larger number of
soldiers than usual to the colonies, and the ink was hardly dry on the
Stamp Act when Parliament passed the Quartering Act ordering the
colonists to provide accommodations for the soldiers who were to enforce
the new laws. "We have the power to tax them," said one of the ministry,
"and we will tax them."

COLONIAL RESISTANCE FORCES REPEAL

=Popular Opposition.=--The Stamp Act was greeted in America by an
outburst of denunciation. The merchants of the seaboard cities took the
lead in making a dignified but unmistakable protest, agreeing not to
import British goods while the hated law stood upon the books. Lawyers,
some of them incensed at the heavy taxes on their operations and others
intimidated by patriots who refused to permit them to use stamped
papers, joined with the merchants. Aristocratic colonial Whigs, who had
long grumbled at the administration of royal governors, protested
against taxation without their consent, as the Whigs had done in old
England. There were Tories, however, in the colonies as in England--many
of them of the official class--who denounced the merchants, lawyers, and
Whig aristocrats as "seditious, factious and republican." Yet the
opposition to the Stamp Act and its accompanying measure, the Quartering
Act, grew steadily all through the summer of 1765.

In a little while it was taken up in the streets and along the
countryside. All through the North and in some of the Southern colonies,
there sprang up, as if by magic, committees and societies pledged to
resist the Stamp Act to the bitter end. These popular societies were
known as Sons of Liberty and Daughters of Liberty: the former including
artisans, mechanics, and laborers; and the latter, patriotic women. Both
groups were alike in that they had as yet taken little part in public
affairs. Many artisans, as well as all the women, were excluded from the
right to vote for colonial assemblymen.

While the merchants and Whig gentlemen confined their efforts chiefly to
drafting well-phrased protests against British measures, the Sons of
Liberty operated in the streets and chose rougher measures. They stirred
up riots in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston when attempts
were made to sell the stamps. They sacked and burned the residences of
high royal officers. They organized committees of inquisition who by
threats and intimidation curtailed the sale of British goods and the use
of stamped papers. In fact, the