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How Many Americans Think the Repeal of the Stamp Act brought on the Forever Stamp?

6/8/2016

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PictureAn actual photo of the poster unveiled 6/2/2016 by the United States Postal Service at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Here is USPS web page. https://www.usps.com/stamps/repeal-of-the-stamp-act.htm
,How Many Americans Think the Repeal of the Stamp Act brought on the Forever Stamp?
 
Sorry, but The Stamp Act was repealed 250 years ago. What was the Stamp Act of 1765 and why did it have nothing to do with postage?
 
The Stamp Act was imposed only on the British American colonies.  It was a punitive tax designed to repay the British treasury for the cost of the French and Indian War.  The British and French called this war the Seven Years War. The French Canadians called it the War of Conquest.  Europe was fond of identifying its numerous wars with the period of exertion from the time war is declared until a peace treaty is signed. 
While this war raged from 1754 to 1763, only seven years of the nine years was actually declared a war.  Try explaining this to the colonist while they were fighting the Iroquois and Mohawk Indians and their French Canadian and French professional armies.
 
The colonies sent 30,000 soldiers (unsupported but best estimate) in support of the British.  New England and Virginia with vast interests in Ohio were the strongest contributors to the British missions.  It continues to be difficult to accurately assess the human cost of the war.  Records of deaths were not uniform or complete.  Probably, 5,000 to 15,000, died on both sides and perhaps as many as 2,000, colonist. But the Indians, in particular, were pushed back to Ohio, upstate New York and Canada.  This was clearly the colonist’s chief objective as the Iroquois allied nations were consistently hostile and cruel.
 
Simultaneously, with this wars conclusion, the wars in Europe came to a halt under the same peace treaty.  By most historical standards today, the better name for this confrontational period would be WWI.  England and her allies emerged the overwhelming winner.  In general, France, Spain, Prussia, German republics, Austria and England exchanged real estate upon signing the Treaty of Paris.   
 
The treaty covered land and economic interests that extended as far as India and Asia.  The patriotic theme of the poem “Rule Britannia” was now a fact.  However, England, with a population of 6.4 million people, modest compared to France’s 12 million, was now the policeman of the world’s oceans.   She had an overwhelming problem just staffing her navy.  And behind it all was a treasury that was exhausted of all funds along with a debt nine times its annual budget.
 
Here was the reason for Parliament approving the Stamp Act of 1765.  So was it a tax on first class, third class or bulk stamps?  No, it was a tax affixed to every piece of paper to be used by the colonists:  Legal papers, newspapers, writing paper, advertisements, leather satchel’s binding paper, marriage licenses, playing cards, journals and diaries. Pretty intrusive, wouldn’t you say?  You couldn’t submit a document to the court system unless it already had the stamp of the British Government on it as proof you paid the tax.  If you published a newspaper without the stamp, you risked confiscation of your printing press.
 
So Parliament printed all sorts of paper and sent it by sea to Andrew Oliver, their commissioner representative in Boston.  It wasn’t long before the forerunners to the Sons of Liberty attacked his warehouse and destroyed the facility and then partially abused Oliver’s home.  Not the first mob to rule Boston but certainly, the clearest message sent to Parliament:  “Taxation without representation is Tyranny”.[i]
 
Boston, if not the thirteen colonies had many friends in Parliament but not a majority.  In this particular matter, Parliament quickly reversed itself and repealed the stamp act on March 18, 1766, nearly one year from its declaration.  Unfortunately for Andrew Oliver word of its repeal took five weeks to travel over the ocean.  Before word reached the colonies Oliver was forced by the local radicals to resign his commission.  A couple of years later his brother-in-law, acting governor Thomas Hutchinson, brought him back into the British administration only to land him in the middle of broader tax controversies known as the “Townshend Acts.”
 
So the stamp you see within this article commemorates the repeal of the stamp act.  The United States Postal Service unveiled it on June 2, 2016, at the Massachusetts Historical Society, two-hundred and fifty years later.  You are viewing their poster sized advertisement.
 

 


[i] James Otis, undeclared voice of the people, and soon to be the official leader of the Massachusetts Assembly.

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  • Freedom Trail Tour
    • The Boston Massacre Tour
    • Boston Civil War Tour
    • The Kennedy Tour
    • The Boston Massacre Lesson Plan
    • Paul Revere's Row to Charlestown 4/18/1775
    • Virtual Tour of the Massachusetts State House
    • The Boston Massacre per the Pennsylvania Gazette
    • Paul Revere Lesson Plan
  • Revere Bells Index
    • The Stickney Revere Bell Listings of 1976
    • Paul Revere Bell of Beverly
    • Revere Bells in Boston >
      • Paul Revere Bell Old South Meeting House
    • California's 2 Paul Revere Bells
    • Paul Revere & Son's Bell Westborough Massachusetts
    • Falmouth, Massachusetts
    • Revere Bell Fredericksburg VA
    • Revere Bell Hampton NH
    • First Parish Church of Kennebunk
    • Revere Bells in Maine
    • Revere Bell in Mansfield
    • Revere Bell of Michigan
    • Revere Salem Mass Bell
    • Roxbury First Unitariarn Universalist Church and their Revere Bell
    • Revere & Son Bell, Savannah Georgia
    • Singapore Revere Bell
    • Tuscaloosa Bell >
      • History of the St John and Leavens Patriarchs
      • Samuel St John Jr Estate Genealogy
      • Authenticating the Revere Tuscaloosa Bell
      • Joshua B Leavens Last Will and Testament
      • 20th Century Tuscaloosa bell
    • Revere Bells Lost in Time
    • Revere Bells Washington DC
    • Revere Bell in Wakefield, Mass
    • Revere Bells Woodstock VT
  • Bostonians
    • Edward F Alexander of The Harvard 20th Civil War Regiment
    • Polly Baker
    • John Wilkes Booth
    • The Mad Hatter, Thomas, Boston Corbett who Killed John Wilkes Booth
    • Richard-Henry-Dana-Jr
    • James Franklin
    • Benjamin Harris of Publick Occurrences
    • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
    • William Lloyd Garrison
    • USS Thomas Hudner DDG116
    • Edward Hutchinson Robbins Revere
    • Amos Lincoln
    • King Philip
    • Mayor's of Boston
    • Mum Bett & Theodore Sedgwick
    • James Otis
    • Paul Joseph Revere
    • John Rowe >
      • John Rowe's Diary Entries
      • John Rowe's Dinner Party
      • John Rowe and the Jail Fire
      • Hang John Rowe?????
      • John Rowe the Fisherman
      • Joh Rowe's Tea Ship
    • Be Proud to be Called a Lucy Stoner
    • Rachel Wall , Pirate
    • Paul Revere the Coroner of Boston
    • Deborah Sampson
    • Who was Mrs. Silence Dogood?
    • Dr. Joseph Warren's Dedication
  • History Blog
  • Lilja's of Natick
    • Lilja Brothers Military History
    • Lilja's Family Album
    • Memorials and Tributes to the Five Lilja Brothers
    • Lilja Family Tree
    • Lilja Historical Family Tree Documents
    • Lilja References
  • Collage of Boston
    • 4th of July Parade, Bristol RI
    • Boston Harbor
    • The Customs House
    • Forest Hills Cemetery
    • Georges Island
    • Nonviolent Monument to Peace - Sherborn
    • The Battle Road
    • Skate bike and scooter park
    • Cassin Young & USS Cassin Young
    • MIT
    • Historic Charles River
    • The Roxbury Standpipe on Fort Hill
    • John & Abigail Adams National Park