Ivory marked by the Royal African Company. International Slavery Museum, Liverpool. Wikimedia Commons.
The Stamp Act taxed the paper of ordinary business, from a newspaper to a will, and demanded the tax in scarce coin.
A family paying for a deed, a license, or an apprenticeship paper had to buy a stamp with silver it rarely held.
A printer or a lawyer could not do the week’s work on unstamped paper, so the tax sat on his counter.
The duty was meant to help service Britain’s war debt, and stamp agents were to collect it in coin.
The Stamp Act of 1765 placed a duty on legal documents, newspapers, almanacs, playing cards, and other paper, payable in sterling rather than in colonial bills.
Protests, a congress in New York, and a refusal to use the stamps made the law impossible to enforce, and Parliament repealed it in 1766.
On the same day, the Declaratory Act said Parliament had power to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever.
Stamp Act, 5 George III c. 12 (1765); Declaratory Act, 6 George III c. 12 (1766)