His Majesty's subjects in the colonies, the declaration affirmed, are entitled to those "inherent rights and liberties" which are enjoyed by "his natural born subjects" in Great Britain; among which rights is that most important one of "not being taxed without their own consent"; and since the people of the colonies, "from local circumstances, cannot be represented in the House of Commons," it follows that taxes cannot be "imposed upon them, but by their respective legislatures." The Stamp Act, being a direct tax, was therefore declared to have a "manifest tendency to subvert the rights and liberties of the colonies." Of the Sugar Act, which was not a direct tax, so much could not be said; but this act was at least "burthensome and grievous," being subversive of trade if not of liberty. No one was likely to be profoundly stirred by the declaration of the Stamp Act Congress, in this month of October when the spirited Virginia Resolutions were everywhere well known. "The frozen politicians of a more northern government," according to the Boston Gazette, "say they [the people of Virginia] have spoken treason"; but the Boston Gazette, for its part, thought they had "spoken very sensibly." With much reading of the resolutions and of the commendatory remarks with which they were everywhere received, the treasonable flavor of their boldest phrases no doubt grew less pronounced, and high talk took on more and more the character of good sense. During the summer of 1765 the happy phrase of Isaac Barré--"these sons of liberty"--was everywhere repeated, and was put on as a kind of protective coloring by strong patriots, who henceforth thought of themselves as Sons of Liberty and no traitors at all. Rather were they traitors who would in any way justify an act of tyranny; most of all those so-called Americans, accepting the office of Stamp Master, who cunningly aspired to make a farthing profit out of the hateful business of enslaving their own countrymen.