Reaction of the Virginia Legislature to the Stamp Act of 1765

Makarov Egor Pavlovich ORCID: 0000-0002-1105-0260 PhD in History Associate Professor; Department of Philosophy, Social Sciences and Humanities; Samara State Technical University 1 Tsiolkovsky str., Samara, Samara region, 443100, Russia egor.makarov.esq@gmail.com

History has repeatedly confirmed that global geopolitical shifts, such as the American War of Independence, often began against the background of prolonged disregard by the authorities of appeals from ordinary citizens asking them to protect their own rights guaranteed by law and custom. This was the situation faced by the British colonial community in the period 1764-1765, when the metropolis' long-term attempts to structure the taxation system of its possessions in North America took the form of a parliamentary act called the Stamp Act ^{[1, pp. 95-102]}. The innovations of the metropolis provoked a strong protest reaction in Williamsburg, and the speeches made at the Burgess House in Virginia on May 30, 1765 were a call to defend their rights by any means available, which was already considered by many contemporaries as an extremely radical step, comparable to a direct call to arms ^{[2, p. 393-395]}.

The uniqueness of the situation at that time was that the most solid positions in the Burgess House were occupied by pragmatic and moderate representatives of the local ruling elite. Most of the Virginia legislators strictly followed the opinion of the patriarchs of the colony's wealthiest families, who did not want to worsen the already brewing split in relations with the mother country. Since the 1730s, the issue of reforming colonial taxation has caused a lot of controversy in Virginia, and for several decades direct conflict with the central government has been avoided through negotiations and mutual concessions, from which the entire Virginia society benefited. The events of the summer of 1765 developed in such a way that the radical members of the Burgess House were determined to involve the people in the struggle, for which they tried to adopt appropriate resolutions and incite the protest sentiments of the broad masses of the population ^{[3, pp. 61-67]}.

Despite the fact that the most provocative of these resolutions were blocked by moderate legislators, in June and July 1765 the general situation in the Burgess House remained unsettled. The disputes among the local elite showed that the Virginia General Assembly was determined to protect the rights of the provincial population, primarily by legal means, but if necessary, by the threat of open disobedience. Since the events of the formation of opposition to the Stamp Act in one of the largest and richest British colonies were an important part of the historical prologue of the American War of Independence, over several centuries they became part of the political myths actively supported in American society. There are many memoirs of contemporaries about the events of the 1765 summer debate in Williamsburg, which are still actively used as sources in historical research, for example, in the works of E. Morgan and H. Morgan, D. Bellion and D. Titus ^{[4, 5, 6]}.

Of such documents, the records of a man who presented himself as a "French traveler" deserve special attention ^[7]. These records of an eyewitness to the events of the debate in the legislative assembly of Virginia became available for study thanks to the research of historian R. St. Isaac's ^{[8, pp. 657-670]}.

In 1765, Williamsburg, being one of the most prominent strongholds of British power in North America, also became the center of the emergence of a powerful political opposition, the tenets of which later proved to be in demand in other colonies and shook the inviolability of royal power in the region. Already in the spring of 1765, there were rumors among the urban politically informed public that Great Britain would soon have to make a new attempt to extract part of local revenues to cover the national debt. Since the conclusion of the Peace of Paris in 1763, negotiations between Virginia representatives and officials of the metropolis have been extremely tense, and for several years the parties have not been able to reach lasting agreements on ways to pay the salaries of regular British troops stationed in the region ^{[9, p. 1239-1246]}.

Since all the problems raised at the negotiations between the colony and the metropolis, in one way or another, concerned financial issues, the representatives of Virginia each time sought to show that they would not tolerate interference in their internal affairs through procedures that went against the British legal tradition. When news of the imminent enactment of the Stamp Duty Act reached Williamsburg, Virginia lawmakers clearly realized that the central government had chosen to ignore all their requests. People were openly outraged that the new tax pointed out to the local community that it was depriving them of natural protection from political arbitrariness, which in British reality consisted in the fact that parliament traditionally made decisions on taxation only of those subjects of the king whose interests it represented. Historically, parliamentary representation has been important, especially in the context of tax legislation. But in the period 1764-1765, a paradoxical situation developed in which the British legislature drafted and passed a tax law, which had to be paid by those whose representatives in parliament were not present ^{[10, p. 172-174]}.

Already in early April 1765, the exact wording of the new law reached Williamsburg, and a large number of angry citizens immediately joined its discussion ^[11]. During this period, the views of the Virginian public figure and jurist John Mercer became widespread, who both verbally and in writing disseminated criticism of innovations. He prepared a detailed analysis of the entire structure of Virginia taxation and, having attached a list of existing duties, was going to publish a corresponding newspaper article, but suddenly faced serious opposition from the colonial administration in the person of the lieutenant governor, as well as some influential representatives of the ruling elite of the colony. Virginian printers received a strict ban on the publication of D. Mercer's comments, stating the inadmissibility of criticism of royal initiatives and the highest state authority ^{[12, p. 3-38]}.

