Backed by such divergent traditions as these, the two parts of the British empire, or, more accurately, the dominant party in each section of the empire, faced each other upon a question of principle. Neither could believe in the honesty of the other, for each argued out of a different past. The opponents of the Stamp Act could not understand the political thinking which held them to be represented in the British Parliament. “No taxation without representation” meant for the colonist that taxes ought to be levied by a legislative body in which was seated a person known and voted for by the person taxed. An Englishman only asked that there be “no taxation except that voted by the House of Commons.” He was not concerned with the mode of election to that house or the interests of the persons composing it. The colonists called the Stamp Act tyranny, but the British government certainly intended none, for it acted upon the theory of virtual representation, the only kind of representation enjoyed by the great mass of Englishmen either at home or in the colonies. On that theory nothing was taxed except by the consent of the virtual representatives of those taxed. But, replied an American, in England the interests of electors and non-electors are the same. Security against any oppression of non-electors lies in the fact that it would be oppressive to electors also; but Americans have no such safeguard, for acts oppressive to them might be popular with English electors.[56] When the news of the Stamp Act first came oversea there was apparent apathy. The day of enforcement was six months away, and there was nothing to oppose but a law. It was the fitting time for an agitator. Patrick Henry, a gay, unprosperous, and unknown country lawyer, had been carried into the Virginia House of Burgesses on the public approval of his impassioned denial, in the “Parson’s Cause” (1763), of the king’s right to veto a needed law passed by the colonial legislature. He now offered some resolutions against the stamp tax, denying the right of Parliament to legislate in the internal affairs of the colony.[57] This “alarum bell to the disaffected,” and the fiery speech which secured its adoption by an irresolute assembly, were applauded everywhere. Jefferson said of Henry, that he “spoke as Homer wrote.” As soon as the names of the appointed stamp-distributers were made known (August 1, 1765) the masses expressed their displeasure in a way unfortunately too common in America. Throughout the land there was rifling of stamp-collectors’ houses, threatening their lives, burning their records and documents, and even their houses. Their offices were demolished and their resignations compelled--in one case under a hanging effigy, suggestive of the result of refusal. The more moderate patriots cancelled their orders with British merchants, agreed not to remit their English debts, and dressed in homespun to avoid wearing imported clothes.