The Boston Gazette in its issue for April 18, 1785, printed the
following item :
The General Court in their last Session was pleased to pass an Act, generally called the STAMP ACT, a Name heretofore held in an ap- probious light, and highly disgustful to us.
A clause in said Act says, "For every NEWS-PAPER, two thirds of a Penny."
Should the Stamp on NEWS-PAPERS take place, the price will be enhanc'd and the poor, by being unable to take the same, will be de- prived of the pleasure of affording themselves and their children the advantages attendant on the perusal of this vehicle of entertainment and political knowledge; and who will say, it will not be a disad- vantage to the State in general, for the majority of the inhabitants thereof to be politically ignorant?
And will not this Stamp on NEWS-PAPERS, if held in force, tend thereto?
It is therefore hoped and expected by many, that the Honorable Members of the General Court, in then- next Session will take the above mentioned Clause in the said Act into mature consideration repeal the same, and free the public from that bar to political wisdom.
On August 12, 1785, under a Philadelphia date-line, was pub- lished an article entitled "A Libel Some Will Say." From it, the following paragraph was taken:
Every man in the thirteen states from New Hampshire to Georgia, should pour out incessant execrations on the devoted heads of those miscreants in Massachusetts who machinated, advised, aided, abetted, or assisted in laying sacriligious hands upon that most invaluable of all blessings THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS that palladium of all the rights, privileges, and immunities, dear or sacred to any body of men worthy to rank above the brute creation! that dispeller of the till then impenetrable clouds which overspread the world for ages anterior to the auspicious aera of its discovery! That scourge of tyrants whether monarch, aristocrats, or demagogues.
TAX ON ADVERTISING
Because of the unpopularity of this act, the Massachusetts Legislature repealed it on July 2, 1785. But another was passed, putting a duty on advertisements of six pence on each insertion. Some of the Massachusetts newspapers, notably The Massa- chusetts Centinel, were willing to accept this substitute on the ground that it was no infringement of the liberty of