As a result of lengthy disputes, D. Mercer's comments were nevertheless published in the Virginian Newspaper on April 24, but almost the entire text was censored, with the exception of the alphabetical table of excise taxes. This circumstance caused serious outrage in the Virginia society, and the unedited text of D. Mercer's comments became a topic of discussion in the Burgess House. One of those who took this situation most emotionally was Patrick Henry, a young legislator from the inner Virginia area who had a reputation as a qualified jurist. George Johnston of Fairfax, John Fleming of Cumberland, and Robert Munford and Mecklenburg quickly joined the criticism of the new tax legislation initiated by P. Henry. In the research environment, it is traditionally believed that they did a lot of preparatory work to form opposition to the Stamp Duty Law. P. Henry and his colleagues analyzed a large number of records about popular opposition to royal arbitrariness in the 17th century ^[13].

As work on a well-thought-out response to tax innovations has been underway in Williamsburg for quite a long time, rumors have been growing among the politically informed urban community that the Burgess House will soon present its comprehensive response to the unfair policies of the metropolis. The oppositionists had set the day of the official presentation of their draft in advance for May 29, when fewer people than usual were present in the legislative assembly. At the meeting itself, D. was the first to act. Johnston, who proposed to bring up the issue of stamp duty. His initiative was immediately supported by P. Henry, and after that, the Virginia legislators voted to transfer this issue to the work of the committees of the whole house. Thus, an important procedure was carried out to transfer the discussion to a closed meeting, individual decisions of which should not have been accurately recorded, except in cases where the outcome of the discussions was the formal adoption of a resolution. There are many different and often contradictory versions of the negotiations that took place behind closed doors. Moreover, the exact wording of D. Johnston's proposals is completely absent, and the available official documents of the Burgess House report only on the consideration of the stamp duty being prepared for the introduction in America. If we analyze the situation only from these documents, we can conclude that the situation in Williamsburg remained calm, and only the details of taxation were discussed in the local legislative assembly, without seeking to organize any protest to this parliamentary act approved by the king ^[14].

In fact, the situation turned out to be far from as clear-cut as it appeared in official documents, and their drafters went to a number of tricks in order not to reveal the true scale of discontent among Virginia lawmakers. It is well known that at a closed meeting of the committee of the whole house, seven resolutions were developed, the authorship of which is attributed by most researchers to P. Henry. It was his vivid and memorable protest rhetoric that drew the attention of his contemporaries to this meeting and made this meeting one of the most famous episodes of the political debate in the Williamsburg Capitol. Contemporaries noted the extraordinary emotional expressiveness of P. Henry's speeches, although their full content was not presented to the public ^[15].

Analyzing the circumstances of the debate in the Burgess House, it is worth noting that the well-thought-out tactics of the oppositionists was to delay time and submit their proposals to an incomplete composition of the assembly, since most legislators shared a moderate political position and did not want to aggravate the conflict with the metropolis. Such a loyal majority could simply block all resolutions and stop the further practical development of opposition initiatives. The patriotic minority, on the contrary, enlisted the support of the remaining legislators and adopted resolutions with a view to their further alternate presentation at the next meeting of the Burgess House. This tactic made it possible to avoid the suppression of opposition initiatives at the very beginning of the process of their consideration and to gain the time necessary for the spread of protest sentiments among the politically active population of Williamsburg ^{[16, p. 543-559]}.

Considering that the most influential representatives of the ruling class of Virginia were set up for dialogue with the central government and tried to avoid the tactics of ultimatums, there is a well-established opinion among researchers that only those resolutions whose contents did not offend the king and parliament were included in the official journals of the Burgess House. Thus, serious debates about stamp duty began in the Virginia legislature not at the first, closed meeting of the committee on May 29, but at the second, open meeting, which took place the next day ^{[17, pp. 235-264]}.

The Burgess House journal entries dated May 30 contain rather concise wording, according to which Peyton Randolph reported that the committee had considered a number of practical measures that were supposed to be taken in response to the adoption of the Stamp Act, in connection with which a number of resolutions were proposed. Very little information was reported about the related debates, and official documents only emphasized that the resolutions had been heard twice and then adopted with some amendments. Since later only the first four most moderate resolutions appeared in the press, it becomes clear to the researcher that the wording "some amendments" meant the exclusion of the three remaining and most radical resolutions ^[14].

