constitution of Britain protected a
man from being taxed without his consent. These arguments, elaborated and
refined, were to be the heart of the colonial contentions in the
turbulent days ahead.

May 29, 1765. The arguments of the Virginia Assembly went
unheeded. On February 27, 1765, Parliament decreed that the stamp tax
should go into effect on November 1. The General Assembly was in session
when news of the passage of the Stamp Act came to Virginia, and on May 29
the House went into the committee of the whole to consider what steps it
should take. Burgess Patrick Henry presented his famous resolutions which
fixed at the outset the tenor of colonial opposition to the stamp tax.
The House adopted by a close vote on the 30th five of Henry's seven
resolutions, and all seven were given wide circulation throughout the
colonies.

October 30, 1765. On the day before the stamp tax was to go into
effect, George Mercer, the collector, arrived in Williamsburg with the
stamps. Williamsburg was filled with people in town for the meeting of
the General Court, and Governor Fauquier had to intervene to protect
Mercer from the insults of the mob. On November 1, the courts ceased to
function and all public business came to a virtual halt.

February 8, 1766. Foreshadowing the judicial review of a later
day, the Northampton county court declared the Stamp Act unconstitutional
and consequently of no effect.

March 13, 1766. A number of the inhabitants of the town and
environs of Norfolk assembled at the court house and formed the Sons of
Liberty. The Sons of Liberty usually appeared hereafter at the forefront
of any anti-British agitation in the colonies.

1766. Richard Bland published his famous An Inquiry into the Rights of
the British Colonies in which he took a rather advanced
constitutional position in opposition to parliamentary taxation of the
American colonies.

May 11, 1766. At the height of the Stamp Act crisis, the dominant
group in the House of Burgesses was shaken by a scandal involving the
long-time Speaker and Treasurer of the Colony, John Robinson, who died on
this day leaving his accounts short by some 100,000 pounds.

June 9, 1766. Governor Fauquier announced by public proclamation
the repeal of the Stamp Act (March 18, 1766). Although repeal brought a
wave of reaction against the agitation of the past months and a strong
upsurge of loyalty to Great Britain, the leaders of Virginia, and of the
other colonies,