Taxes. We hate to love them and love to hate them. The mere mention of the word can stir heated debates and has done so for centuries. None were more prevalent than during colonial times. During this time, with the British Parliament on one side and the colonists on the other, both argued, either verbally or in written text, about which side did or did not have the right to tax the colonies. Soame Jenyns was one of these men who sided with the mother country in the tax debate.
Soame Jenyns, a member of the British Parliament from 1741 to 1780, wrote a pamphlet called “The Objections to the taxation consider’d” in 1765 in which he defended the Parliament’s right to tax the American colonies. Jenyns is clearly writing this to the colonists to read, almost seemly in a mocking way, as stated in the very first paragraph, “…who have ears but no understanding…” He then goes on to bring up three key points that the colonists have given as reasons not to be taxed by the
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Parliament and then attempts to debate them. The first objection being that no one can be taxed without their own consent. Jenyns quips back with “…for no man that I know of is taxed by his own consent…” The second point is that no one can be taxed unless it is done so with representation of the person they have elected that consents for said tax to become enacted. He oddly responds with, “..for the truth of this I shall appeal only to the candid representatives of those unfortunate counties which produce cyder…” The last point considers the idea that no one can be taxed unless there is consent by the majority of whom were elected. Jenyns called the last point, “…false as the other two; for every Englishman is taxed, and not one in twenty represented…” Jenyns goes on to say that regardless of name, distinct governments, or synonymous term that there should be no exemption from taxes being imposed upon an Englishman. He closes by saying, “…all taxation is at an end; but why it should not be used by Englishmen on this side of the Atlantic, as well as by those on the other, I do not comprehend…” Taxes were not the only issue being debated between the British Parliament and the colonists. They were also debating about rights or who had the ultimate authority to demand such. Enter the Declaratory Act. Enacted by the British Parliament on March 18, 1766, this act was “for the better securing the dependency of his majesty’s dominions in America…” Parliament and the crown of Great Britain wanted authority to be the same not only in the mother country, but also in America. This meant that any laws that were imposed in Great Britain would also become binding laws in America, including the ability to tax the people. The act was clearly political in nature and was passed to keep the colonists from making their own laws. The Quartering Act of 1774 was passed “for the better providing suitable quarters for officers and soldiers in his Majesty’s service in North America.” This act ensured that housing was provided to the stationed British soldiers in the colonies. It also allowed governors to house the soldiers in other buildings, such as “uninhabited houses, out-houses, barns, or other buildings,” if suitable quarters were not provided. This also meant that the British soldiers were allowed to stay in private homes, even if they were occupied. Luckily, for the colonists, this act also had an expiration date of March 24, 1776. While the British had their own perspective on taxes and rights, so did the American colonists. The American colonists were getting fed up with being under the British rule and were eager to break free. Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry were two individuals who would help shape the future of the America that we know today. On November 20, 1772, Samuel Adams, one of the Founding Fathers, delivered a report from the Committee of Correspondence to the Boston Town Meeting called “The Rights of the Colonists.” In the report, Adams discusses the rights of the colonists as men, Christians, and subjects. The rights of the colonists as men, first falls under the category of natural rights.
In it, Adams talks about the three natural rights as a right to life, a right to liberty, and a right to property. He refers to this as, “…the first law of nature.” He continues on by expressing how men have the right to stay in a state of nature for as long as they wish and that they also have the right to leave as well. Men also have the right to worship God as they see fit and in absolute peace. Although there were differing opinions on religion then, just as there are now, Adams states that the mutual tolerance of the different denominations was practiced and “…this spirit of toleration, in the fullest extent consistent with the being of a civil society, is the chief characteristical mark of the Church.” He also talks about how governments are not allowed to take what they want because they are in authority. Adams closes by stating that “freedom is a gift from God and to alienate it would make one a
slave.” Adams view on the rights of the colonists as Christians can be summed up best in this one sentence: These may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutes of the great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament. What he is saying here is that the colonist’s rights as Christians can be found by looking and reading in the Bible, specifically in the New Testament. In the last section of the report, Adams speaks about the rights of the colonists as subjects. He reiterates the natural rights of men as being security, liberty, and property. Next, he talks about the rights of those who were born in the British Colonies. These rights include the establishment of a legislative power that does not have the authority to arbitrary power over the people and that the legislative power cannot take any man’s property without his consent or representation. Along with Adams, Patrick Henry was also steadfast in his beliefs. Henry’s speech, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” is the embodiment of all protest speeches. In it, Henry appeals to those listening to his speech to fight for the truth or become slaves under the British rule. “…I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery…” He also believed that not voicing his opinions on the matter would be considered an “act of treason towards my country and disloyalty toward God.” Throughout the rest of his speech, Henry urges the colonists to come to the realization that without standing up for their rights as colonists, they were submitting themselves to tyranny and most certainly to slavery. His closing line says it best, “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” These debates about taxes and representation between the mother country and the colonists ultimately paved the way to the start of the American Revolution. The words and actions of our forefathers still influence us today. Like them, we, too, should stand up and fight for what is right and what we believe in.
