Declaratory Act Essay

By the 1760s, generations of colonists had grown accustomed to little interference in their affairs from the British government. However, after the Seven Years’ War, things changed. What actions taken by Parliament between 1763–1776 tried to increase control over the colonies? What fundamental democratic principles were relevant to these actions?

What was the Declaratory Act? Is it similar in any way to the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution?
Are there any issues today between our states and the national government similar to the issue between the colonies and Parliament raised by the Declaratory Act?

The Seven Year War started in 1756 when the fighting between French and colonists merged into a European conflict

involving France, Austria, and Russia against Prussia and Britain. Peace was declared in 1763 through the Peace of Paris, which ended French power in North America. The British Government had borrowed heavily from British and Dutch bankers to finance the war, and as a consequence the national debt almost doubled from £75 million in 1754 to £133 million in 1763. In 1763 a new generation of British Ministers assumed power, and they were convinced that continued expansion of British trade and national influence depended on the reform of imperial administration and taxation in the North American colonies. From Britain’s view, colonists needed to share the costs of an empire just as the mother country would: as the war had been fought for the Americans and their safety.
To start this, the British Parliament began to pass several Acts that taxed and increased control over the colonists. The Proclamation of 1763 came first, forbidding all settlement past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. The goal of the act was to lower the cost of protecting the colonists, however it offended the exclusive right to govern lands to their west.
The Sugar Act of 1764 was a modified version of the Sugar and Molasses Act, which reduced the rate of tax on molasses from six pence to three pence per gallon, while taking more measures to strictly enforce the act. The act also listed more foreign goods to be taxed including sugar, certain wines, coffee, pimiento, cambric and printed calico, and further, regulated the export of lumber and iron.
A year later, the Currency Act of 1764 was passed to restrict the colonists’ ability to make their own money, and caused many financial problems for the colonists. This cut the money supply to the colonies in half which caused tremendous financial problems.
The Stamp Act of 1765 imposed a direct tax on the colonies of British America and required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp. The purpose was for money collected by the Stamp Act to be used to help pay the costs of defending and protecting the American frontier near the Appalachian Mountains.
The Quartering Act was passed to provide the British soldiers with any needed accommodations and housing.

It also required colonists to provide food for any British soldiers in the area, which lowered costs significantly for the British Government.
When Parliament repealed the Stamp Act on March 1766, it concurrently approved the Declaratory Act to justify its repeal. The Declaratory Act stated that the British Parliament's taxing authority was the same in America as in Great Britain. The Declaratory Act of 1766 was almost an exact copy of the 1719 Irish Declaratory Act which forced Ireland into total submission under the Crown. The idea of “No Taxation without Representation” was adopted in opposition to this act.
The Townshend Revenue Act imposed duties on glass, lead, paints, paper and tea imported into the colonies. The purpose of the Townshend Acts was to raise revenue in the colonies to pay the salaries of governors and judges so that they would remain loyal to Great Britain, to create a more effective means of enforcing compliance with trade regulations, to punish the province of New York for failing to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act, and to establish the precedent that the British Parliament had the right to tax the

colonies.
The Tea Act was passed in 1773, granting the British East India Tea Company a monopoly on the importation and sale of tea in the colonies.

This monopoly cut out the tea merchants in the colonies, allowing the tea company to cut costs of tea as well as sell directly to the colonists. The act's main purpose was not to raise revenue from the colonies but to bail out the floundering East India Company, a key actor in the British economy
The Intolerable Acts/Coercive Acts of 1774 were passed shortly after the Boston Tea Party. These Acts included the Boston Port Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, the Administration of Justice Act, and the Quartering Act. It restricted government in the colonies and gave British great power over the colonists.
The fundamental principles of democracy are based off the definition that each must exist in a political system for it to be a genuine democracy, that our government rests upon these ideas. We have decided that the fundamental principles of democracy include, but are not limited to, consent of the governed taxation without representation, election of representatives, no one is above the law, popular sovereignty, political freedom, and

equality.
The phrase consent of the governed refers to the idea that a government's legitimacy and moral right to use state power is only justified and legal when consented to by the people or society over which that political power is exercised.
To be taxed only with the consent of one's representatives in Parliament was a particularly cherished right of the people under English law, a right dating back to Magna Carta in the thirteenth century. After the Stamp Act was passed, which infringed on this right, the phrase “ No taxation without representation” became a popular message when opposing the act.
Popular sovereignty, or the sovereignty of the people's rule, is the principle that the authority of a state and its government is created and sustained by the consent of its people, through their elected representatives (Rule by the People), who are the source of all political power.
Parliament believed that the colonists had virtual representation, because every member of Parliament considered the rights of all subjects; the House of Commons was responsible for protecting the rights of all British and colonists. Due to the fact that the British elected the members, they enjoyed actual representation, while the colonists did not.
Political freedom (also known as a political autonomy or political agency) is a central concept in history and political thought and one of the most important features of democratic societies. In response to the Boston Tea Party, Parliament closed the port of Boston to all trade until the tea was paid for, allowed the governor to appoint members to the council, and empowered military commanders to lodge soldiers in colonist homes. These measures united the colonies in opposition to what was seen as a direct threat to their political freedom.

The Declaratory Act was passed in 1766, as a response to the Stamp Act.