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Essay on history of democracy
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Essay on history of democracy
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By the 1760s, generations of colonists had grown accustomed to little interference in their affairs from the British government. However, after the Seven Years’ War, things changed. What actions taken by Parliament between 1763–1776 tried to increase control over the colonies? What fundamental democratic principles were relevant to these actions? What was the Declaratory Act? Is it similar in any way to the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution? Are there any issues today between our states and the national government similar to the issue between the colonies and Parliament raised by the Declaratory Act? The Seven Year War started in 1756 when the fighting between French and colonists merged into a European conflict …show more content…
It also required colonists to provide food for any British soldiers in the area, which lowered costs significantly for the British Government. When Parliament repealed the Stamp Act on March 1766, it concurrently approved the Declaratory Act to justify its repeal. The Declaratory Act stated that the British Parliament's taxing authority was the same in America as in Great Britain. The Declaratory Act of 1766 was almost an exact copy of the 1719 Irish Declaratory Act which forced Ireland into total submission under the Crown. The idea of “No Taxation without Representation” was adopted in opposition to this act. The Townshend Revenue Act imposed duties on glass, lead, paints, paper and tea imported into the colonies. The purpose of the Townshend Acts was to raise revenue in the colonies to pay the salaries of governors and judges so that they would remain loyal to Great Britain, to create a more effective means of enforcing compliance with trade regulations, to punish the province of New York for failing to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act, and to establish the precedent that the British Parliament had the right to tax the …show more content…
This monopoly cut out the tea merchants in the colonies, allowing the tea company to cut costs of tea as well as sell directly to the colonists. The act's main purpose was not to raise revenue from the colonies but to bail out the floundering East India Company, a key actor in the British economy The Intolerable Acts/Coercive Acts of 1774 were passed shortly after the Boston Tea Party. These Acts included the Boston Port Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, the Administration of Justice Act, and the Quartering Act. It restricted government in the colonies and gave British great power over the colonists. The fundamental principles of democracy are based off the definition that each must exist in a political system for it to be a genuine democracy, that our government rests upon these ideas. We have decided that the fundamental principles of democracy include, but are not limited to, consent of the governed taxation without representation, election of representatives, no one is above the law, popular sovereignty, political freedom, and
Leading up to the time of the Revolutionary War, seven policies were passed by Britain in hopes of controlling the colonies. These acts culminated in the Quebec Act which persuaded many Americans into supporting the revolutionary effort. The Proclamation of 1763 was the first policy passed by the British. This forbid any settlement west of Appalachia because the British feared conflicts over territory in this region. The proclamation, however, infuriated the colonists who planned on expanding westward. The Sugar Act was passed shortly after in 1764. This act sought harsher punishment for smugglers. The next act to be passed was possibly the most controversial act passed by Britain. The Stamp Act passed in 1765 affected every colonist because it required all printed documents to have a stamp purchased from the British authority. The colonist boycotted British goods until the Stamp Act was repealed but quickly replaced by the Declaratory Act in 1766. The British still held onto the conviction that they had the right to tax the Americans in any way they deemed necessary. The Declaratory Act was followed by the Townshend Acts of 1767. This imposed taxes on all imported goods from Britain, which caused the colonies to refuse trading with Britain. Six years passed before another upsetting act was passed. In 1773, the Tea Act placed taxes on tea, threatening the power of the colonies. The colonies, however, fought back by pouring expensive tea into the Boston harbor in an event now known as the Boston Tea Party. The enraged Parliament quickly passed the Intolerable Acts, shutting down the port of Boston and taking control over the colonies.
Passed in 1767, the Townshend Acts put taxes on several basic items that, to obtain them, needed to be imported. These items included glass, paper, lead, and tea. The British planned out the Townshend Acts a little differently than they had previously planned other acts. They passed the Townshend Acts in a way for them to still make money, but to avoid direct conflict with the colonists. The British thought that if they taxed imported items, as opposed to taxing items produced in the colonies (like the Stamp Act did), that the colonists wouldn’t have as much hostility towards the act. The second part of the Townshend Acts was sending of troops and warships to Boston. In September of 1768, warships arrived in Boston harbor carrying four thousand troops. The soldiers came to keep structure after all the colonists’ chaotic reactions of the past acts. The establishment of the Writs of Assistance was the last part of the Townshend Acts. British soldiers used the Writs of Assistance to search colonists’ houses for smuggled goods. After the British passed the Townshend Acts, the colonists had several reactions in response to them. One reaction was boycotting. This colonial boycott was on all imported British goods, and it was extremely widespread. The boycott encouraged more colonists to join the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, which lead to many colonists replacing items, which they would normally buy from British merchants, with homemade versions. These items included fabrics, candles, and tea. Another reaction was non-importation agreements. Non-importation agreements are written agreements that said that whoever signed one would not purchase items from British merchants until they got representation in British Parliament. A tremendous amount of colonists signed these agreements, and those who didn’t were sometimes harassed or had their property destroyed. Similarly,
When the colonies were being formed, many colonists came from England to escape the restrictions placed upon them by the crown. Britain had laws for regulating trade and collecting taxes, but they were generally not enforced. The colonists had gotten used to being able to govern themselves. However, Britain sooned changed it’s colonial policy because of the piling debt due to four wars the British got into with the French and the Spanish. The most notable of these, the French and Indian War (or the Seven Years’ War), had immediate effects on the relationship between the colonies and Great Britain, leading to the concept of no taxation without representation becoming the motivating force for the American revolutionary movement and a great symbol for democracy amongst the colonies, as Britain tried to tighten their hold on the colonies through various acts and measures.
