The Virginia resolutions were an alarm that encouraged additional protest and resistance throughout the colonies.
(1) This Act may be called the 2 Stamp Act, 1899.
The public perception was that the House of Burgesses had adopted a more radical position than it did. 1 THE STAMP ACT, 1899 (Act II of 1899) 27 January 1899 An Act to consolidate and amend the law relating to Stamps WHEREAS it is expedient to consolidate and amend the law relating to stamps It is hereby enacted as follows:- Chapter I. The sixth and seventh resolutions asserted that inhabitants of the colony were not bound to pay taxes imposed by anyone other than their own assembly and that those who assert that another person had this right or authority would be considered an enemy. But newspapers throughout the colonies printed all five resolutions, along with two others that Henry may not have even introduced. In 1766, during the colonial protests of the Stamp Act, some residents of eastern North Carolina, including many colonial leaders, signed a pledge to refuse. The next day, the remaining burgesses rescinded the radical fifth resolution. Henry and some of the other burgesses left town to return home. In support of his resolutions, Henry made a dramatic speech, described by an eyewitness as “one of the members stood up and said he had read that in former times Tarquin and Julius had their Brutus, Charles had his Cromwell, and he did not doubt but some good American would stand up in favour of his Country.” Another first hand account, although written many years after the event, recalled that Henry declared “ Tarquin and Caesar had each his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third” before he was interrupted with cries of treason, and then completed the sentence stating “ And George the Third may profit by their example!" Thomas Jefferson remembered that Henry seemed “to speak as Homer wrote” and that during the “most bloody debate” Henry spoke “torrents of sublime eloquence.”Īfter a spirited debate, the House of Burgesses passed the five resolutions.
The fifth resolution radically declared that only the House of Burgesses had the right to tax the inhabitants of the colony.