According to Benjamin Franklin, colonists pay taxes for all kinds of things. This included property, polls, offices, professions, trades, businesses, alcoholic beverages, slavery, and more. The interviewer seemed to believe that the colonists’ tax burden was moderate and justified. He implied the former when he asked if the colonists could not afford to pay the taxes, and he stressed the latter when he asked if colonists deserved protection from Great Britain without payment.
Taxes. We hate to love them and love to hate them. The mere mention of the word can stir heated debates and has done so for centuries. None was more prevalent than during colony times. During this time, on one side was the British Parliament while on the other side were the colonists, both arguing, either verbally or in written text, about which side did or did not have the right to tax the colonies. Soame Jenyns was one of these men who sided with the mother country in the tax debate.
After this he goes on to list all the grievances the colonies have by number and points out the flaw in each argument. One argument he makes is that the colonies sought out England for protection in the war and were glad for their help up until they had to help contribute towards the expenses. England imposed one small tax on the colonies to pay for their expenses, and in turn the colonies go into an uproar, which is unreasonable to say the least. Towards the end he makes another important counterargument, which is that the colonies say they never agreed to get taxed or give their
When we hear about the Revolutionary War, one of the most popular phrases to be tied to it is “no taxation without representation,” and was coined from the fact that the colonies were being directly taxed without democratic representation. The fact that the American people did not have representation in Parliament while being taxed was virtually universally disapproved and was an extremely big factor in driving the American people to protect their democratic ideals through war in the years prior to the revolution.
When the colonies were being formed, many colonists came from England to escape the restrictions placed upon them by the crown. Britain had laws for regulating trade and collecting taxes, but they were generally not enforced. The colonists had gotten used to being able to govern themselves. However, Britain sooned changed it’s colonial policy because of the piling debt due to four wars the British got into with the French and the Spanish. The most notable of these, the French and Indian War (or the Seven Years’ War), had immediate effects on the relationship between the colonies and Great Britain, leading to the concept of no taxation without representation becoming the motivating force for the American revolutionary movement and a great symbol for democracy amongst the colonies, as Britain tried to tighten their hold on the colonies through various acts and measures.
Parliamentary taxes on the colonial peoples started with the Navigation Acts in 1660, but they were not an issue to the colonial people because they were too difficult to enforce. Then in 1764 the Stamp Act was passed, this was the first direct tax on the colonists. The Navigations Acts and the Sugar Acts of 1764, which was a tax placed on imported molasses and sugar, had not directly affected colonists, it affected the merchants. The merchants in hand would just raise prices. The stamp act was completely different. It said that any document or printed item would need to have a stamp placed on it purchased from the British government. The Stamp Act upset the colonist...
It was said, and is very true, that the British gave a lot to the colonists and we see such helpings as in the French and Indian war. The British gave up a lot of troops and money and numerous others in fighting that war, that the least that the colonist could do is to pay the taxes. Well they do have a good right to say that since they were the contributing factor in the colonists being safe from the French and Indians. The people, in the end should go about daily lives and pay the normal taxes, but you do have to draw the line somewhere. (DCT 1)
The first Age of Enlightenment, which started in Europe around the 18th century, spread to the American Colonies where it caused colonists to believe “that all men are created equal [and] that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” (Decl. of Ind. 1). The adage of the adage. The influence of the first Age of Enlightenment is simply shown in this quote because it refers to John Locke’s, an influential Enlightenment philosopher, work, The Second Treatise of Civil Government, which states that laboring men have a natural or God-given right to “life, liberty, health, and indulgence of body; and the possession of outward things,” (A Letter Concerning Toleration).... ... middle of paper ...
