For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

This was one of the most well known grievances of the American colonists during the revolution. It can be traced back to several pieces of legislation passed by the British Parliament in the run up to the revolution.

The British civil wars in the seventeenth century had affirmed the right of British subjects to assent to taxation, through their elected representatives in the House of Commons. In the years leading up to the American Revolution, the colonists argued that as British subjects they could not be taxed without their consent, and since they were not represented in the British House of Commons, their consent could not be obtained through the British Parliament. Rather, colonist’s consent would have to be obtained through elected colonial legislatures, which Parliament declined to do.1

The British Parliament passed several acts in the lead up to the revolution in order to raise revenues from the colonies and help defray some of the debt incurred from the Seven Years War. The first of these was the Stamp Act, passed March 22, 1765.2 It required that a stamp be applied to every piece of printed paper (including newspapers, ships documents, legal documents, and playing cards), and colonists were of course charged for the stamp. The colonists saw this as an illegitimate tax because its purpose was not to regulate trade, but rather to raise revenue. This meant that as British citizens, they had the right to assent to this tax through colonial legislatures. In addition, the years of salutary neglect meant that almost no taxes had ever been imposed on the American colonies by Parliament, and this was a sharp departure from that longstanding tradition.3

Opposition to the Stamp Act was widespread. Legislatures petitioned Parliament for repeal of the Stamp Act, non-importation agreements were instituted against British imports, and large mobs began ransacking the homes of government officials. By the time the Act was meant to come into effect in November of 1765, the appointed stamp agents were too intimidated by colonists to enforce the Act.4 Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in 1766, but Parliament simultaneously passed the Declaratory Act asserting that they had the right to tax colonists in all cases.

On June 29, 1767, Parliament passed the Townshend Act, which imposed duties on a list of articles including glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea. This act resurrected the hostility that the Stamp Act had incited, since it was also aimed at raising revenue and was thus seen as another attempt at illegal taxation. Popular protest reached its heights in Boston in 1768 when customs officials impounded one of John Hancock’s ships. The customs office was mobbed and the officials were forced to flee to a British warship in the harbor. The colonists responded with renewed non-importation agreements. The duties imposed by the Townshend Act were all eventually repealed on April 12, 1770, with the exception of the duty on tea.5

While their original argument revolved around their rights as British citizens, the Declaration of Independence was a renunciation of the colonists’ status as British citizens, making this argument impossible. They were therefore forced to argue that all men had the right not to be taxed without their consent, not merely British citizens. And while their grievance had originally been with Parliament, once the colonists renounced Parliament’s authority they were forced to address their grievances to the King, even though he had not been the originator of the legislation.

Brooke Saunders

http://www.ushistory.org/

Endnotes
1. Carl Becker, The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922), 22.
2. Edward Dumbauld, The Declaration of Independence and What it Means Today (Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1950), 131.
3. Becker, Declaration of Independence, 81.
4. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, “A Summary of the 1765 Stamp Act,” [www.colonialwilliamsburg.com/History/teaching/tchcrsta.cfm]
5. Ibid.