Stamp Act repealed

In March 1766, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act after colonial resistance, merchant pressure, and ministry change made enforcement untenable. Benjamin Franklin's testimony before the House of Commons helped British legislators understand the depth of American opposition, while nonimportation agreements cut into trade and alarmed merchants in London, Bristol, and Liverpool. On the same day, however, Parliament passed the Declaratory Act, asserting full authority to make laws binding the colonies 'in all cases whatsoever.'

Repeal relieved the immediate crisis over stamped paper, but it settled none of the constitutional issues raised in 1765. Americans celebrated a victory for colonial resistance, yet the Declaratory Act told them that Parliament had surrendered a tax, not its claim of supremacy. The imperial conflict therefore moved from one statute to the larger question whether any distant legislature could govern free subjects who lacked representation in that legislature.

The repeal encouraged colonists to believe coordinated petitions, boycotts, and local protest could force change in imperial policy, a lesson revived during the Townshend and Tea Act crises. At the same time, the Declaratory Act supplied the legal theory Britain would invoke again before the Revolution, ensuring that the underlying dispute would return rather than disappear.