The Movement Toward Independence
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United in their opposition to the tax, the colonies, in their first effort at
intercolonial union for resistance to British imperial authority, sent delegates to a Stamp Act Congress in New York which met on October 7,
1765. Representing nine colonies, the Congress drafted a bill of rights and
a statement of colonial grievances based on the principle of ‘‘No Taxation
Without Representation.’’ The Americans argued that Parliament had exceeded its authority in passing the Stamp Act because the colonies, not
being represented in Parliament, could be taxed only by their own assemblies.
Parliament wisely repealed the Stamp Act on March 17, 1766; but it
refused to disavow its new claim to power, and with the repeal it appended a Declaratory Act affirming its right to legislate for the colonies
in all matters. The Americans were so overjoyed by repeal that they overlooked the objectionable principle embodied in the Act. The British, as
Americans soon realized, had changed their stance but not their position.
In 1767, upon the recommendation of Charles Townshend, the new
Chancellor of the Exchequer, a stubborn Parliament counterattacked
with another series of statutes designed to implement the new colonial
policy. Relying upon the transparent argument that Parliament, by repealing the Stamp Act, had renounced a direct taxation on the colonies
but had reserved the right of indirect taxation, the supporters of the new
plan imposed a duty on glass, tea, lead, and paper imported into the colonies. The American response was predictably hostile. No less objectionable to many colonials was a provision of the act authorizing courts to
grant writs of assistance to enable British officials to search any house or
ship suspected of harboring smuggled goods (James Otis had publicly
opposed such writs as early as 1761, contending that they were unconstitutional). Other objectionable Townshend Acts included the establishment of a board of custom officials and an act suspending the New York
assembly because it had failed to make satisfactory arrangements for the
quartering of British troops stationed in the colony.
The controversy over the Townshend Acts centered on questions of
Parliament’s constitutional powers. Chief among the American opponents
was the able lawyer John Dickinson, who maintained in his widely circulated Letters of a Farmer in Pennsylvania that the Townshend Acts contravened established English constitutional principles. Resistance also took