The Repeal of the Stamp Act, 1766 

“I rejoice that America has resisted.  Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as to voluntarily submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest.”

—William Pitt, in the House of Commons, January, 1766

 The American colonists won their first victory over Parliament when the Stamp Act was repealed in early 1766.  The boycott of English goods proved to be the decisive factor, as there was no way for Grenville and his party to persuade the rest of Parliament to ignore the pain the American boycott was inflicting on English manufacturers.  Still, the repeal came only after another round of long and contentious debates in which William Pitt delivered a historic speech in defense of the Americans: “They are subjects of this kingdom equally entitled with yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen; equally bound by its laws, and equally participating in the constitution of this free country.  The Americans are the sons, not the bastards of England.”  Pitt proposed an immediate and total repeal of the Stamp Act and, with the help of two dramatic speeches by Edmund Burke, the repeal was passed on March 18th, 1766.  The colonists had resisted against the British and Parliament flinched and, in so doing had, in George Washington’s view, averted disaster: “The Repeal of the Stamp Act, to whatsoever causes owing, ought much to be rejoiced at, for had the Parliament of Great Britain resolved upon enforcing it the consequences I conceive would have been more direful than is generally apprehended” (from a letter to Robert Cary dated July 21, 1766).   

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