. The
Americans are the sons, not the bastards of England.”
Pitt proposed an immediate and total repeal of the Stamp Act and, with
the help of two dramatic speeches by Edmund Burke, the repeal was passed on
March 18th, 1766. The colonists
had resisted against the British and Parliament flinched and, in so doing had,
in George Washington’s view, averted disaster: “The Repeal of the Stamp
Act, to whatsoever causes owing, ought much to be rejoiced at, for had the
Parliament of Great Britain resolved upon enforcing it the consequences I
conceive would have been more direful than is generally apprehended” (from a
letter to Robert Cary dated July 21, 1766).
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