Culpeper’s Stamp Act Protest: A Lesson To Remember

J. Michael Sharman

Our nation established itself as the United States on July 4^th, 1776, but it had begun  declaring its  independence from England’s authority much earlier than that.

The Stamp Act was passed by the British parliament in March 1765, with an effective date of November 1, 1765. Because the Act planned to tax anything paper or anything written on paper, the colonists were outraged by it.

Up in New England, the records of the Town of Plymouth contain this lament: “Our youth, the Flower of this country are many of them slain, our treasure exhausted in the service of our mother country, our trade and all the numerous Branches of Business Dependent on it Reduced & Almost Ruined By severe acts of Parliament & now we are threatened by a Late Act of Parliament with being Loaded with internal taxes, without our consent.”[1]

In Virginia, on May 29, 1765, Patrick Henry persuaded the Virginia General Assembly to pass the Virginia Resolves, setting forth the Colonials’ views of their independent rights:

   "Resolved, therefore, That the General Assembly of this Colony have the 
only and sole exclusive right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon the 
inhabitants of this Colony, and that every attempt to vest power in any person 
or persons whatsoever, other than the General Assembly aforesaid, has a 
manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American freedom."

               “Caesar had his Brutus,” said Patrick Henry during the debate. “Charles 
I his Cromwell, and George III may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the 
most of it.” [2]

Francis Fauquier was then the royal Governor of Virginia, and  immediately dissolved the Assembly after it passed Patrick Henry’s resolutions against the Stamp Tax.[3]

The announcement of Lord Fauquier’s closing of the Assmebly, and the concern it stirred in Virginia culminated at the Culpeper Term of Court day held on Monday, October 21, 1765, which would have been 11 days before the Stamp Act was to have taken effect.

At the time, Culpeper had 20 Justices of the Peace, most of whom would naturally have been at court that day.[4]

Instead of holding a normal Court session, on October 21, 1765, these men met, deliberated and all but four of the 20 voted to resign their positions as a statement against the taxation.

They sent their resignation letter to Lord Fauquier, the Crown’s representative, but a copy of it was filed, and still can be found in, the Culpeper County Circuit Court Clerk’s Office at Deed Book E pages 138-140.

It was impossible to replace the justices in a timely manner, and so Culpeper was without a local governing body until after Lord Fauquier repealed the Stamp Act in Virginia – and the justices were re-appointed.

Roger Dixon was the first clerk of the Culpeper Circuit Court, a post he held for 23 years. Probably not coincidentally, he was also the first owner of 22 of the original 40 town lots of the town of Culpeper, then known as “Fairfax”.

It was Clerk Dixon who thought the 16 justices’ resignation letter was of such significance that he ordered it recorded not only in the court records of the county in the Court Minute Book, but also in the book which held the county’s land records, the Deed Book.[5] This was fortuitous, since all of the pre-Revolution Court Minute Books were lost during the War Between the States.

The justices of Westmoreland County, Virginia also resigned their position, but the Pennsylvania Gazette, which published their resignation letter on October 21, 1765, deleted their names from their letter, leaving them anonymous.[6]

            In the Revolutionary era, it was local governments who led the fight against the dictates of ruling power, and local leaders who were willing to take serious risks to be on the front lines of that policy battle.

            Maybe 231 years after our first Independence Day, it would be good to review the lessons we can learn from those long-ago leaders.

By J. Michael Sharman Click here for bio and archived articles