6c Road to Revolution Part I

0:03 okay welcome back today's lecture is the road to revolution and complements the material in your textbook okay so we're picking up after the French and Indian War at the conclusion of the French and Indian War American pride at being part of the British Empire was widespread but in only 13 years the the English King George the 3rd would was being denounced as a tyrant whose actions had made it necessary for Americans to declare their independence colonists believed that their colonial legislatures had complete control over local affairs of the accom colonies but the English view was that Parliament had whatever control over

0:51 colonial affairs that had cared to exercise now typically this was not done but after 1763 Parliament embarked on an ambitious programme of control of the colonies and attempted to tighten Imperial control increase revenue exercise more efficient administration over the colonies and all of these attempts to control the colonies more directly and tax them more make them pay their fair share this led to a stark reversal of political opinion and tense relations after the French and Indian War so we're going to be discussing the crisis in the American colonies the

1:38 conquest of Canada initially delighted the American colonists and they could not have had more pride in their position in the British Empire why was the French and Indian War so important well it brought the British a great deal more territory this territory west of the Appalachians Canada and it was different than the past wars that we looked at in the last lecture after so many past Wars of feudal bloodshed you know the phase one warts at the French and English struggle decisive victory was finally won in the French and Indian War the earlier Wars there was no real territorial shifts the French and Indian War wiped away the danger the French raids and open up a vast and fertile continent to

2:25 colonial sediment settlement notably these lands in 1763 in New England Farmers Almanac celebrated quote but now behold the farmer may have land for nothing land enough for himself and all of his sons be they ever so many what one thing I want to suggest is the road to revolution didn't it was something that happened pretty suddenly so the post 1763 era was not marked by a desire for independence initially in 1763 it came about later and somewhat suddenly for instance like I said the colonists initially felt great pride in their

3:11 contributions to the war effort and they felt that they belonged to a powerful liberty-loving empire statues of the British King were erected across the colonies and these were erected by voluntary public subscriptions people paid for it for instance by voluntary public subscription the city of New York erected triumphant statues of King George the third like you see here and Prime Minister William Pitt and this was done in other cities too people were proud of being British Puritan ministers praised the victory in the war in their sermons and they praised it as the vindication of Protestant liberty and freedom over French Catholic absolutism

4:01 Benjamin Franklin rejoiced and celebrated the conquest of Canada and took pride in being British he said I rejoice quote not merely I'm not merely a Maya colonist but as I am as a Briton so in short there was little desire to break away from Britain at the answer the edge at the end of the French and Indians people were proud to be Britons and erected a statue of King George the third and little did they know that they would be toppling this statue in not too many years later in the Revolution the same statute in New York coming down so let's look at this crisis in the American colonies what are some of the factors leading to these more tense

4:47 relations mutual enemy gone so within thirteen years of the war treaty the thirteen Atlantic colonies would wage a long war for independence what was a civil war between British subjects the conflict was the direct result of tensions and strains caused by the winning of the French and Indian War what are some of these tensions well most obviously the colonies and mother country were now deprived of a common enemy to unite them France is no longer the common enemy freaking them together so the mutual enemy of France is gone and at the same time the victory emboldened the colonists to defy the British to behave a bit more rebellious

5:32 Lee because they no longer needed military protection against a foreign neighbour like the French here's another way of putting it the royal governor of Massachusetts made a very important observation in 1773 he said had Canada remain French none of the spirit of opposition against Great Britain would have appeared so once again the mutual foreign enemy of France is gone which made the colonies more rebellious and less clinging to Britain for military protection closer administration and higher taxes during the French and Indian War British authorities began to pay closer attention to the colonies and

6:18 began to think how to best administer them remember the traditional British policy towards the colonies was an unofficial polity of quote/unquote salutary neglect meaning they were more or less left on their own to develop on their own and form the from the perspective of a mayor in self-government this was a perspective that they liked and was good hence the word salutary meaning good or beneficial after the war British politicians were impressed by the prosperity of the colonies and concluded that the colonists should and could pay higher taxes to support the Empire that benefited them so greatly now taxation

7:03 taxation without representation I know you all know is a big slogan and catchphrase of the American Revolution but the situation is much more complicated than you might think the British desire for the Americans to pay more taxes was actually only fair since the American colonists were really getting away with highway robbery British taxpayers in Great Britain were already paying much higher taxes than the colonists in 1763 the average taxpayer in in 1763 averaged taxation in Great Britain averaged 26 shillings per person per year by contrast in the

7:49 colonies the average colonists only paid one shilling in taxes per year so one shilling in the colonies versus 26 shillings for the average taxpayer in Great Britain the numbers don't matter but the point is that the colonists were paying a ridiculously low amount of taxes with respect to their position as subjects in the British Empire now in Britain subjects paid high taxes and that was a society where wealth and prosperity was greatly divided by class many structure many subjects if not most were poor and struggling and by contrast in the colonies taxes averaged at only one shilling per person and it was a society where free colonists where most