In this political philosophy the colonies had originally made a charter with the king who set a custom that he was to provide for the defense of the colonially while each colony maintained the right to legislative self-rule. Jefferson would state, “the addition of new states to the British Empire has produced an addition of new, and sometimes opposite interests. It is now therefore, the great office of his majesty to resume the exercise of his negative power, and to prevent the passage of laws by any one legislature of the empire, which might bear injuriously on the right and interest of another” (A Warning to the King: Thomas Jefferson, “A Summary View of the Rights of British-America”, Green, p. 234). In other words, for Americans to preserve the true ancient British constitution, it was vital to establish that parliament did not have authority over them, because they could never be required to give up actual popular consent or governance in the British Parliament. Thomas Hutchinson stated this idea clear, “The king might retain the executive power and also his share of the legislative without any abridgement of our rights as Englishmen, the Parliament could not retain their legislative power without depriving them of those rights, for after removal they could no longer be represented, and their sovereign, sensible of this charter or commissions made provision in every colon for legislature
This quote also appeals to ethos and pathos. By mentioning God, he is able to convince the reader that his cause is just and he is not acting in his own interests, and by using emotionally charged words and phases, such as “created equal”, “endowed by their Creator”, “certain unalienable rights”, and “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”, he makes the reader feel as though they are important, and not just another British subject with no
After the Great War for Empire, the British parliament began carrying out taxes on the colonists to help pay for the war. It was not long from the war that salutary neglect was brought on the colonies for an amount of time that gave the colonists a sense of independence and identity. A farmer had even wrote once: “Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world” (Doc H). They recognized themselves as different than the British, so when parliament began passing bills to tax without representation there was an outcry of mistreatment. Edmund Burke, a man from parliament, sympathized with the colonists: “Govern America as you govern an English town which happens not to be represented in Parl...
Specifically, the idea that man is endowed with certain liberties that were granted by God and/or nature was advocated by the Enlightenment thinkers. Many people took aim at arbitrary governments and the “divine right of kings.” John Locke in return offered principles of constructing a constitutional government, a contract between rulers and the ruled. In Document 7, John Locke in The Two Treatises of Government stated that men consent to enter society in order to preserve their natural rights such as life, liberty, and property. The government should protect people's natural rights and if not, then the people can remove their consent because the government derives its power from the consent of the people. John Locke wrote during the time period of the Enlightenment; therefore, his thoughts were based on the emerging idea of individualism furthermore man's inherent rights and powers. Thomas Jefferson wrote in The Declaration of Independence (Document 9) that are all men are created equal and that they are endowed with certain natural rights. The Declaration of Independence was written because of England's tyrannical rule over the American colonies thus, the citizens felt that their natural rights were being abused by the English government. Individualism was indeed formed in response to the skepticism of the Church as
The war had been enormously expensive, and the British government’s attempts to impose taxes on colonists to help cover these expenses resulted in chaos. English leaders, were not satisfied with the financial and military help they had received from the colonists during the war. In a desperate attempt to gain control over the colonies as well as the additional revenue to pay off the war debt, Britain began to force taxes on the colonies. Which resulted in The Stamp Act, passed by parliament and signed by the king in March 1765. The Stamp Act created an excise tax on legal documents, custom papers, newspapers, almanacs, college diplomas, playing cards, and even dice. Obviously the colonist resented the Stamp Act and the assumption that parliament could tax them whenever and however they could without their direct representation in parliament. Most colonials believed that taxation without their consent was a violation of their constitutional rights as Englishmen. Which is where the slogan “No Taxation without Representation” comes
The most fundamental reason for the American Revolution was the colonist’s outrage over taxation which led to a tax revolt launched by people who were tired of the burden of paying unfair taxes. The king placed taxes known as Townsend Acts, on the colonist’s tea, paper, paint, lead, glass, and many other items that were used daily and the colonists were against this taxing. The purpose of the Townsend Acts was to help pay the cost of government in America. Lawyer James Otis and other colonist rebels referred to King George as a tyrant. As stated by James Otis in The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (1763), . . . “The very act of taxing exercised over those who are not represented appears to me to be depriving them of one of their most essential rights as freemen, and if continued seems to be in effect and entire
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."