From the very beginning of the growth of opposition sentiments, the Lieutenant Governor closely monitored the activity of the Virginia legislators and formed reports to the central government on the prevailing sentiments in the colony. It is known from his letter dated June 5 that the first and most moderate resolution passed by an impressive margin – 22 votes against 17, while the fifth and most controversial of the adopted resolutions had a minimal margin – 20 votes against 19 ^{[18, p. 1250-1253]}.

In terms of content, all the resolutions adopted were abridged versions of the texts of complaints and requests sent by the House of Burgess to the King a year earlier. The first resolution claimed that the Virgin settlers brought to America, and then their descendants inherited all the freedoms that the people of Great Britain had. The second resolution pointed out that all royal decrees throughout the entire period of interaction between the colony and the metropolis invariably confirmed these freedoms. The third and fourth resolutions concluded that residents of the colonies could be taxed only by decision of local legislative assemblies, and the basis of the local government system were laws passed in the interests of the entire community by local Virginia legislators ^[19].

The fifth resolution, which was adopted by a minimal margin of one vote, was much more provocative. It contained bold statements that any attempts to empower a colonial or central legislative body to make tax decisions without representation would ultimately lead to the destruction of both British and American rights and freedoms. The last two resolutions are mentioned in F.'s report. Fauquier explained that they had been consistently excluded from the agenda for further discussion. In fact, both resolutions continued to denote the theses of the fifth resolution in detail. In the sixth resolution, it was mentioned that the people of Virginia would not comply with those decisions of the British Parliament that directly relate to the internal policy of the province. The seventh resolution was the most radical in content, and researchers traditionally define it as a direct indication of the possibility of violent resistance to innovations. It contained formulations stating that any royal official who tries to levy a new stamp tax from the Virginians that was not approved by the provincial legislature would be considered an enemy of the entire colony and its citizens ^[19].

The eloquent statements of P. Henry and D. Johnston caused a furious debate and marked a split in the Burgess House, revealing both the most patriotic lawmakers and those who did not want to aggravate the conflict with the royal power. The culmination of the meeting was considered by most contemporaries to be P. Randolph's statement that he was ready to pay a large sum of money for one vote, with which it would be possible to block the adoption of the provocative fifth resolution. He did not hide his strong indignation at the accepted wording about the "destruction of both British and American rights and freedoms." Using the real power of the ruling elites of Virginia, who did not want to provoke the central government of the metropolis, the fifth resolution was deleted from the journal of the Burgess House the day after the designated meeting ^{[20, p. 90-114]}.

In the French Naval Archive, there are records of reports made by a French agent who witnessed the events in Williamsburg. This third-party document significantly complements the picture of events known from the records of the Burgess House and F. Fauquier's office. In the records of the May 29 reports, in addition to describing the naval fortifications and the state of local trade, there was a sharp surge in protest sentiments among Virginians, which gradually engulfed the whole of Williamsburg. Already on May 30, a French agent was able to get into the lobby of the Burgess House, where he heard an incessant and extremely emotional discussion of "stamp excises" – taxes that parliament was going to introduce in Virginia. The agent was very impressed by the words of one of the Virginia legislators that Julius Caesar had his Brutus, and Charles had his Cromwell, and therefore there would definitely be a kind American who would stand up for his country ^{[8, p. 657-670]}.

The French agent also noted the surprise of those around the speaker and the abrupt intervention of the speaker of the Burgess House, who called these speeches sedition and betrayal. This speaker was P. Henry, who apologized to the audience for his tone, and noted that he apologized for his words and was ready to prove his loyalty to the king to the last drop of blood. He also added that in the heat of passion he said more than he originally intended, and his emotions are unrestrained only because it is impossible to watch his country's freedom slowly die. This speech provoked strong approval from the assembled legislators ^[7].

The very fact of the debate at the meetings and in the lobby of the Burgess House suggests that the political tension in Virginia society at the end of May 1765 was very serious. Despite P. Henry's bold and provocative statements and his support by many lawmakers, the ruling elites of Virginia tried their best to reduce tension in society. The entries in the Burgess House journal were corrected and only the first four resolutions were presented in them, which did not provoke a negative reaction from the central government of Great Britain. In the Burgess House itself, the confrontation of different points of view was far from a successful resolution. While loyal representatives of local elites insisted on curbing the further spread of discontent, the patriot legislators were going to start the debate again to adopt all seven previously designated resolutions ^{[21, pp. 561-576]}.

In a letter to the central government dated June 5, Lieutenant Governor F. Fauquier noted that the moderate-minded Virginia legislators had restored order and made some changes in the Burgess House, and in the future they intend to achieve the cancellation of previously adopted protest resolutions ^{[18, p. 1250-1253]}. By the changes, F. Fauquier meant the departure of P. Henry and some of his supporters from Williamsburg. He also explained the postponement of the deadline for the dissolution of the legislature in order to allocate an additional day of meetings, which was necessary for loyal legislators to formally repeal resolutions. But even in such circumstances, it was not possible to achieve the complete repeal of all resolutions, and only the fifth resolution was annulled. After that, the Legislative Assembly was dissolved ^{[22, p. 175-196]}.

