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... about Boston Tea Party expressed the dislike of British rule. All of the tea, which had been left on the merchant ships, was dumped into the Boston Harbor in response to the tax on tea. Of course, Parliament could not allow this type of rebellion; the destruction of property, to go unpunished, so a new set of laws was created. The news of the Boston Tea Party reached Parliament in early 1774.
The members of Parliament, as well as King George III, were outraged. There was no way that this display of disobedience by the colonists was going to go unpunished. They had wasted more than 400 cases of tea, and someone was going to have to pay for that destruction of property. In response to the constant insubordination of the colonists, King George III himself approved of measures that were going to force the colonists into submission. As a result of the king's approval, Parliament enacted four new laws and updated an old one. These new laws were the Boston Port Bill; the Administration of Justice Act; the Massachusetts Government Act; the Quebec Act; and the updating of the Quartering Act, [ 12 ].
The colonists would know them as the Intolerable Acts. It was the intention of Parliament at the time of these acts to force the colonists to obey the laws and pay the taxes that they were avoiding. The first of these laws enacted in 1774 was meant as a direct punishment for the "Boston Tea Party. " The Boston Port Bill "was a personal policy of the king who [had] regretted that he had been so easy with the colonies"[ 13 ]. Lord North, the Prime Minister at the time, presented this bill to Parliament. They, with the approval of the king, closed all of the ports in Boston and ordered that they remain closed until payment of the tea was made. This act alone would be detrimental to the Boston economy.
Their expectations however, were not met. In order to regain control in the colonies, Parliament decided that the royal officials in the American colonies needed some form of protection from the unfair legal prosecution and angry mobs. Therefore, they created another new law, the Administration of Justice Act, which demanded that any British officials tried for crimes would be extradited to England. Four days later, there would be another motion made by Parliament to punish the colonies. The Quartering Act of 1765 was revised for the final punishment for the colonists. Previously, the colonists were required to only to supply the soldiers stationed in America with unoccupied buildings for shelter and some food provisions.
The revision demanded that the hospitality offered to the soldiers be extended to the point of colonists taking the soldiers into their own homes. The colonists did not get along well with the troops to begin with, so this revision was especially despised. These acts were important to England because they enforced obedience (in theory only) from the rebelling colonists. These new acts became very important to the colonists, the very right of Parliament enforcing any laws and taxes upon them, since they had no representation in Parliament. "No Taxation without Representation" became the colonists' next attempt at avoiding the laws of England. William Pitt, who had been sympathetic with the colonists and had said many times that they should have not been taxed, never said that England could not tax the colonies. That power was evident.
When he asked that Parliament not tax the colonists, he reminded them that while he was opposing the taxes, he "at the same time, [asserted] the authority of this kingdom"[ 14 ]. What he and the rest of the British government began to face was the question of the supremacy of Great Britain. Either they ruled the colonies completely and totally, or they did not rule the colonies at all. The trouble was every Member of Parliament and even the king could see where the cards were falling on this particular issue. Great Britain was not ruling the colonies at all. They had challenged the authority of Parliament at every turn, and this latest question of authority based on representation was another excuse to avoid the laws.
It was pointed out by Some Jenyns, another member of Parliament at this time, that the colonists themselves even admitted that even if they were directly represented in Parliament, that they believed it would still have no right to impose taxes upon them and then use that money because "it would be an unjust tax. [The tax would] not be equal on all, and if it [was] not equal, it [could] not be just, and if it [was] not just, no power whatever [could] impose it. " Jenyns thought this type of logic was absurd, because "no tax can be imposed exactly equal on all"[ 15 ]. A new face in Parliament, Charles James Fox, supported this argument in his speech by saying "there is not an American but who must reject and resist the principle and right of our taxing them. The question then, is shortly this: Whether we ought to govern America on these principles? Can this country gain strength by keeping up such a dispute as this? Tell me when America is taxed, to relieve the burthens of this country"[ 16 ].
William Pitt again took the stand that Englishmen were only supposed to be taxed by their own consent. Men brought a new question before him in his opposition, including Lord North, the new Prime Minister of Parliament. What was consent? Was this supposed to mean the consent of the people themselves or the men, which have been chosen to represent them, or the majority of their representatives? [ 17 ]. This became a question that was examined not only for the colonists, but the people in England as well. After all, "Every man in England [was] taxed, and not one in twenty [was] represented"[ 18 ], but they continued to pay their taxes.
It came to be argued that if common men in England were "virtually" represented and they paid their taxes, then the colonists were also "virtually" represented, then they could not be liberated from their taxes. William Pitt again took a stand and to this argument he responded by saying that "the idea of a virtual representation of America in this House [was] the most contemptible that [had] ever entered into the head of man. It [did] not deserve a serious refutation"[ 19 ]. The debates went on and on, but one detail seemed to be lost in all of the arguments that were presented. If the colonies did not respect the power of Parliament, then who was actually governing America? With all of the debating that went on in Parliament over the challenge of their power in America, the question always came back to one single problem.
