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Taxation Essay

Decent Essays

Cali-Ann Martin
Professor Dockswell
AMH2010
03 November 2017
The Events That Turned Taxation Into a Nation
The United States of America was not made overnight. There was a culmination of occurrences that caused the birth of the nation.
There were a number of taxes and regulations imposed by the British to control and tax the young colonies. The first ones, the Navigation Acts, were passed in 1651. These acts ensured the British would have a close hold on all colonial imports and exports because it demanded that any goods to or from the colonies had to be on either English or American ships and were required to pass through English ports (Keene 2017, ch. 2). The Navigation Acts, however, were only the beginning of a soon to be tyrannical …show more content…

There were protests against the law in print and delegates from nine colonies were called to New York to attend the Stamp Act Congress. In this gathering, representatives from the colonies wrote a formal response to the acts that have been passed without their say (Keane 2017 ch.4). It was around this time that protests had shifted from pamphlets and newspapers to towns and houses. British officials’ homes were attacked and the colonies had become more chaotic.
As a response to the opposition of the Stamp Act, legislation was passed to repeal it. This legislation, called the Declaratory Act, had a catch however. Also in the act, the British had declared their power over the american colonies (Keane 2017 ch.4). To the British, this seemed fair: they had removed what the colonists were opposed to and they had just reasserted their position of power. To the protesting colonists, on the other hand, the Declaratory Act was even more support to their argument that the British were violating their rights as citizens by not having the colonies consent to the changes. A more aggressive group called the Sons of Liberty had been created by some who were Patriots, the anti-Anglican people who supported the rights of the colonists. Around this time, British politics began to change to center around what was going to be done about the rebellious colonies (Keane 2017 ch.4).
In 1767, the Townshend Acts were passed

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