Stamp Act Passes

March 22, 1765

Every newspaper, playing card, pamphlet, and legal document in the American colonies would now carry a paper stamp - a direct tax, payable in scarce sterling. Colonial lawyers exploded; the Stamp Act Congress met in New York; mobs hung tax collectors in effigy. The imperial crisis had begun. Sons of Liberty organized in every port, and royal stamp agents resigned their commissions rather than face the crowd.