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Show Famous Stamp Act One of the significant dates in American history is Nov. 23, 1763. It was on this day, more than two hundred years ago, that the Frederick County, Coun-ty, Maryland, court ordered it regular business carried on without the use of stamped paper as required by the famous Stamp Act. AT THIS time American states were still English colonies. col-onies. In March of that year Parliament had passed the Stamp Act. recommended by Sir William Keith, a former royal Governor of Pennsylvania. Pennsylva-nia. The act levied a stamp tax of three pence to ten shillings on legal papers, two pounds on college diplomas, four pounds on licenses to sell wine, two to six shillings on deeds, ten shillings shill-ings on a pair of dice, a shilling on a pack of playing cards, a shilling for every advertisement advertise-ment in a newspaper, etc. The tax outraged many Americans, who felt that only their own state assemblies had the taxing authority over them. Patrick Henry of Virginia managed man-aged to get a defiant resolution adopted by the Virginia Ger-neral Ger-neral Assembly, so much so that it was expunged from the record the day after it was passed. pas-sed. Aroused citizens in many states destroyed the stamps which had been sent from England. Eng-land. THE BITTER reaction was so widespread, wiser heads in London favored repeal of the law. Benjamin Franklin, the American agent in London, was summoned before the House of Commons and wisely warned members that if the act were enforced with arms the enforcers would not find rebellion rebel-lion but "may make one." The act was repealed four months after the Maryland court's defiance. But it had sparked such resentment and such a surge of nationalism many historians believe it helped appreciably to bring about ab-out the Declaration of Independence Inde-pendence a decade later in 1776. |