8:36 free colonists were prosperous so two British politicians it seemed only fair that the colonists had to help pay for the wars that had benefited them so much that had expanded the territory and taken away the French military threat another thing during the war during the war British officials were so there are a number of new taxes imposed during the war there is also a major noticing of the way that existing taxes were not really enforced strictly during the war British officials were appalled at the way the American colonists and merchants

9:21 routinely ignored mercantilist imperial regulations for instance the Navigation Acts remember the Navigation Acts they gave Great Britain a monopoly of trade with certain enumerated goods from the colonies all trade had to go through Great Britain and they couldn't trade through other foreign nations directly these were widely evaded smuggling existed other taxes and regulations were also evaded for instance the 1773 molasses act was widely ignored and came to the attention of British officials during the French and Indian War this was a tax that was imposed by Parliament

10:08 actually at the request of West Indian sugar planters and in imposed import duties like tariffs import taxes it imposed import taxes that forbade the New Englanders from importing molasses directly from the French West Indies to make rum so the law imposed a high import tax or tariffs on molasses sugar and rum brought into the colonies from the Dutch French or Spanish West Indies the Caribbean the colonists used the molasses to make rub or for other purposes so the law was intended to protect the British Caribbean sugar planters and the sugar

10:54 industry the law was intended to protect the British Caribbean sugar planters from competition from lower-cost foreign sugar or molasses from the Dutch French Spanish or French however what was the response the law was evaded New England merchants responded by trading on the blackmart market smuggling in the cheaper French or Dutch sugar and molasses and as a result the law was never strictly enforced even during the French and Indian War the law was a dead letter Imperial officials found this behavior treasonous New England traders and merchants were trading were trading with the French and as they saw it directly feeding the mouths of French colonists

11:39 and slaves and were sustaining the ability of their enemy the French and their colonies to resist in the war during the French and Indian War so one result was that shocked Imperial officials vowed to tighten enforcement of existing laws in taxes and make the colonists pay for their fair share okay next next thing to add is that the new taxes that we're going to be discussing came at a very bad time for the American economy they came in the middle of a post-war Depression remember the crash this post-war post French and Indian War

12:27 economic depression followed the boom there was a boom in the American economy produced by the wartime investment of British money in the colonies and the way the war created great demands for American ship building manufacturing uniforms supplies war contraband to supply the armies for the war so the American industry boomed so as we will see the new taxes on sugar and stamps came at a very bad time because the colonists were dealing with this post-war economic slump so here is what is ahead we also definitely need to

13:16 mention that the the death of Britain is surging absolutely surging the victory in the French and Indian War was not cheap the victory doubled the British national debt from 73 million before the war to about 140 million pounds after the war so the British national debt doubled and basically most of the British economy was going into feeding this debt moreover interest payments on the debt consumed more than 60% of the British state's annual budgets in the 1760s so once again the argument was that the colonists had to help pay for

14:03 their fair share of the French and Indian War in addition this expanded Empire Canada and the western lands was far more expensive to administer partially due to the quartering of more British troops before the French name war the British Army maintained only a minimal presence in the North American colonies a couple hundred troops but the crown decided that they had to henceforth maintain about 10,000 regular British soldiers in the colonies particularly in Canada and in the volatile Great Lakes region and the western Ohio country so they're centered

14:49 in Canada and the western territory since the British people were already taxed the limit Parliament hoped to pay for the new army stations in the colonies by levying new taxes on the colonists during the war parla during the war Parliament was desperate to raise funds and true to finance the war so during the war when Parliament was desperate to raise funds and troops royal governors had to appease colonial assemblies by giving the colonial assemblies greater control of financial expenditures so what I'm saying is that the colonial assemblies individually did make financial contributions to the war but only

15:34 through the bargaining chip being granted more power over finances by the royal governors so therefore that was a difficult situation for the British so of course the Assemblies did not want to surrender their games after 1763 they did not want to give up their increased financial control and this came at a bad time because suddenly Parliament is demanding a new subservience so the result is as we will see the colonists would balk at the new taxes they believe that the taxes set a dangerous precedent against their future prosperity and liberty and so we have to understand English political culture when the

16:21 colonists are protesting these taxes they are claiming the British ideals of liberty and the ideals of the English Civil War so it's sort of a paradox sort of like this thing that doesn't make sense paradoxically by protesting British taxation the colonists affirmed their identity identity as liberty-loving British citizens and they affirmed the ideals of the English Civil War so it was precisely because they believed in the English Constitution and English constitutional ideals of liberty freedom consent to taxation that they were making these demands remember as we discussed before one of the most

