The Stamp Act is passed by Parliament…
1765 CE
It passes 205–49 in the House of Commons and unanimously in the House of Lords.
The high taxes on lawyers and college students are designed to limit the growth of a professional class in the colonies.
The stamps have to be purchased with hard currency, which is scarce, rather than the more plentiful colonial paper currency.
To avoid draining currency out of the colonies, the revenues are to be expended in America, especially for supplies and salaries of British Army units who are stationed there.
Two features of the Stamp Act involving the courts attract special attention.
The tax on court documents specifically includes courts "exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction."
These type of courts do not currently exist in the colonies and no bishops are currently assigned to the colonies, who would preside over the courts.
Many colonists or their ancestors had fled England specifically to escape the influence and power of such state-sanctioned religious institutions, and they fear that this is the first step to reinstating the old ways in the colonies.
Some Anglicans in the northern colonies are already openly advocating the appointment of such bishops, but they are opposed by both southern Anglicans and the non-Anglicans who make up the majority in the northern colonies.
The Stamp Act allows admiralty courts to have jurisdiction for trying violators, following the example established by the Sugar Act.
However, admiralty courts have traditionally been limited to cases involving the high seas.
The Sugar Act seems to fall within this precedent, but the Stamp Act does not, and the colonists see this as a further attempt to replace their local courts with courts controlled by England.
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