The 1765 Stamp Act required taxes when transferring documents like mortgages, contracts, marriage licenses, cheques, and even everyday items like dice, playing cards, and newspapers. It made colonists furious, and Patrick Henry, then a budding lawyer from Virginia, introduced resolutions where the implementation of the Stamp Act will give colonists the same rights and privileges as Britons, and that taxation should be implemented by Virginians and by the Virginia legislature, not by the Crown’s agents. It is one of first that put power in the hands of State governments, which will dominate political discussion for decades.
