Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

The Slave Narrative and the Stamp Act, or Letters from Two American Farmers in Pennsylvania

The Slave Narrative and the Stamp Act, or Letters from Two American Farmers in Pennsylvania zachary mcleod hutchins Colorado State University One enduring legacy of the Stamp Act, 250 years after its passage in 1765, is an ongoing willingness, among conservative American politicians and pundits, to equate political coercion generally, and oppressive tax policies more specifically, with slavery. As Bernard Bailyn notes, North American Whigs borrowed this conception of slavery from their eighteenth-century counterparts in England and popularized its figurative use during debates over the Stamp Act, Townshend Duties, and subsequent crises (232­46).1 In 1764, while Prime Minister George Grenville was still formulating the specific provisions of the Stamp Act, the governor of Rhode Island, Stephen Hopkins, anticipatorily objected that "they who are taxed at pleasure by others, cannot possibly have any property, can have nothing to be called their own; they who have no property, can have no freedom, but are indeed reduced to the most abject slavery" (16).2 Characterizations of involuntary taxation and other forms of political oppression as bondage proliferated in the decade that followed. Colonists opposed to the Stamp Act reported a public discourse "filled with exclamations against Slavery and arbitrary Power," and declamations against the British imposition of slavery persisted long after the duty had been repealed ("New http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Early American Literature University of North Carolina Press

The Slave Narrative and the Stamp Act, or Letters from Two American Farmers in Pennsylvania

Early American Literature , Volume 50 (3) – Nov 18, 2015

Loading next page...
 
/lp/university-of-north-carolina-press/the-slave-narrative-and-the-stamp-act-or-letters-from-two-american-wSrlsvvatE

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 The University of North Carolina Press.
ISSN
1534-147X
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

zachary mcleod hutchins Colorado State University One enduring legacy of the Stamp Act, 250 years after its passage in 1765, is an ongoing willingness, among conservative American politicians and pundits, to equate political coercion generally, and oppressive tax policies more specifically, with slavery. As Bernard Bailyn notes, North American Whigs borrowed this conception of slavery from their eighteenth-century counterparts in England and popularized its figurative use during debates over the Stamp Act, Townshend Duties, and subsequent crises (232­46).1 In 1764, while Prime Minister George Grenville was still formulating the specific provisions of the Stamp Act, the governor of Rhode Island, Stephen Hopkins, anticipatorily objected that "they who are taxed at pleasure by others, cannot possibly have any property, can have nothing to be called their own; they who have no property, can have no freedom, but are indeed reduced to the most abject slavery" (16).2 Characterizations of involuntary taxation and other forms of political oppression as bondage proliferated in the decade that followed. Colonists opposed to the Stamp Act reported a public discourse "filled with exclamations against Slavery and arbitrary Power," and declamations against the British imposition of slavery persisted long after the duty had been repealed ("New

Journal

Early American LiteratureUniversity of North Carolina Press

Published: Nov 18, 2015

There are no references for this article.