“I know not why we should blush to confess that molasses was an essential ingredient in American independence.”— John Adams[1] A one penny per gallon import duty on molasses was the only important exception to the American demand for “no taxation without representation.” The duty was a tax, levied by Parliament in 1766, and collected […]
“No taxation without representation” was not a notion born in the American colonies in 1765 with the passage of the Stamp Act, or with James Otis’s 1764 pamphlet The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, or in his 1761 courtroom oration against Writs of Assistance. It was born with the “Pistole” fee in […]
In 1765 Parliament instituted a Stamp Act for the North American colonies, which proved wildly unpopular from Savannah to Halifax, and ultimately unworkable. The following year, there was a change of government in London. The new ministers repealed the Stamp Act, and across the ocean there was great rejoicing. However, those ministers also proposed a […]
The primary dispute between Britain and her North American mainland colonies in the 1760s and early 1770s has often been summed up in four words: “no taxation without representation.” American Whigs declared they were loyal to the British king and constitution, but that part of that unwritten constitution was that subjects (or at least wealthy […]
