Taxes After The American Revolution

The American Revolutionary War in 1755 spouted from a conflict between the British government and British people living in the then 13 American colonies. The crown and his legislature passed tax measures, which the people of the thirteen American colonies fiercely opposed. American leaders took action against taxes because the government that created the laws offered no representation for those being taxed which is where taxation without any representation stems from. The crown only allowed upper-class men vote in England and most elections within American colonies, although the American voting class weren’t able to express on the ballots their views of the parliament.

The American colonist and the British started out having a very civil relationship. They provided each other with resources. During the French and Indian war the colonists were on the British side and helped them fight. Unfortunately, after the war the British started to change their ways and started to come up with new stricter rules. The British started to tax the colonist on different kinds of items, which was not fair to the colonists. They were controlling the colonist with everything they did. The colonists wanted them to back off a little but the British weren't budging. They thought they could tell the colonists what to do but the colonists were not going to be treated that way, so they took matters in their own hands. The colonists

Parliament had put them there to keep peace between the colonists and Native Americans. Since the money was being used for their gain, they saw no reason why the tax would not be tolerable especially since it was not a very large amount of money. Also, some of the money from the tax went towards paying off the debt from the Seven Years War. Since the victory had benefited the colonies because they had endured intermittent warfare with the French for eighty years. They considered them British subjects, so they naturally they assumed that they should help with the cost just like every other British citizen. “If they are not subject to this burden of tax, they are not entitled to the privilege of Englishmen.” (George Greenville). After the French and Indian War, exports to America achieved a high on twenty-five percent of total British exports. Therefore America was sufficiently equipped to pay for its own defense, yet they still refused to do so. Smuggling in the colonies was excessive, and the enforcement of the trade laws was not closely watched. Deferring a new tax would give the Americans more time to form opposition, so the faster it is enacted the more likely the chance of success. The colonial people had the privilege of the rights of Englishmen and were given the freedom of their own government and raising

The end of the French and Indian War brought debt to Great Britain. To pay for the costs of the war, British Parliament passed a series of laws taxing the American colonists. The colonies became upset with all of the new taxes and began to rebel. The colonists had no representation in British Parliament and felt that they should not pay for taxes without the ability to have a say. Their rebellions only made the British create more laws without them.

What made the taxations so unfair in the eyes of the colonists, was the fact that they had no representation in the parliament and no one was looking after their interests when the laws were being passed in England. The colonists felt left out, their own country was treating them as if they were foreigners and using them to improve the economy of mainland Britain at the expense of their own. Rebellions continued and independence talks began. "No taxation without representation!" Was a common phrase that echoed around the colonies.

From the end of the French and Indian War to the beginning of the American revolution, colonial resistance and commitment to republican values escalated. British imperial policies between 1763 and 1776, such as taxes and acts without representation and how the British treated the colonists, pushed these factors over the edge. Countless taxes were placed on the colonists in this time period, including the Sugar, Stamp, Tea, and Currency acts. These were placed on the colonists so that the British could pay back their debt that they acquired during the French and Indian War.

In 1763 the British were among the most heavily taxed people in the world, where as the colonies in the Americas were prospering, Greenville, the British finance minister asked, “Why shouldn’t these colonists begin to pay some of the costs of their own government and defense?” The British then passed the sugar and quartering acts as well as the stamp act which all basically were designed to bring in more income from the colonies.

Before the French and Indian War, the British ruled over the colonies in America very lightly. The colonists created their own taxes and practically ruled themselves. Britain prospered from all of the trade flowing between itself and its colonies. This system worked out very well until a war started in the American colonies of Britain against the colonies of France. After the French and Indian War, the British had debts that they needed to pay off, and since it was fought partially in the American colonies, the colonies needed to help pay for some of the war debts. Parliament established taxes on the colonies, which infuriated the rich land owners in the colonies. Some of the elite landowners formed a group called the Sons of Liberty, who wrote letters to Parliament and the King of Britain, asking them to rethink the taxation laws that they had placed upon the colonies. Surprisingly, Parliament decided to repeal that tax but then applied a new tax. This happened one more time before King George

To the colonists, the further taxation was offensive. They had cleared acres of land, fought off Native Americans, and watched as their relatives die in the process of building a colony that enhanced the British Empire. For hundreds of years in British history, Parliament followed the tradition of receiving permission for levying taxes. Even though the king had these “divine rights” and so forth, when the British Parliament taxed the colonists without their consent, the colonists’ traditional rights were

What would have happened if Britain never had to tax the American colonists? Would the colonies have ever become independent? Would the United States still be under British rule? Unless there was another cause for America to wish to become independent, America might as well have still been under the control of Great Britain. King George III’s, a ruler of Great Britain, major choice, during his reign, made all the difference, in his country’s and the American Colonists’ future.

After the end of the French and Indian War in 1763 the American people had taxes placed on them by the British. The British Parliament claimed that by placing the taxes they were defending the colonies for the Americans. During the twelve years following the war, the British enacted a numerous amount of taxes that allowed them to raise revenue from the American economy. This taxing of the American people hurt the American economy and started to push the American colonists toward an independence movement so they could have a free economy. Over the course of the twelve-year period there were six acts enacted to take money from the American economy.

After the French and Indian War between France and Great Britain, Britain was left in debt. To help pay it off, the British decided to place taxes on the colonies because they felt that it was fair since the British were in debt due to them paying for protection towards the colonies. They created the Stamp Act, which placed taxes on any paper that was printed or stamped. They created other acts called the townshend revenue act, declaratory act, quartering acts, and the intolerable acts. These acts and laws were rejected by the colonists to the extent where it led to multiple rebellions and revolts from the colonies towards the British. Although the British government placed all these acts upon the colonies, they were weakly enforced which gave

Consequently, the British Parliament imposed taxation on the colonists in the 1760’s. The colonists resented this intrusion, for they felt they were not truly represented in the British government. Taxation without representation became the rallying cry of the colonists.

Furthermore, Great Britain had commanded new payment methods which created a ruckus with the Americans causeing great anger. Rebellion and discontent were rampant. The colonies started rebelling against ‘Mother England’ because of taxes issued to the colonies, in as much, England’s power did not allow them to have representation. The Revenue Act of 1764 made the Constitutional issue of whether or not the king had the right to tax the people who are living in his kingdom or the thirteen colonies. Eventually, this "became an entering wedge in the great dispute that was finally to wrest the American colonies from England" (Carey 48). "It was the phrase "taxation without representation" (Montgomery 138) that was to draw many to the cause of the American patriots against the mother country. That has royal authority to be able to term public opinions into a revolutionary battle.

In the late 1780s France divided everyone into three social classes or estates. The first estate was the clergy which was the highest, the second estate was the nobles, and the third estate was the commoners, or the peasants. France was in a deep financial crisis. King Louis XIV had left France in debt. The government began to barrow millions of dollars that went to paying the taxes. Food prices started soaring because of bad harvests which brought hunger to many of the poor peasants. The government had to increase taxes and reduce expenses to stop this financial crisis but the nobles and the clergy tried to stop anything to not pay their taxes.