Loi Pham

I am doing a interpretation on the government document, Benjamin Franklin, Testimony

Against the Stamp Act wrote by Gilder Lehrman Institute. This source is a primary source and I
hope to learn the steps that is require to repeal an act. It is a reliable source because it is
published for the sake of education on a known history website, digitalhistory.edu. This
government document is published publically for the audiences such as students, historian for the
usage of learning, understanding, and proof of historical event.
The author does not really have an agenda, he simply summarizes the event and review
the word by word testimony that were made in during the event. The source tells a story of how
Benjamin Franklin were able to deal with the questioning from the English Parliament. In order
to make a valid appeal to the Parliament Benjamin have to knowledgeable and act as the
representation of the colony people. Going into the document, the Parliament started with the
simple questions for name, place of abode, and do the people pay taxes.
Throughout the entire questioning, the parliament is under the impression that the Stamp
Act is reasonable because it is a civic duty that the people should tax so that the government can
improve the country and build up military in form of protection. This source is so interesting to
me because it points out how little the government actually know about their operation as a
whole. This massage become clean to me when Benjamin started to include facts about the
relation between the colony and the parliament. Benjamin said that the colony contributes in the
war themselves and the government were supposed to reimbursed them for the cost but the
colony has only received 12% of the total cost and that it is one of the reason the colony has little
to no money to reinforce the Stamp Act.