The colonial resisters knew they had won – but exactly what had they won?  They had effectively and forcibly resisted the Stamp Tax, boycotted British goods and pressured Parliament into repealing that tax.  They had issued their formal denunciations.  But Parliament still declared its own unlimited right to legislate and “bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever.”  The Declaratory Act also pronounced colonial declarations of their right to resist unconstitutional acts to be “utterly null and void.”  As a matter of practical fact the American colonials had perhaps freed themselves from Parliament’s attempt to tax them directly and internally.  But without Parliament acknowledging their Constitutional right to decide exclusively to tax themselves, the colonists, arguably had won nothing at all.   Except, of course the controversy had focused Americans’ attention on Constitutional principles.  

The American colonies celebrated when news of repeal reached them.   Colonial Assemblies composed addresses of thanks, assuring the King of their continued loyalty and Parliament of submission to its authority.  But none of them acknowledged Parliament’s right to tax them.  Virginia and Massachusetts clearly rejected any such implication by pledging submission to “the rightful Authority of the British Parliament” while giving thanks for the repeal of the “late unconstitutional Stamp Act.” (emph. added) Their earlier protests, they insisted, were “not those of Rebellion” but “compatible with the English Constitution.”

The Sons of Liberty, formed for the express purpose of opposing the unconstitutional Stamp Act had pledged to disband if and when it was repealed.  But the Declaratory Act gave these extra-legal bodies a reason to continue, and some refused to dissolve.  By the Spring of 1766 then, the Stamp Act crisis had come to an inconclusive end.  The principle of the matter – the Constitutional right — remained unsettled, or rather settled oppositely on opposite sides of the Atlantic.  And the validity of resistance to what the colonists (but not Parliament) were convinced were unconstitutional encroachments on their liberty also remained unsettled.  

Some conflicts are best left unsettled or settled by ambiguity and delay.  Two sides implicitly agree to disagree until the immediate cause of confrontation fades.  The Stamp Act crisis, however, had elevated two opposing Constitutional ideologies.  Constitutional struggle over centuries had revolved around Parliament’s struggle to limit the King’s prerogative.  Great confrontations had moved England from sovereignty of an absolute King, to a shared sovereignty of King and Parliament, and finally after the Glorious Revolution, a Parliament unlimited and Supreme.  In the American colonies however, Constitutional logic favored a limited Parliament no less than the King.  

But by the logic of Locke, Americans embraced a right to resist and rebel.  

In the aftermath of repeal, Parliament considered but dropped a proposal to punish the resistors.  Instead it adopted a resolution urging (but not requiring) American Governors to reward with “full and ample compensation” those who had “suffered an injury or damage” in their attempt to “comply with or assist” in the execution of Parliament’s laws.  Even if Parliament did repeal the Stamp Act it seemed important to send a message that playing by the current rules always pays, although the governing body later changes those rules.  

The American legislatures ignored Parliament’s recommendation.

Perhaps the crisis could have been resolved differently, to accommodate both the English and colonial views of the nature of their union.  That resolution would have clearly separated the right to tax – which only the colonies had, each for itself — from the right to decide who had the right to tax, which Parliament alone possessed.  Thus in short:  1) Parliament might have repealed the Stamp Act on the acknowledged ground that it was unconstitutional and therefore void because only the colonies had the right to tax themselves, explicitly stating that they would be relied upon, to make good their promise to generate substantial revenues, but in their own way.  2) At the same time, Parliament would unequivocally insist on its exclusive right to decide the Constitutional rights of the colonies.  Parliament – and Parliament alone – would have final Constitutional authority to police the boundaries between local and central power.  A Declaratory Act’s “binding in all cases whatsoever” would be radically distinct from a right to legislate in all cases whatsoever.  Instead, Parliament’s “right to bind” would become a right to interpretively bind, to police the boundaries between local and central power.  3) Parliament would pass supporting legislation that makes Parliamentary supremacy real: Loyal subordinates who complied with the Stamp Act must be supported.  Parliament would send a message that although in retrospect they had concluded their own Act was unconstitutional, nevertheless everybody was bound to comply until and unless Parliament reversed themselves.  Loyal subordinates must be made whole, and those who forcibly protested must be punished.  4) In repealing the Stamp Act while enacting a Declaratory Act with teeth, Parliament must acknowledge the legitimate right of the subordinate colonial assemblies to protest and declare their own firm belief that an act of Parliament is unconstitutional.  This should only happen on rare occasions and perhaps would trigger a suspension of enforcement until Parliament should reconsider and perhaps with a supermajority, reaffirm its view that its disputed legislation was Constitutional.  In effect Parliament would reaffirm the right of every colonial Assembly – except Rhode Island which formally ordered its local officials to disobey.  Rhode Island must revoke its formal declaration of disobedience or face real punishment. 5) And finally, what of the right to revolution?  Locke had insisted that Revolution was a transcendent right outside the Constitution, not under it.  Parliament should make no mention.

In sum: This resolution proposed would have Parliament repealing the Stamp Tax as unconstitutional, promising never to internally nor directly tax the American colonies without their own consent, but reasserting Parliament’s Constitutional role to interpretively “bind” the American colonies to the British Constitution:  ‘We, Parliament, the supreme central government under the Constitutional plan are the final and uncontrolled authority to decide whether we or you have the right to tax you, and we decide that we do not have that right.’

Apparently, nobody at the time considered a solution along these lines.  Perhaps Pitt – who had publicly “rejoiced that America resisted,”, came closest by proposing to repeal the Stamp Act “absolutely, totally, immediately.”  Parliament would assign as the reason for its repeal that the Act was “founded on an erroneous principle.”  At the same time, however, Pitt insisted England’s “sovereign authority over the colonies” should be asserted “in as strong terms as can be devised and extend to every point of legislation whatsoever.”  But here he took an odd turn, insisting that taxation was no part of “legislation.”  Thus Parliament could legislate for the colonies without limits but it could not tax them.  This proposal seemed to make little sense to many except its author and it failed.  “I rejoice that America has resisted!” That was Pitts’ residue American radicals embraced.

After the Stamp Act’s repeal and the Declaratory Act, the question raised in 1215 at the birth of Magna Carta still hung in the air:  Under a workable constitutional plan, could local subordinate governments remain loyal and part of the plan while having an effective right to resist individual acts of the central government which in their opinion exceeded the rightful limits of that supreme government?  The American colonies acted in support of limited forcible resistance.  But they could not expound a Constitutional theory which allowed them to decide in all cases when their rights were violated, and then act on that decision without making them supreme over Parliament, to which they still remained subordinate.  Nor could they find a theory that gave them a right in some but not all instances to decide and act to void Parliament’s acts.  For that would only raise the question one level further removed:  Who has the right to decide when Colonials have the right to police their own Constitutional boundaries?

If the American colonies could not face their Constitutional theory nor solve their Constitutional problem, Parliament also failed to reach it.  They could not or would not recognize that sovereignty could be supreme but limited.  They did not or could not clearly separate a “right to bind in all cases whatsoever” from a right to legislate in all cases.

The Stamp Act crisis left the American Colonies effectively able to resist a single act of Parliament without an adequate Constitutional theory to support that resistance.  For its part Parliament, refusing to make a single Constitutional concession to America, had in effect rewarded their resistance even as they denied their right.  

It could not rest here.  And it didn’t.