Preview

Boston Tea Party Movement Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1819 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Boston Tea Party Movement Essay
The Ethics that Revolve Around the Tea Party Movement
When most people think about the Tea Party Protest, they think about the Boston Tea Party. On December 16, 1773, a group of colonists boarded ships loaded with tea and destroyed it by throwing it into the Boston Harbor. The basis of the protest comes from the famous saying “no taxation without representation.” After the Tea Act was passed, tea became one of the next items in the new world to bear a tax. Although the basis for the movement is similar, the Tea Party Protests presented in this paper represent the modern movement started in 2009. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the ethics that revolve around the movement and determine if their protests are in line with their common
…show more content…
Once the beliefs are fully understood, the ethics behind the individual protests will be easy to analyze.
When you think about the history of the modern Tea Party Movement, you cannot discount how the past has affected the present. The ideal of liberty and self-government is not modern at all. Although the Boston Tea Party is not a direct precedent for the modern movement, it certainly carries some of the same ideals that are part of the current platform. Through the centuries, men have understood that their rights come from God and have fought for them to be guaranteed beginning way back with the Magna Carta, to the English Bill of Rights all the way through to the U.S. Bill of Rights. The modern movement is considered to start in February 2009, just one month after President Obama took office. Rick Santelli is credited with starting the movement with a rant against the Obama Administration’s proposal to help homeowners refinance their mortgages when faced with foreclosure. He is famously quoted for saying that he would organize a Chicago Tea Party and dump “some derivative securities into Lake Michigan.” Even though this event is the one that caught everyone’s attention, Keli Carender from Seattle had already been blogging to get the word out about the “Porkulus

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act because they believed that it violated their rights as Englishmen to "No taxation without representation," that is, be taxed only by their own elected representatives and not by a British parliament in which they were not represented. Protesters had successfully prevented the unloading of taxed tea in three other colonies, but in Boston, embattled Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to be returned to Britain.…

    • 5532 Words
    • 23 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Boston Tea Party is a very famous political protest that occurred on December 16, 1773. This protest was when many rebels that called themselves the Sons of Liberty boarded 3 ships and dumped hundreds of dollars of tea into the Boston Harbor. The men dressed up as Indians (Natives) to hide their identity. They threw over 340 chest of tea overboard, which took over 3 hours for over 100 people to throw the tea overboard. In total they threw over 90,000lbs of tea and over what would be about $1,000,000 today. This was an act of protest against the tea act and it infuriated the British that they passed a new act called the Intolerable Act in 1774 (I will talk about it more later). This protest was a very memorable one for both the Brtiish…

    • 157 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Boston, Massachusetts, the Sons of Liberty protested Parliament's passage of the Tea Act in 1773 by throwing tons of taxed tea into Boston Harbor, an act that came to be known as the Boston Tea Party. News of the event reached England in January 1774. Parliament responded with a series of acts that were intended to punish Boston for this illegal destruction of private property, restore British authority in Massachusetts, and otherwise reform colonial government in America.…

    • 821 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    On the night of December 16, 1773, a band of Bostonians dressed as Native Americans boarded the British merchant ship Dartmouth and two other companion vessels anchored at “Griffin's Wharf” in Boston harbor. The Americans who had around 70 men, all hated the tea tax.There mission to destroy all the cargo of British East India Company tea. Many years later George Hewes shoemaker and participant in the Boston tea party. He remembered "We then were ordered by our commander to open the hatches and take out all the chests of tea and throw them overboard. And we immediately proceeded to execute his orders, first cutting and splitting the chests with our tomahawks, so as thoroughly to expose them to the effects of the water." Urged on by a crowd of cheering townspeople. The Bostonians destroyed 342 chests of tea estimated to be worth between 10,000 and 18,000 in their currency. This event became known as the Boston Tea Party that pushed us towards the American Revolution.…

    • 601 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Sons of Liberty dressed as Mohawk Natives and boarded British ships filled with tea. They broke open the cases of tea and spilled out the tea into the Boston Harbor. I heard that they destroyed 342 cases of tea. The Sons of Liberty tried to show their anger towards the Tea Act. Due to their immature actions, the Boston Harbor was closed and more soldiers were sent over to monitor the colonists. They have wasted a humongous amount of money, so now they have to face the consequences. Britain had the right to punish the colonists from Boston. They could have done another boycott or protest, but not a foolish action like this.…