The Intolerable Acts is several acts the British government put in place to punish the colonist for disobeying. For example One act closed the Boston Harbor until the colonist paid for the lost tea and learned to respect the British Parliament. So the colonist called first Continental Congress meeting. This meeting consist of delegates from the colonies, in reaction to the heavy taxes forced by the British Government. This meeting made the colonist call for a revolution and freedoms from Britain control.
It was not all as good for the Colonies as it seemed, however, for with that came the Declarative Act. The Declarative Act states that, “That the King’s Majesty, by and with the consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal, and Commons of Great Britain, in parliament assembled, had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever” (Temperley). This nullified any progress the House of Burgesses had accomplished. There was still hope, however, for the King George III to be appointed a new minister. He made a name for himself in the Colonies during the French and Indian War.
Britain decided to pull back most taxes except for the tea tax. Tea was important to the colonists
The French and Indian war, also better known as the seven year war, was in 1754. It all began in the early spring of 1754 through 1763, when George Washington and some 160 Virginians and hand full of Mingo Indians started to move when they were concerned about the French military presence in their county. The battle first started when a Mingo chief, the Indian leader that was with George Washington in his campaign, led a unit of soldiers into a small French encampment in the woods. It was a very small battle but, the fight ended up with 14 French men wounded. While Washington was trying to get all the available information from their French dying commander to help their plans in the war, the Indians killed and scalped the remaining survivors including the commander.
The colonists were required to pay for the veterans of a war that left Britain in debt so that British taxes could reduce, but colonial taxes would increase. “They also believed it was unjust to ask them to pay for the expenses of the British soldiers. They had no representatives in Parliament so they believed it was wrong for Parliament to pass any taxes on them. It was an age old principle of English law that taxation without representation was tyrannical.” The injustices brought on the colonists by the British government culminated in this act that required British soldiers to live in the homes of colonists. The colonists felt that the British were making the colonists pay for the debts of England. The resistance created by this led to strengthening colonial unity and the creation of revolutionary
A new era was dawning on the American colonies and its mother country Britain, an era of revolution. The American colonists were subjected to many cruel acts of the British Parliament in order to benefit England itself. These British policies were forcing the Americans to rebellious feelings as their rights were constantly being violated by the British Crown. The colonies wanted to have an independent government and economy so they could create their own laws and stipulations. The British imperial policies affected the colonies economic, political, and geographic situation which intensified colonists’ resistance to British rule and intensified commitment to their republican values.
Charles Townshend, chancellor of the Exchequer in a new British government, imposed new taxes on lead, paint, paper, and tea, known as the second Revenue Act of 1767(also known as the Townshend duties of 1767). The Townshend Acts controlled colonial trade by taxing necessary items by the colonies. Charles Townshend phased series of laws, denoted to as the Townshend Acts, firstly to execute importation of taxes on some profitable British merchandises sent to America. He charted the initial Townshend Act with others to restructure the colonial customs service and make it possible to assemble the duties taxes. He also granted that felonies against the revenue laws would be faithful by judges, selected directly by the monarch without being succumbed
The Boston tea party was a brief incident among many, composing, economic, and political crisis that ultimately caused a revolution. These events consisted of The French and Indian war, the Stamp Act, the Townshend Revenue Act, the Tea Act, and of course the Boston Tea Party. The incident caused by the colonies infuriated the British government therefore as punishment parliament responded to the abuse with the Coercive Acts of 1774 . When the thirteen colonies once again decided to resist the British troops revolution spread. “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” This act later on lead to the American Revolutionary War, were years later independence was
Next came the Intolerable Acts, a series of laws passed by Great Britain to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party and to strengthen British control over the Colonies. The Patriots viewed the Acts as a violation of the rights of Massachusetts, and in September 1774 they organized the First Continental Congress to organize a protest. As tensions grew, the American Revolutionary War officially commenced in April 1775.
The opposing argument serves as a perfect gateway to the topic of relationship between Federal and State government. In the United States, the Supremacy Clause serves...
The Tea Act gave one British company the right to control all trade in tea with the colonies. Tea would be shipped to the colonists on this company's ships. It would be sold in the colonies by this company's merchants, while the colonists would still have to pay the tax on tea. This company was the East India Tea Company.The purpose of the Tea Act was not to impose higher taxes on the people but to rather bail out
...he Intolerable Act there were two things that fell under this. The first one being, Massachusetts Government Act; the king choose the delegates that where in the upper house. Upsetting the colonists for they were able to vote for the delegates but now they weren’t being represented properly. The second one is the Administration of Justice Act which protected British officers from colonial courts. This was seen as unjust for that allowed the officers to get away with crimes that would have major or even minor punishment.