Stamp Act And Thetowshend Duties example essay topic

How the Revolutionary War Begun Following the Frenchand Indian War, or otherwise known as The Seven YearsWar, Britain was in major debt as with many countries afterwar. On the other hand the Colonies were thriving fromtrade and agriculture. At the end of the war the parliament inEngland had no organized plan to reduce the enormous debtthey had bestowed upon themselves. Financing the Frenchand Indian War had almost doubled the national debt. Theparliament had stumbled into the beginning of theRevolutionary War without even knowing it. They werelooking in an entirely different direction when the coloniesexploded with a rage that eventually turned into theAmerican Revolution.

The Seven Years War's outcomealso affected the impacted the Revolution by giving soldiersexperience that would later help them lead armies and makedecisions to win the Revolution. Among these men were theprestigious names of Paul Revere, Ethan Allen, HoratioGates, Charles Lee, Daniel Morgan and the man who isknown as our founding father George Washington. Duringthe French and Indian War Washington was assigned amission which was a success and he was considered a herowhich later helped his success in the revolution and thepresidency later on. The King's minister were trying to find away to finance the King's military policy.

During the Frenchand Indian Wars England had paid for the defense of theColonies as well as providing most of the troops andleadership in the war. But, rather than demobilize at the endof the war, King George decided to keep the army at 3/4strength. Eighty five regiments were kept on alert in case ofrenewed hostilities between the British and French. Therewas still the problem of paying for the regiments though. They could not tax the countryside any more because ofcurrent taxes that were already too great.

The solution,however, was to station most of the army in Ireland and theColonies requiring locals to house and feed the soldiers. They also made up the Sugar Act, Stamp Act and theTowshend Duties to cover the oe359,000 needed yearly tosustain the regiments in the Colonies. The first of all the taxesor Acts was the American Revenue Act of 1784, or calledthe Sugar Act. It wasn't even a new tax even. It was achange of an old customs duty. In order to stop trade fromthe West Indies to the Colonies Parliament in 1733 hadpassed a protective tariff on sugar, molasses and other rawmaterials from the West Indies.

To avoid paying the customsduty the colonists just smuggled in the goods. They objectedto following these new duties because they had longacknowledged as legitimate. In the second place the sugaract reduced the duty on a gallon of molasses by 50%. Theonly thing was that mechanisms were put in place so theycould collect the duty and the American shippers wereforced to pay it. Objections were heard to the sugar actbecause it was said that it was revenue not regulation and sowas illegitimate. the stamp act was legitimate.

The tax waslaid directly on the colonist purposely for raising revenue. What the tax did was mak! e most papers illegal by makingall legal documents have to have the particular stampassigned to the nature of the document. It was forced upondocuments, newspapers and pamphlets. In England thatStamp tax was a part of daily life and was collected withouta hassle, but the American colonists did not take it lightly andprotested it emphatically. Even the Loyalists protested thetax. The Colonies even formed a congress called the StampAct Congress that protested daily in parliament against thestamp act.

Angry mobs crowded streets and tarred andfeathered many of the tax collectors. This all brought backthe old suspicion that most tax collectors and officials werenot collecting for the royal treasury but for their ownpockets. Also they were enraged that it was Parliament thatenacted the Stamp act and not the local legislature and thusbegan the phrase, 'No Taxation Without Representation'. Since the colonists could not represent themselves inParliament then they had to form all taxes with a locallegislature. This is the basis for the entire Revolutionary War. The British believed that Parliament was supreme over all ofthe English lands and had the divine right to rule over themwithout conflict.

Although Parliament did have arepresentative for the Colonies the colonists did not believein 'virtual' representation. The problem was that the 'virtual'representatives did not represent the colonies theyrepresented what they 'thought' of the colonies along withmainly thinking of themselves when they voted. In fact, theystood to benefit more from the taxation of the coloniesbecause it would reduce their taxes and raise their wages. Then all of a sudden in 1766 the controversy ended. WilliamPitt, the hero of the Seven Years War, made a speech thatbegged for the colonies' right to tax themselves whileaffirming Parliament's supremacy in all other matters. Pitt'sspeech swayed everyone and the stamp act was repealed.

On the same day, however, Parliament passed a DeclaratoryAct that gave them power over all legislative matters. Thecolonists were so happy that they paid no attention to this. The colonists had won this battle. A few months later theSugar Tax became 1d. and the cost of smuggling it in waspredicted at 1