Sons of Liberty carried their operations
to such excesses that many mild opponents of the stamp tax were
frightened and drew back in astonishment at the forces they had
unloosed. The Daughters of Liberty in a quieter way were making a very
effective resistance to the sale of the hated goods by spurring on
domestic industries, their own particular province being the manufacture
of clothing, and devising substitutes for taxed foods. They helped to
feed and clothe their families without buying British goods.

=Legislative Action against the Stamp Act.=--Leaders in the colonial
assemblies, accustomed to battle against British policies, supported the
popular protest. The Stamp Act was signed on March 22, 1765. On May 30,
the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a set of resolutions declaring
that the General Assembly of the colony alone had the right to lay taxes
upon the inhabitants and that attempts to impose them otherwise were
"illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust." It was in support of these
resolutions that Patrick Henry uttered the immortal challenge: "Caesar
had his Brutus, Charles I his Cromwell, and George III...." Cries of
"Treason" were calmly met by the orator who finished: "George III may
profit by their example. If that be treason, make the most of it."

[Illustration: PATRICK HENRY]

=The Stamp Act Congress.=--The Massachusetts Assembly answered the call
of Virginia by inviting the colonies to elect delegates to a Congress to
be held in New York to discuss the situation. Nine colonies responded
and sent representatives. The delegates, while professing the warmest
affection for the king's person and government, firmly spread on record
a series of resolutions that admitted of no double meaning. They
declared that taxes could not be imposed without their consent, given
through their respective colonial assemblies; that the Stamp Act showed
a tendency to subvert their rights and liberties; that the recent trade
acts were burdensome and grievous; and that the right to petition the
king and Parliament was their heritage. They thereupon made "humble
supplication" for the repeal of the Stamp Act.

The Stamp Act Congress was more than an assembly of protest. It marked
the rise of a new agency of government to express the will of America.
It was the germ of a government which in time was to supersede the
government of George III in the colonies. It foreshadowed the Congress
of the United States under the Constitution