(5) The popular conception today is that the Stamp Act of 1765 was the principal if not the sole cause of the American Revolution. This fact is greatly exaggerated but it is the easiest to understand, and for that reason has been given the chief place among the many causes of the conflict. The Stamp Act was an act passed by Great Britain requiring the placing on all legal documents of stamps to be sold to the colonies by Great Britain. The usual impression is that this revenue was to go to the mother country and was to be a continual tax upon the colonies for the sole benefit of the crown. This impression is entirely false, however. The revenue from these stamps was to be used to pay one-third of the expense of a colonial army of about 10,000 men to be kept here for the defense of the colonies. Not one penny was to go to Great Britain. Examine any elementary text on United States history. They speak of taxing the colonies, but leave the impression that the money was to go to Great Britain, whereas actually it was all to be spent for the protection of the colonies against possible trouble with the Indians and the French. This colonial army had been proposed before by the colonies. In 1739 colonial leaders under the leadership of the Governor of Pennsylvania had themselves proposed such an army supported by such a tax. But at that time they had felt the danger of the French in Canada. After the defeat of the French in 1763 this danger was no longer so threatening. When this Stamp Act was passed in 1765 its operation was delayed for one year in order to give the colonies an opportunity to agree among themselves upon some other method of raising the money if they objected to the Stamp Act. The act was repealed in 1766 because of the bitter opposition of the colonies, who disliked a tax of any sort. "No Taxation Without Representation" has been greatly over-emphasized. It is only half true, for it implies that taxation with representation would have been accepted. (6) When the colonies objected to the Stamp Act, calling it an "internal" tax, Great Britain repealed it and in 1767 passed the Townshend Act, which provided for a tariff on imports to the colonies. The imported goods, however, were boycotted and Great Britain was forced to repeal the tariff on imports in 1770. The amount of imported goods in the New England colonies alone dropped from 1,363,000 pounds in 1768 to 504,000 pounds in 1769. After the repeal in 1770 the imports in 1771 were doubled. Thus the boycott was a powerful weapon in the hands of the colonies. With it the colonies were in a position to enforce almost any demand they liked upon Great Britain.