Stamp Act Congress meets

In October 1765, delegates from nine colonies met in New York City for the Stamp Act Congress, the first intercolonial gathering convened to answer a parliamentary tax. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania drafted much of the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, while delegates from colonies such as Massachusetts, New York, and South Carolina debated how firmly to challenge Parliament. The Congress petitioned George III and both houses of Parliament, insisting that taxes could be imposed only by colonial representatives chosen within the colonies themselves.

The meeting turned scattered protests against stamped paper into a coordinated constitutional argument grounded in representation and consent. By gathering in New York, colonial leaders showed that the Stamp Act dispute could not be contained within Boston, Williamsburg, or Charleston alone. The Congress also exposed fault lines inside the empire, because Americans still professed loyalty to the Crown even as they denied Parliament's authority to levy internal taxes upon them.

The Declaration of Rights and Grievances from October 1765 became a foundation for later protests against the Townshend Acts, the Tea Act, and the Coercive Acts. The Stamp Act Congress also helped teach the colonies how to act together, a lesson that reappeared in the First Continental Congress of 1774 and the Second Continental Congress of 1775.