    • 113 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the 242 years it’s been since December 16th, 1773, The Boston Tea Party still continues to influence American Society to this very day. A famous protest by colonists against British taxes, Massachusetts citizens, disguised as Mohawk Indians, climbed aboard the three ships docked at Griffin’s Wharf, The Dartmouth, The Eleanor, and The Beaver. Utilizing the hatchets they carried with then, they tore open 342 crates of tea and dumped it all into the Boston harbor. Leading up to the incident, the crippling debt from the lasting French and Indian War and the impending demise of Britain’s treasured East India Company became the most powerful catalysts to spur the rebellious action. More so, following the destruction of the tea, the King, and Parliament,…

    • 1765 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    TEA Party Movement

    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Shortly after Barack Obama became president in 2009, a social movement began called the “TEA Party” or “Taxed Enough Already.” This movement began on social media and in the conservative, Republican, Christian groups in America. They utilized methods of communication such as Facebook at Twitter to raise awareness of their position, gain support, and arrange protests (Miller 2014).…

    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In his essay, called “Civil Disobedience”, Thoreau, talks about how He wants a better government. Thoreau states that there should be no government, by saying that he essentially thinks that it will be better without an actual government, and therefore, “when men are prepared for no government, that will be the kind of government which they will have” (part 1, par. 1). So He is saying that the people are the owner of the country, and wants people to rule the country. This ideology is similar to communism and socialism, by the means of a self-govern government, meaning that the government is the people itself. In this sense, He leaves the country to the individuals’ conscience and not wanting the law to rule the country. Thoreau asks that, “Can…

    • 221 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was a philosopher and writer best known for his attacks on American social institution and his respect for nature and simple living. He was so much influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was opposed to the practice of slavery in some of the territories involved. It is said that "a night in the jail is what prompted Thoreau to write the civil disobedience. In this essay he shows his complete refusal for the slavery life after the war.…

    • 938 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Henry Thoreau developed many ideas throughout his lifetime that have been highly influential for many years. Perhaps the most famous of these ideas were those presented in Civil Disobedience. Within this text, Thoreau presents highly unconventional ideas for his time. These ideas, however, lead to many of the ideals held by Americans today. In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau presents the ideals and attitudes embodied by so many American citizens today.…

    • 542 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Tea Party movement began on Feb. 19, 2009, when Rick Santelli, the CNBC financial journalist who reports from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, ranted against the government bailing out homeowners who couldn’t pay their mortgages.…

    • 1191 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    election. If one digs deeper though, into the nature of the Tea Party Movement it seems…

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Transgressing the law in order to make a statement on its unconstitutionality is embedded in our nation’s history. From the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773, when colonists defied the Tea Act and the lack of representation in taxes, to the Civil Rights Movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, which sparked an active discussion on the human rights of every individual regardless of race, civil disobedience is behind every revolutionary act of progress. Defying unjustified laws was the foundation of the United States of America; it was the medium of gaining independence from British rule. According to George Washington, “the basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and alter their constitutions and government.” Without these pivotal acts of civil disobedience, our free society with granted human rights and liberation would cease to exist. When considering if recent protests are contributing to a free society, one must take into account that the very formation of this free society was due to demonstrations like…

    • 785 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Right To Dissent

    • 800 Words
    • 4 Pages

    This tradition brings to mind the long precedence of peaceful resistance in the US and Britain: the boycott of taxed imported goods such as tea and stamps by the colonists, the boycotts on cane sugar and various other goods in England during the 1830s as part of the protest of the slave-based economy lead by the prominent figure of William Wilberforce, the peaceful abolitionist movements supported by the Quakers during the 1850s. More modern protest examples are the protest of the Oil Pipeline in North Dakota, protests in Washington against the secret Pacific Trade Agreement and university protests such as Black Lives Matter. This circumstance is a tragedy in a deep sense because it says that we cannot live our lives quietly trusting members of the government are working for our good and not worrying about negative effects to us. It is strangely also possessive of elegance in that you do not depend on any sort of middleman or politician to serve you, but can exactly attempt to express your idea, and be able to sway other to see the merit of your…

    • 800 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gun control laws, abortion rights, death sentences, and gay rights all compromise the morals of certain groups. However, certain rights, such as gun control and gay rights, are supported simply because of the revered words of the Bible and Constitution, as Thoreau described. Thus, “Civil Disobedience” constructs an outline as to when an oppressed American such as me should rebel. I should rebel when I must “resign my conscious to the legislator,” compromising my morals simply because I was a minority voter. I should rebel when the government controls me, because I should control the government. I should rebel when the government refuses to be an advocate for change; it is up to me to take up action. In brief, it is my duty as a citizen to ensure the fair implication of government rather than a toleration.…

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics