The truth is non-partisan

Here are notes from my daughter Annelise about the American Revolution:

In August of 1765, as a result of the Stamp Act, Bostonians took to
the streets and over a two week period destroyed the homes of the new
stamp master, Andrew Oliver, and Thomas Hutchison, the lieutenant
governor and chief judge. Oliver was Hutchison's brother-in-law. The
riots had begun with Oliver being hung in effigy on an elm tree across
from the market. Then the mob marched to Oliver's house and went on a
rampage. Two weeks later the mob destroyed the mansion of Hutchison.
Sam Adams sat back and watched the riots occur, but following the
destruction of Hutchison's home in his paper the Boston Gazette he
condemned the actions and called for calm. The leader of the mob,
Ebenezer Mackintosh, a twenty-eight-year old shoemaker from southend
Boston, was arrested but released. The council was afraid of the mob.
A three hundred pound reward for the mob's leader went unclaimed.
The result of the riots in Boston, however, was that stamp masters in
every colony except Georgia refused to take their positions.

In the meantime in Virginia, Patrick Henry had been elected to the
House of Burgess. Within nine days of his appointment, the young
legislator proposed five resolutions against the Stamp Act, including
one which stated that only a colony's legislature could tax its
citizens. The older members of the House were outraged, but Henry's
resolutions passed. The next day after he had gone home, the
remaining legislators voted to remove the fifth controversial
resolution. However, Henry's resolutions were soon published
including a sixth would claimed that anyone who defended the
Parliament's right to impose taxes was an enemy of Virginia.

In Massachusetts a month after the rioting Governor Bernard convened
the House stating the Stamp Act would be enforced beginning in
November. Bernard thought the answer to the unrest was to send
American representatives to Parliament. London offered to send 100
troops to Boston, but Bernard said that wasn't enough. On October 1,
1765 twenty-seven delegates from the colonies attended a Stamp Act
congress in New York. Massachusetts was represented by two of
Bernard's men and James Otis. Otis's behavior had become so erratic
that at sometimes he supported liberty and at other times he opposed
it. When the Stamp Act congress adjourned on October 25, they had
approved 13 resolutions, including one calling for full liberties that
were vital to the "prosperity and happiness of these colonies." The
same day the Massachusetts House passed its own resolutions insisting
that the colonists were "unalienably entitled to those essential
rights in common with all men."

A month after the Stamp Act was to take effect, Andrew Oliver had
still not resigned his position as stamp master in Massachusetts.
Oliver received a letter inviting him to stand before the Liberty Tree
(where his effigy had once hung) and tender his resignation before the
people of Boston. Unable to think of a way to avoid going, Oliver
stood before a crowd of some two thousand people and in the rain read
his resignation. At about the same time stamp masters in other
colonies were also resigning.

Governor Bernard expected that the colonists would boycott those
activities that required stamps, but instead they went on with their
activities as if the Stamp Act didn't exist. Tory shipowners faced a
tough choice. They didn't want to defy Parliament, but they also
didn't want to have their homes leveled by the Sons of Liberty.
Finally, they asked permission to load their vessels without the
required stamps. The Custom House opened and the ships cleared
harbor.

The courts faced a similar dilemma. Samuel Adams asked his cousin,
John Adams, to represent the view of the legal profession before the
Governor's Council. Finally, Bernard left judges to decide whether to
open. Hutchinson refused but compromised by temporarily resigning his
position as chief justice to his younger brother. The courts opened
and went about business without the required stamps. Soon Parliament
realized that the Stamp Act wasn't working so decided to rescind the
Act. Parliament could undo the damage of the past year, but they
couldn't "repeal the new spirit in America."

Source:

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

// posted by John Fisher @ 2:24 PM