In March 1764 George Grenville announced plans to raise revenues in America for colonial defence with stamp duties. Opinions differ about why Grenville then postponed the Stamp Act until a year hence. Writing in 1950, Edmund S. Morgan found the decision puzzling. Peter D.G. Thomas and John L. Bullion subsequently offered procedural explanations. Grenville envisaged the Stamp Act as a firm precedent for parliament's authority to impose direct taxation (‘inland duties’) in the colonies – a prospect that terrified Americans schooled in the common law, alert to dangerous precedents, and already prone to slippery-slope reasoning. With the mundane details of the Stamp Act unavailable until after its passage, however, the postponement also raised imperial debate to a level of abstraction from which it never retreated. Grenville's postponement of the Stamp Act foreclosed prospects for compromise and set British imperial policy on a course that ultimately fomented the American Revolution.

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重新考虑 Grenville 推迟印花税法*

1764 年 3 月，乔治·格伦维尔 (George Grenville) 宣布计划通过印花税提高美国的殖民防御收入。对于格伦维尔为何将《印花税法》推迟到一年后，意见不一。Edmund S. Morgan 在 1950 年写作时发现这个决定令人费解。Peter DG Thomas 和 John L. Bullion 随后提供了程序解释。格伦维尔将《印花税法》设想为议会有权在殖民地征收直接税（“内陆关税”）的一个坚定的先例——这一前景吓坏了受过普通法教育的美国人，对危险的先例保持警惕，并且已经倾向于滑坡推理. 然而，由于《印花税法》的平凡细节直到其通过后才能获得，因此推迟也将帝国辩论提升到了一个从未退缩的抽象水平。格伦维尔