Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States

STAMP ACT CONGRESS

STAMP ACT CONGRESS (IN U. S. HISTORY), a body of delegates from all the colonies, except New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, which met at New York, Oct. 7, and finally adjourned Oct. 25, 1765. It differed from the continental congress, which succeeded it, in that it took no steps toward forcible resistance. (See REVOLUTION, II.)

—The delegates from New York were named by the committee of correspondence; from Delaware and New Jersey, by informal action of the members of assembly; from the other colonies named, by formal action of the lower house of assembly. The action of the congress was confined to an address to the king, petitions to parliament, and a declaration of the rights and grievances of the colonies. The last named paper acknowledged "all due subordination" to parliament; but declared that the colonies could only be taxed by their own representatives in the colonial assemblies; that the colonists had the inherent right of trial by jury; that the stamp act, and other legislation to extend the jurisdiction of the admiralty court, without trial by jury, had "a manifest tendency to subvert the rights and liberties of the colonists"; and that parliamentary restrictions on colonial trade were burdensome.

—The petition of congress was offered in the house of commons, Jan. 27, 1766. It was objected to, 1, as the act of an unconstitutional gathering, and 2, because of its denial of the right of parliamentary taxation. After some debate the order of the day was voted, and in this summary manner the first request of the united colonies for a hearing was passed over.

—The proceedings of this congress are in Niles' Principles and Acts of the Revolution, 451, and in 2 Niles' Register, 337, 353; see also authorities under REVOLUTION.

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.