British Government

The British government had controlled the colonies when they were beginning to develop into royal, proprietary, or charter colonies. The British had enacted laws to protect the colonists from becoming too great and expanding beyond what the British could control. Many of these laws were seen as harsh and unfair since the American colonies did not have representation, only “virtual representation” in the English parliament, therefore not allowing them their right as English citizens to have a voice in the Parliament. Recurring crises that the colonists’ were facing had been the Stamp and Townshend Act, the Quartering Act, and Navigation Acts, which controlled who the colonists could and couldn’t trade with.

The Stamp Act put a hefty tax on many paper goods. The Townshend Acts put a tax on lead, glass, paint, and other colonial exports. These laws lead to a great distrust of the government to levy taxes and lead to the theory that taxes should only be levied with the consent of the people. Under the Articles of Confederation, this theory was put into practice, and the states forbade the Congress to levy taxes, only request taxes, without the consent of the states. The colonists had begun to form their own ideas and develop thoughts that the government of England did not have that much control of the colonies if they are so many miles away.

The Quartering Act was another law that influenced American colonists theories on independence and government. The Quartering Act allowed for British troops in the American Colonies to be boarded in colonists' homes while the legislature had to provide funds to maintain the British troops. This angered many colonists who now had to pay higher taxes to provide funds to maintain British troops and board them in their homes. The Boston Tea Party which is unrelated to the Quartering Act was another example of the use of British Troops which angered the American colonists. British Troops were sent to Massachusetts to keep order, but when a mob of colonists surrounded a garrison of troops they got skittish and when somebody yelled fire the troops fired into the mob killing six colonists. This bred a great distrust of large centrally operated standing armies.

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