The truth is non-partisan

Patrick Henry was a young lawyer when he took on the Virginia
establishment and won. The Anglican Church was the state church in
Virginia. All citizens were required to attend at least two
communions a year and Anglican clerics were paid a fixed amount set by
law. If they didn't get the required amount, the clergymen could sue.
In many communities the salaries were paid with tobacco. After several
years of crop failures, several clerics sued for back pay. In one
case the court awarded double the salary in damages. When the
minister in Hanover sued the town council and plantation owners,
Patrick Henry represented the defendants. After a highly charged
trial, Henry had won a moral victory that established his reputation
in fighting the established order. Technically he had lost, but
damages were set at only one penny and the result was widely perceived
to be a victory for the independence movement.

In 1764 the English Parliament passed a new Sugar Tax which reduced
the amount of the tax but made enforcement stricter. Even Governor
Bernard warned Parliament that the tax would hurt commerce in
Massachusetts. In the past taxes had been used to regulate trade in
ways that favored Britain, but this new tax Otis argued tax what the
colonies produced. Boston's Town Meeting asked Samuel Adams to draft
instructions for the town's four delegates to the House of
Representatives. Otis wrote a letter to Massachusetts's agent in
London to seek repeal of the Sugar Act and prevent the passage of a
proposed law called the Stamp Act. The letters were also to be sent
to the other colonies, but Bernard shut down the session to prevent
their distribution. However, Otis's letter was widely circulated and
delegates from other colonies began arriving in Boston with their own
protests. Their meetings provoked the reaction Bernard had feared.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Grenville went to the British
Parliament, saying America must contribute to its won defense.
Parliament, he said, had the right to impose taxes. Benjamin Franklin
suggested that England should indicate how much money it needed and
let the colonies decide how they would raise it. However, Parliament
went ahead with the Stamp Tax which required colonists buy stamps for
every American newspaper, legal document, license or bond. They would
also need stamps for any pamphlet, almanac, college diploma, deck of
cards or pair of dice. Notable among the few voices that protested in
Parliament was that of Isaac Barre who had served in America during
the French and Indian Wars. He said the behavior of Britain's
officials toward Americans "on many occasions has caused the blood of
those sons of liberty to recoil within them." When reports reached
America, hundreds in each colony were "proud to learn they were being
called Sons of Liberty."

Source:

Langguth, A.J. Patriots: The men who started the American Revolution.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.

// posted by John Fisher @ 10:05 PM