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Parliament the american colonies, ranging from taxes

Parliament imposed a variety ofdifferent acts on the American Colonies, ranging from taxes on glass productsto forcing people to house soldiers. After the colonies had enough of theinfringement of Parliament’s power, they rebelled against the mother countryand won.

The Americans, aside from winning their freedom, also ran into somebig-time debt. In the decades leading up to theRevolutionary War, England was fighting wars in the New World when they didn’thave the money to cover the expenses of the wars. To pay for the costs, Parliament imposed the Sugar, Stamp, Currency, Townshend, Tea, and Coercive (Intolerable)Acts on the colonies. Those acts taxed, sugar and paper products, lead, tea, glass, paint, legal documents, and imports. The colonists were upset about allof these taxes because they didn’t have a say in what taxes were enacted uponus. The representatives of the colonies legislatures from a little over half ofthe British Colonies met up at New York’s City hall to figure out what they cando about these tyrannical actions.

The other half of the colonies didn’t wantto disobey the British constitution, so they did not meet up with the otherdelegates. (NCC Staff 2016)The group came up with twodocuments stating their position on the taxes Parliament had opposed. Thedocuments said something along the lines of, “ You cannot tax us without ourcolony’s representatives approving of the taxes.

” Parliament didn’t care aboutwhat the colonies wanted, so they passed the Declaratory Act. An act that saidthey could tax whoever and whatever, whenever they wanted. A year afterParliament passed the Declaratory Act, they passed the Townshend Acts. This wasthe start of the rising tensions between the colonies and Britain. The Townshend Acts were indirecttaxes or an import tariff. Glass, lead, paints, paper, tea, and other importswere taxed under this act. (It also took away colonial legislature, so Parliamentcould tighten their hold on the colonies even more. They started the Writs ofAssistance, which were search warrants, so they could search for smuggled goodsin boats, houses, business, and other properties.

In response to the TownshendActs, Samuel Adams said, “ In all free states, the constitution is fixed; it isfrom then, that the legislature derives its authority; therefore, it cannotchange the constitution without destroying its own foundation.” (History. comStaff 2009) Samuel Adams meant that Britain can’t govern their territory fromso far away. It’s the local government that knows what the people need and theyare the ones who should provide.             The colonists were angrier now thatthe taxes hadn’t been repealed yet, especially the Sons of Liberty. The Sons ofLiberty was a group created by Samuel Adams and John Hancock. They were arebellious group of male lawyers, merchants, and craftsmen who tarred andfeather tax collectors to protest the Stamp Act. (Creating America 2005) Theywould hold huge meetings for everyone to hear, to get everyone who listened inthe mood to rebel against all the oppressive acts that Parliament was imposing, and when the Tea Act got passed was when they really kicked into high-gear with(sometimes violent) protest.

(History. com Staff 2009)The Sons of Liberty were also theones responsible for the Boston Tea Party. They tried to be civil at first, going to the Massachusetts governor’s house and demanding that he send theships back. When the governor refused, they boarded three ships dressed asMohawk Indians on the night of December 16, 1773.

On those ships was tea fromthe East India Tea Company, that was the only tea that the colonies could get, this was a British effort to save their valuable spot in India. The Sons ofLiberty took a mere three hours to toss all the tea into the Boston Harbor. When it was all said and done, the damages amounted to about 704, 000 pounds or1 million dollars. (Rebecca Beatrice Brooks 2014) Parliament was stunned bythese actions and soon enacted the Coercive Acts or the Intolerable Acts as thecolonists referred to them as.

This was the turning point in the road toAmerican freedom, where everyone feels the effects and will do whatever theycan do to help out for the greater good of the colonies. We soon won our independence fromour country of origin and had to, literally, start building our new countryfrom the ground up. We agreed on George Washington to be our first president ofthe United States of America, and he appointed Alexander Hamilton as Secretaryof the Treasury. While Hamilton thought that having some debt is good, he alsosaw that we were going to be in an enormous amount of debt, especially for anew nation.

To correct this, he proposed the Hamilton Financial Plan. His planwas a three-point plan; pay off war debts, mainly from France and theNetherlands; create a national bank to manage spending, borrowing, andrepayment of borrowed money; and raise internal revenue by increasing taxes. Hamilton’s plan worked for a little bit and was a great plan. Even though ourdebt went up at a slower rate, our debt just piled up from there; 77. 1 millionin 1791, 83 million in 1800, and 83. 7 million in 1825. (Treasury Direct Staff2010)Parliament was trying to pay forwar expenses through taxes and tariffs that were imposed on the colonies.

Thecolonists didn’t think that the taxes were fair, so they rebelled, smuggled, and went against everything they had ever known, for independence and a betterlife for future generations. The first cabinet that George Washington hadappointed to office had great ideas for this new nation. Those ideas turned outto be very effective for a new, infant country.

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