[Sidenote:  Taxation and representation.]

[Sidenote:  Henry’s resolutions, 1765. Higginson, 161-164; McMaster, 112-114.]

108.  Henry’s Resolutions, 1765.—­The colonists, however, with one voice, declared that Parliament had no power to tax them.  Taxes, they said, could be voted only by themselves or their representatives.  They were represented in their own colonial assemblies, and nowhere else.  Patrick Henry was now a member of the Virginia assembly.  He had just been elected for the first time.  But as none of the older members of the assembly proposed any action, Henry tore a leaf from an old law-book and wrote on it a set of resolutions.  These he presented in a burning speech, upholding the rights of the Virginians.  He said that to tax them by act of Parliament was tyranny.  “Caesar and Tarquin had each his Brutus, Charles I his Cromwell, and George III”—­“Treason, treason,” shouted the speaker.  “May profit by their example,” slowly Henry went on.  “If that be treason, make the most of it.”  The resolutions were voted.  In them the Virginians declared that they were not subject to Acts of Parliament laying taxes or interfering in the internal affairs of Virginia.

[Illustration:  HENRY’S FIRST AND LAST RESOLUTIONS (FACSIMILE OF THE ORIGINAL DRAFT)]

[Sidenote:  Opposition to the Stamp Act, 1765. Higginson, 164-165; McMaster, 116.]

109.  Stamp Act Riots, 1765.—­Until the summer of 1765 the colonists contented themselves with passing resolutions.  There was little else that they could do.  They could not refuse to obey the law because it would not go into effect until November.  They could not mob the stamp distributers because no one knew their names.  In August the names of the stamp distributers were published.  Now at last it was possible to do something besides passing resolutions.  In every colony the people visited the stamp officers and told them to resign.  If they refused, they were mobbed until they resigned.  In Boston the rioters were especially active.  They detested Thomas Hutchinson.  He was lieutenant-governor and chief justice and had been active in enforcing the navigation acts.  The rioters attacked his house.  They broke his furniture, destroyed his clothing, and made a bonfire of his books and papers.

[Sidenote:  Colonial congresses.]

[Sidenote:  Albany Congress, 1754.]

[Sidenote:  Stamp Act Congress, 1765.]

110.  The Stamp Act Congress, 1765.—­Colonial congresses were no new thing.  There had been many meetings of governors and delegates from colonial assemblies.  The most important of the early congresses was the Albany Congress of 1754.  It was important because it proposed a plan of union.  The plan was drawn up by Benjamin Franklin.  But neither the king nor the colonists liked it, and it was not adopted.  All these earlier congresses had been summoned by the king’s officers to arrange expeditions against the French or to make treaties with the Indians.  The Stamp Act Congress was summoned by the colonists to protest against the doings of king and Parliament.