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A few things are typically associated with the Fourth of July—fireworks, a day off work, hot dogs, and a feeling of patriotism. And of course, the day also conjures up memories of historical events around independence, liberty, and taxes.
But the colonists’ revolt against the British Crown wasn’t in protest of burdensome tax rates like other tax rebellions in history. This tax revolt was notable because it was borne of the idea that “taxation without representation is tyranny!”
Not a Burden, but a Slight
The American Revolution was the culmination of various factors, such as unfavorable policies like mercantilism, cultural shifts from the First Great Awakening (1730s–1740s) and Enlightenment ideals, and pivotal events including the Boston Massacre (1770) and multiple tax revolts.
Intriguingly, however, when the founders enumerated their reasons for wanting to break away from Britain in the Declaration of Independence (1776), the word “taxes” was used only once.
It was not the burden of taxation that led to revolt; the colonies actually paid significantly less in taxes than other British subjects. Rather, it was the idea that Britain could freely impose taxes on the colonies without their consent, especially taxes that were arbitrary and punitive.
The Taxes that Led to Revolution
From 1763 onward, the British Parliament passed a variety of acts, many centered on either revising or introducing new taxes on the colonies.
The Sugar Act (1764) built upon the Molasses Act (1733) by imposing more duties on goods such as coffee, sugar, and some wines. In a statement responding to the act that captured broad public criticism, Samuel Adams wrote, “If taxes are laid upon us in any shape without ever having a legal representative where they are laid, are we not reduced from the character of free subjects to the miserable state of tributary slaves?”
The following year, Parliament introduced the Stamp Act (1765), which would serve as the first internal tax imposed directly on the colonists, consisting of a tax placed on all official legal documents and publications, including stamped paper. Like the Sugar Act before it, the Stamp Act was deeply unpopular and would eventually be repealed alongside the adoption of the Declaratory Act, which affirmed Britain’s continued right of taxation in the colonies even as concessions were made with the elimination of the Stamp Act. Predictably, this would not be the last of British taxes.
Other acts, such as the Townshend Acts (1767) and the Tea Act (1773), would soon follow, each with its own unique set of tax provisions. The latter of these two would ultimately culminate in the events of the infamous Boston Tea Party, where on December 16, 1773, American colonists dumped 342 chests of tea into the Boston harbor in protest of the act, which lowered duties on tea but affirmed the British East India Company’s legal monopoly and undercut Boston’s thriving smuggling trade. Parliament responded with the enactment of the punitive Coercive Acts, known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts, which, among other things, closed the Port of Boston, stripped Massachusetts of its charter, and shielded British officials from trial in Massachusetts, further inflaming the situation and convincing the colonists that Britain was depriving them of their rights.
Commemorating the Impact of Taxes
The cumulative effect of these acts, and the taxes they imposed, reinforced the growing belief among colonists that Britain was corrupt and tyrannical. While the tax burdens themselves were light and were largely meant to defray Britain’s considerable costs of colonial administration and defense (including that of fighting the French and Indian War), the colonists—unlike their compatriots in England—had no say in the matter through elected representatives in Parliament. To the colonists, this violated the very principles of liberty and self-government that the colonists, in Thomas Jefferson’s later words, had come to think of as self-evident.
The distrust between the British and colonists had reached a boiling point that would soon spill over into open conflict, ultimately leading to the birth of a new nation—the United States of America.
Tax revolts in history have come in varying sizes and for different reasons, but the one we remember on Independence Day is notable for its insistence not just on light taxation, but more importantly on taxation being subject to the consent of the governed through a representative form of government. That’s an innovation worth at least a firework or two.
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