Parliament had announced in April 1764 when the Sugar Act was passed that they will also consider a stamp tax in the colonies.

Opposition from the colonies is soon forthcoming to this possible tax, but neither members of Parliament nor American agents in Great Britain (such as Benjamin Franklin) anticipate  the intensity of the protest that the tax will generate.

Stamp acts had been a very successful method of taxation within Great Britain; they have generated over £100,000 in tax revenue with very little in collection expenses.

By requiring an official stamp on most legal documents, the system is almost self-regulating; a document would be null and void under British law without the required stamp.

Imposition of such a tax on the colonies had been considered twice before the Seven Years' War and once again in 1761.

Grenville had actually been presented with drafts of colonial stamp acts in September and October 1763, but the proposals lacked the specific knowledge of colonial affairs to adequately describe the documents subject to the stamp.

At the time of the passage of the Sugar Act in April 1764, Grenville had made it clear that the right to tax the colonies was not in question, and that additional taxes might follow, including a stamp tax.

The Glorious Revolution had established the principle of parliamentary supremacy.

Control of colonial trade and manufactures had extended this principle across the ocean.

This belief has never been tested on the issue of colonial taxation, but the British assume that the interests of the thirteen colonies are so disparate that a joint colonial action is unlikely to occur against such a tax—an assumption that haa its genesis in the failure of the Albany Conference in 1754.

By the end of December 1764, the first warnings of serious colonial opposition are provided by pamphlets and petitions from the colonies protesting both the Sugar Act and the proposed stamp tax