Following the debates on May 29, 30, and 31, 1756, the final compromise presented by F. Fauquier to the central government as his own victory was to prevent the adoption of the radical fifth, sixth, and seventh resolutions while preserving the first, second, third, and fourth, which were considered the most moderate in content. As the debate intensified, the people of Williamsburg were well aware that lawmakers strongly disagree on which resolutions should be adopted and which should be rejected. The urban community also actively discussed the content of the resolutions, which strongly differed in content and meaning ^{[23, p. 453-468]}. Some lawmakers and their supporters from among ordinary Virginians even advocated an open protest, considering it the most effective measure that would show the metropolis the seriousness of the mood of the local community. After May 31, people increasingly discussed the idea, which had become very popular, that members of the British Parliament did not have the right to impose taxes on residents of the colonies without their consent ^{[24, pp. 257-272]}.

Against the background of the debates in the Burgess House and the active discussions of resolutions outside it, two points of view on the events clearly emerged. The first point of view represented the events that took place as a natural political process of finding a balance between the interests of the colony and the metropolis. She assumed that a compromise would definitely be found in the near future, and supporters of F. adhered to her. Fauquiers, moderate-minded representatives of the ruling elite and opinion-oriented Virginians. The second point of view was shared by supporters of P. Henry and D. Johnston, who believed that it was necessary to fight for their rights to the end and to indicate to the metropolis the seriousness of their intentions. They advocated the adoption of all resolutions and blamed F. Fauquier for the dissolution of the assembly, which deliberately prevented the further development of the opposition movement ^{[25, pp. 63-83]}.

Given the precarious parity of these points of view in the Virginia political field, news of the heated debate in the Burgess House gradually spread beyond Williamsburg. After the dissolution of the legislative assembly on June 1, the inhabitants of the colony greeted the king's traditionally widely celebrated birthday very coldly on June 4, while the name of P. Henry was increasingly heard in taverns and squares of the Virginia settlements and his speeches were quoted. News of the Burgess House resolutions quickly spread beyond the colony's borders. If for the Virginians themselves the initiators of the struggle for freedom were P. Henry, D. Johnston and their supporters, then in the neighboring provinces the idea quickly prevailed that the entire legislative assembly of Virginia embarked on the path of struggle for the rights and freedoms of all the British colonies of North America. Among residents of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina, the measures taken by Virginia lawmakers to protect the interests of the local population have increasingly been openly discussed and approved. In July and August, news of the struggle of the Virginia legislators for the inalienable rights and freedoms of American settlers reached all thirteen colonies, and against the background of widespread discussion of the adopted resolutions, the mood of the people became more and more radical, including calls to defend their rights even with weapons in their hands if necessary ^{[26, p. 203-221]}.

Summarizing the analysis of the reaction of the Virginia legislature to the adoption of the Stamp Act of 1765 by the metropolis, a number of important conclusions can be drawn.

Firstly, given the lack of a serious preponderance of influence from both the most radical legislators and supporters of a moderate approach, it can be concluded that all participants in the May 1765 debate perceived the events as a natural part of the political process of the House of Burgess. There is every reason to believe that the participants in these events did not perceive them as a clearly brewing prologue of the provincial uprising against the power of the metropolis.

Secondly, the discussions in the Virginia legislature and the public reaction to them clearly showed that the power of the colony's wealthiest families remained strong enough to keep any opposition sentiments under control. The reaction of the ruling class of Virginia was clearly visible in the actions of P. Randolph, who clearly demonstrated the desire to continue negotiations with the central government on better terms of interaction, but at the same time not to escalate the situation to an open conflict with its inherent radical methods of struggle.

Thirdly, in the 1760s, P. Randolph, D. Robinson and other political leaders from the ruling class of Virginia managed to keep the popular protest from spreading. However, the emergence of new bright leaders, such as P. Henry, clearly demonstrated the formation of new forms of civic identity in the province and fundamentally new ways of political struggle. Radical ideas received a new impetus in the early 1770s, and the wealthiest families in Virginia began to realize that it was much more profitable to lead these revolutionary processes than to continue to resist them. The gradual change in the vector of thinking of Virginia's political leaders could be observed by the example of their attitude to the resolutions adopted by the Burgess House. At the very beginning of the debate, lawmakers from among the ruling elites of the colony preferred to block the most radical resolutions. But since the spread of these ideas throughout the colonial space of North America, it was considered the best option for the development of events to confirm the universal confidence that the Virginia legislators are united in the struggle for the rights and freedoms of the entire local population.