Declaratory Act - Background

Background

Representatives from a number of the Thirteen Colonies assembled as the Stamp Act Congress in response to the Stamp Act 1765, to call into question the right of a distant power to tax them without proper representation. The British Parliament was thus faced with colonies who refused to comply with their Act. This, combined with protests that had occurred in the colonies and, perhaps more importantly, protests which had arisen in Great Britain from manufacturers who were suffering from the colonies' non-importation agreement, all led to the repeal of the Stamp Act. Normally the economic activity in the colonies would not have caused such an outcry, but the English economy was still experiencing a post-war depression from the Seven Years War. Another reason for repeal of the Stamp Act was the replacement of George Grenville, the Prime Minister who had enacted the Stamp Acts, by Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham. Rockingham was more favorable towards the colonies and furthermore he was antagonistic towards policies that Grenville had enacted. Rockingham invited Benjamin Franklin to speak to Parliament about colonial policy and he portrayed the colonists as in opposition to internal taxes (which were derived from internal colonial transactions) such as the Stamp Act called for, but not external taxes (which were duties laid on imported commodities). Parliament then agreed to repeal the Stamp Act on the condition that the Declaratory Act was passed. On March 18, 1766, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act and passed the Declaratory Act.

The Declaratory Act proclaimed that Parliament "had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America ... in all cases whatsoever". The phrasing of the act was intentionally unambiguous. In other words, the Declaratory Act of 1766 asserted that Parliament had the absolute power to make laws and changes to the colonial government, "in all cases whatsoever", even though the colonists were not represented in the Parliament.