It did not matter what laws were enacted if the colonists did not adhere to them. Edmund Burke reminded everyone in Parliament that "a great black book and a great many red coats [would] never be able to govern [America]"[ 20 ]. Truer words may have never been spoken in Parliament. The men in that room may have enacted the laws, but the military was what England depended upon to defend and uphold her policies. Burke and Pitt and their supporters could see that England was not going to be able to force America back into obedience, while others maintained that they either had the right to tax the colonies or they did not. 1774 had diminished the number of men in Parliament who sympathized with the situation faced by people in America. It was certainly the right of Parliament to tax the colonies for their debt incurred by the Seven Years War, but none of the policies was doing anything to help collect revenues in the amount needed to pay England's debts.
Parliament had attempted to retrieve the money that the colonists owed for the protection they had received during the war and the stationing of the troops there ever since. Their method for regaining the funds that had been spent on America's behalf was always a tax of some sort or another. When Lord Grenville's internal taxes were not welcome in the colonies, they were repealed. In their place, Charles Townshend attempted to collect payments for that same debt though an external tax, which Benjamin Franklin had pointed out to Parliament as an alternative to the troublesome taxes. This set of taxes failed as well, and Parliament began to realize that the colonists simply had no intention or desire whatsoever to pay any sort of tax to cover the cost of their protection.
While William Pitt and Edmund Burke supported the position of the colonists' refusal to pay these taxes, they maintained that Parliament did have the right to impose any taxes as well as other laws upon the colonists. The right to impose a law or a tax, however, came with no guarantee that it would be followed. That is what happened with all of the taxes that were imposed by Parliament upon the colonies. The colonists defied every act of Parliament and even questioned their right to be an authority over them. This forced the British government to enact even harsher laws where the colonists were concerned. Finally, when these laws were implemented, the colonists sparked a new debate as a last effort to avoid paying their taxes by saying that they were not represented in Parliament.
The colonists were not directly represented in Parliament, but, as it had been pointed out, no Englishman was directly represented either. Men in England may have been able to claim representation, but, in reality, the population of Great Britain was so large and there were so few Parliamentary members, that "not one in twenty" people living in England was represented in Parliament [ 21 ]. Parliament never asked the colonists to pay a tax that they could not afford. In reality, they were asked to pay less for the items that they had already been purchasing.
In theory, parliament thought that everyone in the British Empire had to pay a higher tax than what was asked of the colonies. This is not to mention that these taxes were going to be funding the continued protection the British colonists in America. The Seven Years War, which benefited the colonists, was extremely expensive. It had become a burden for the British Crown to pay the bill for the thousands of soldiers that had to be stationed in the colonies.
The colonists, in reality, were only asked to pay for their fair share of the protection that benefited them, (Which was the majority of the bill). Parliament not only had every right as the sovereign power of the British Empire to ask the tax of the colonists, but it was also their duty to keep the Crown from going bankrupt. How enjoyable it would be if Parliament could see how powerful and influential the United States has become in lieu of all of their attempts to collect taxes, through the use of sovereignty and bullying tactics. For them to see now what the "uncontrollable and rebellious American colonist's" have achieved, without parliamentary ways and the England crown. If only English Parliament could see us now, this would definitely be most satisfying, to the early leaders of our great nation. 1 Ubbelohde, Carle. The American Colonies and the British Empire: 1607 - 1763. (Arlington Heights, Ill.
Davidson Inc, 1975) 2 2. Hibbert, Christopher. Redcoats and Rebels: The American Revolution through British Eyes. (New York, Avon Books, 1990) xviii. 3. Miller, John. Origins of the American Revolution. (Stanford, Stanford Univeristy Press, 1959) 101. 4. Grenville, George.
In The American Revolution Through British Eyes. Ed Martin Kallick and Andrew MacLeish. (New York, Harper and Rowe, 1969) 101. 5. Hibbert, Christopher. Redcoats and Rebels.
xvii - xviii. 6. Long J. C. George III: The Story of a Complex Man. (Boston, Mass, Little, Brown and Company, 1960), 178. 7.
Lancaster, Bruce. The American Heritage Book of the American Revolution. (New York, 1958) 23. 10. Miller, John. The Origins of the American Revolution. 102. 11. Lancaster, Bruce. The American Heritage Book of the American Revolution. 23. 12.
The Quartering Act had been in place since 1765, and was only updated in 1774. 14. Pitt, William. In The American Revolution Through British Eyes. Ed Martin Kallick and Andrew MacLeish. (New York, have and Rowe, 1069) 366. 15. Jenyns, Some In The American Revolution Through British Eyes. Ed Martin Kallick and Andrew MacLeish. (NewYork, Harper and Rowe, 1969) 426. 16.
Fox, Charles James. In The Spirit of Seventy-Six. Ed. Here Steele Commander and Richard B. Morris. (New York: Evanston, 1967) 13 17. Jenyns, Some.
The American Revolution Through British Eyes. 423. 19. Pitt, William. The American Revolution Through British Eyes. 424. 20. Burke, Edmund.
The Spirit of Seventy-Six. 15 21. Jenyns, Some. The American Revolution through British Eyes. 424. 1. web stamp / act . htm 2. web 3.
web 4. web act 1767. html 5. web act 1765. html 6. web 7.
web port act 1774. html 8. web 9. web 10. web Bibliography:
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