How Did The Stamp Act Lead To The American Revolution

"No taxation without represntation."It means a government does not have the right to tax a group of people without them being represented in the government.That's what the colonists said when the british kept on taxing them unfairly.Some these taxes were the Stamp Act,and Tea Act.The stamp act was put in place in order to pay for the british soldiers being there.The tea act was also put in place to bail out the East India Tea Company,but ended up taxing the colonists.These are some of things that led to the American Revolution. Though the colonists disliked all of these laws they took particular offense to the 1763 Stamp Act.This required certain goods to have an offical stamp to show that the customer had to pay a tax.Many of these items were paper goods,such as legal documents and newspapers even playing cards,Colonists were really mad because the stamp act was passed in order to pay for the british soldiers being there.Then they
started boycotting british business.One loyalists that was living there John Hughes he liked the stamp act and was appaled by the way the colonists were acting by saying "The colonists have been insulting his majesty,saying that the stamp act was a unconstitutional and opressive." On March 5, 1770, Private Hugh White was on guard in front of the Customs House on King Street in Boston. A crowd of people had gathered and began harassing the soldier by saying "Come on you rascals ,you bloodybacks,you lobsters scoundrels".His calls for help brought nine soldiers led by Captain Thomas Preston. The crowd continued to harass the soldiers with insults, and were throwing snowballs at them.In all the commotion, someone yelled, "Fire!" and soldiers began shooting. Five colonists were killed including a free black man Crispus Attucks. No one knew who gave the order to fire. The Tea Act, passed by Parliament in 1773, would launch the final spark to the revolutionary movement in Boston. The act was not intended to raise revenue in the American colonies, and in fact imposed no new taxes. It was designed to prop up the East India Company which was floundering financially and burdened with eighteen million pounds of unsold tea. This tea was to be shipped directly to the colonies, and sold at a bargain price. The Townshend Duties were still in place, however, and the radical leaders in America found reason to believe that this act was a plot to buy popular support for the taxes already in force. The direct sale of tea, through British agents, would also have undercut the business of local merchants. In 1773, After britain passed the Tea Act.
By this Act, about 17 million pounds of tea was proposed to be sold in America, by under selling it. Since the tea would be sold at an cheap price by bypassing the traders, the businesses in America were going to be seriously affected. For this reason, the Act was resisted by the colonies. Since British tea was already being boycotted because of the heavy taxes on it, the Act in America was seen as a bribe from the British . In Boston, the opposition against the Tea Act took a dramatic fall. Here some men dressed as Indians got on a ship with tea on it,at the Harbor and dumped the entire 17 million pounds of tea into the sea. This incident is known as the Boston Tea Party. While the people in Boston rejoiced, the British Parliament passed certain laws to punish the colony. They passed what the colonists popularly called the Intolerable Acts in 1774. Under these Acts, the Boston port was closed until the debt was paid to the british for the lost
tea. The Declaration of Independence was written to explain why the colonists had a right to revolt against and become independent from England. The colonists largest complaint was that rules were being passed in England that affected their life in the colonies, but the colonists had no representation in England to voice their opinions of the colonists when the laws were being passed.The declaration states that the people have the right to overthrow a government that is not protecting their liberties, that governments and kings are not held in place by God, but by the people who serve them, the colonists specific grievences against King George of England, and that the British people failed their fellow citizens in America These are some of the things that caused the American Revolution.The colonist were very independent,they wanted to do things by themselves. Great Britain was a far away. The colonists they didn't want people an ocean away telling them how to live their lives.The British government decided to make the colonies pay a large war debt from the French and Indian War.Through the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, and other taxes, the British tried to collect taxes that the colonists people considered cruel.The colonists also thought that they should be able to send their own people to Britain's Parliament so that they could defend themselves.The combination of the harsh taxes and the lack of the colonist voice in Parliament gave rise to the phrase "taxation without representation."The colonist started stockpiling guns and ammunition in violation of British laws. Their defense of a stockpile led to the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

9/24/2012
By Anne Afrigana