"THE ENORMOUS ENGINE FABRICATED BY THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT FOR BATTERING DOWN ALL THE RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES OF AMERICA, I MEAN THE STAMP ACT" (JOHN ADAMS): EXCEPTIONALLY RARE AND IMPORTANT FOLIO FIRST PRINTING OF THE 1765 STAMP ACT
(STAMP ACT) (PARLIAMENT). Anno Regni Georgii III… An Act For Granting And Applying Certain Stamp Duties, And Other Duties, In the British Colonies… [caption title]. London: Printed by Mark Baskett, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty, 1765. Folio, period-style full speckled calf, elaborately gilt-decorated spine and boards, red morocco spine label, raised bands; pp. (2) 279-310.
Very rare folio first printing of the 1765 Stamp Act, turning the course toward Revolution with a signal that "the only way for the American colonists to solve their differences with Great Britain was to tear away from it completely" (Hayes), less than 1100 copies printed. An exceptionally important document in American history, quite rare.
Macaulay wrote that the Stamp Act of 1765 will be remembered "as long as the globe lasts." It marked a sharp break from the past as "the first direct, internal tax ever to be laid on the colonies by Parliament; indeed, the first tax of any sort other than customs duties" (Morison, 185). Parliament's plan for this "tax to be imposed on paper used for all manner of articles… had its first reading in the Commons (before a half-empty House) in early February 1765," with enactment set for November the same year. What Parliament did not realize, however, was that the Stamp Act sparked "the beginning of the end of British America." To scores of enraged colonials, "the Stamp Act seemed to announce not just an illegal tax but also a gag on the production and distribution of free political information" (Schama 457-8). It is not too much to say that the "American Revolution began… with resistance to the Stamp Act" (Smith I:257).
In the Virginia Assembly, "on Wednesday, May 29, 1765, a copy of the Stamp Act was introduced… According to tradition, Patrick Henry drafted seven resolutions onto a blank leaf of an old law book he had on hand… Standing in the lobby doorway Thursday, as Henry presented and defended these resolutions, Thomas Jefferson heard a speech he would remember for a lifetime." To Jefferson, passage of the Stamp Act "threatened to destroy the foundation on which his knowledge was based. If acts of Parliament undermined the fundamental basis of English law, what law remained? If Parliament usurped the colonists' rights as Englishmen, what rights did they have?" (Hayes, 76, 82). At the same time angry Massachusetts patriots called for a Stamp Act Congress—"the first spontaneous movement toward colonial union that came from Americans themselves" (Morison, 187). John Adams would write that "the enormous engine fabricated by the British Parliament for battering down all the rights and liberties of America, I mean the Stamp Act, has raised and spread through the continent a spirit that will be recorded to our honor, with all future generations" (McCullough, 62). "In England, seeking repeal of the Stamp Act, Benjamin Franklin… joked that he could make the Act meet his approval with a single change to its text: where the document stated the year the act would take effect—'one thousand seven hundred and sixty-five— delete the word 'one' and replace it with 'two" (Hayes, 81). When called before the bar of the House in London and "asked what would be the result if the Act were not repealed, Franklin answered candidly but devastatingly, 'The total loss of the respect and affection the people of America bear to this country." Franklin, however, had already come to believe "that time was emphatically not on Britain's side" (Schama, 461). Although Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in 1766, ultimately "the only way for the American colonists to solve their differences with Great Britain was to tear away from it completely. Doing that meant war" (Hayes, 166). "This is the original folio edition of the famous (or infamous) Stamp Act, by which the American colonies were taxed in and on their business papers" (Church). "The importance of this Act to our history needs no comment" (Streeter). Sabin and Howes note an octavo edition of 66 pages, also printed by Baskett in London in 1765. Printed in gothic type (indicative of first edition). These first printings, from the Fourth and Fifth Sessions of the Twelfth Parliament, are from its Sessional Volumes: the earliest and most accurate contemporary source of the texts, preceding all the American printings. Acts printed prior to 1796 are extremely scarce, since the maximum number printed was only around 1100 copies (see Report of the Committee for the Promulgation of the Statutes, 1796). This momentous law was reprinted several times in the American colonies in 1765, in editions in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis, New London, and Woodbridge, New Jersey. Sweet & Maxwell II:176. Church 1054. Stevens 6. Howes A285b. Sabin 1606. See Streeter Sale 737 (another edition).
Negligible foxing. A fine copy.