You're listening to an airwave media podcast. Hello and thank you for joining the American Revolution.

Today episode 22 the Stamp Act and Quordering Act of 1765.

Now last week we left the close of 1764,

with the colonies still fighting the Sugar Act and Currency Acts passed that year.

But while there was considerable grumbling and some evasion, neither

of the acts had led to rioting in the streets. As 1765 began, Prime Minister

Grenville moved forward with more plans to increase revenue from the colonies.

He started with the Stamp Act.

Now, Stamp tax is not a new idea.

England had opposed a Stamp Act on its own subjects since

1694 when Parliament borrowed the idea from the Dutch. Essentially the law

required that all legal documents such as contracts, court filings, etc had to have a stamp on them indicating that a tax had been paid.

Now back in 1712 Parliament had increased the scope of the tax to cover newspapers and other periodicals.

The tax not only raised a fair amount of revenue, it helped the government keep control of publications, since all publishers would be required to print out not only proof of payment of the stamp tax,

but the name and address of the publisher making such payments. Authorities could much more easily arrest publishers

who printed seditious obscene or other criminal publications. The tax in Britain had its detractors. They considered a tax on a free press and on the dissemination of ideas.

But the law had been in place for decades, worked reasonably well, and raised a fair amount of revenue.

Now part of the incentive of extending the stamp tax to the colonies

may have been an attempt to control problem publications.

However, the main appeal for Grenville seemed to be its ease of

enforcement. Many of the most expensive taxes were on legal documents.

If a document did not have the stamp, it was not legally enforceable.

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