17:07 cherished ideals of the British constitution was parliamentary consent of Taxation parliamentary consent of Taxation no free man paid tax unless it was levied by his rep unless it was approved by representatives the colonists devoutly believed that without such protection from arbitrary or unfair taxation people would gradually but inevitably inevitably become enslaved by rulers the colonists would consent to pay taxes levied by their own assemblies but not the distant Parliament in England because no colonists sat in the parliament in England so if you noticed

17:52 I mentioned to you that the general argument that the colonists are making if was that if they did not consent to taxation they would be reduced to a state of enslavement they would become nothing but slaves of the British crown yes this is a very ironic argument yes the colonists were themselves owners of human property yes they often use the metaphor of slave slavery and yes it was something that they knew from their own practice very well how degrading slavery would be so ironic they would use that so as I mentioned the taxes came at a very bad time for the American economy in the middle of the post-war depression following the boom in American industry

18:38 and its manufacturing during war so let's add on one thing so after the French and Indian War from 1763 to 1776 colonial leaders waged a prolonged and increasingly rancorous and nasty constitutional debate with Parliament over the new rmally the new army is highly resented and the new taxes before we go into the American aspect of this I want to take a second and think about English and American society and the concept of dependence and independence this debate over taxation has never read before the debate revealed the divergent

19:26 nature of American and British society and really how Americans enjoyed far more equality and lack of hierarchy less hierarchy more equality than in Great Britain and Great Britain in England inequality was the rule and hierarchy was the rule in England also the notion of class deference was very important class deference is the sense that the lower classes looked up to the upper classes they looked up to the upper classes as their social betters and honored them and in exchange for this respect this deference the upper classes sort of looked out for the lower classes

20:11 provided for them protected them as they're sort of dependents or children deference also referred to a sense of accepting one's class position and respecting it as servants in 19th century England often said we all had our place and we knew it servants were took pride in their profession of being a servant but in any case the point is that England was a society that in which inequality and hierarchy was the rule so in Great Britain most commoners were what you call dependents dependents most commoners were quote-unquote dependents

20:58 or dependent on an upper class patron that meant that they were either a tenant reliant on renting land from an aristocratic landlord they did not own their own land hence they were dependent on renting land or were landless labourers depended on a salary from their employer so they depended on someone more wealthy to provide for them typically through any land land in England was much harder to come by and if you remember land was tied to the gentle nobility a sign of being a gentleman with that you own land America was a very different society it was a society in which there was far more

21:44 equality less hierarchy I don't want to say that class division sit in this class divisions absolutely exist existed but there no way as pronounced and entrenched as in England and land of course in America is much easier to come by so forgetting their own slaves colonial visitors were shocked by the extremes of wealth and poverty in the white population of Great Britain compared with Great Britain the American colonies offered far greater opportunity for free right white people to become land owning farmers even former indentured servants could become landowners by accepting the hardships of

22:30 living on the frontier where they could afford cheaper limb so in summary colonial conditions permitted most free adult men to own enough land to employ themselves and provide for their families and achieve this cherished condition called independence Americans achieved the status of economic independence and were not dependents like the state of dependence of late of laborers and tenant farmers in Great Britain now of course this is filled with paradox and irony as we discussed about American slavery in American freedom the price of this independence or freedom for some was very high the freedom of some came at the unfreedom of

23:16 others 150 the American population was slaves at the outbreak of the American Revolution so in any case this imperial price is called to British intention the unconventional nature of this colonial social structure it was odd to the British that American society was so relatively equal and less hierarchical to British eyes a land of so many independent common men and at the same time a land of so many African chattel slaves seemed strange and threatening to order the social order and property in the eyes of the British no wonder the

24:02 colonists were so insubordinate and rebellious their leaders were vulgar common men their leaders were grown too wealthy and arrogant largely from their domination of slaves and at the same time British felt that the colonial elite the gentlemen class were far too concerned for the independent common man and that the independent common man did not show adequate social deference or respect of the gentleman class their betters so that's just a bit on the concepts of dependence and independence in the American colonies how American political culture built on pretty British political culture what was different

24:48 another thing related to that is that is that Great Britain began to lose some of its so-called dependents the poorer classes in the 1760s at the same time imperial officials became alarmed in the 1760s as immigration from Great Britain to the colonies soared and new immigrants came from poorer areas of Britain like Scotland and Northern England and Yorkshire and basically we're trying to escape the Tennant system escape dependence for the independence of American land ownership so owning their own land and not depending on an aristocratic landowner

25:33 to rent land as a tenant farmer so members of Britain's elite sort of displayed an ill-concealed sort of jealous jealousy about this emigration members of parliament believed that the discrepancy between Britain's high taxes and Americans low taxes was what encouraged immigration and allowed this sort of unfair highway robbery moreover elite observers in Britain had mixed feelings about this influx of immigrants in the 1760s I had mixed feelings about the mother country's loss of laborers and tenants they felt that the British economy needed common people to keep wages low

26:20 the British economy needed workers to keep factories productive and farm productive and to keep industrial goods and factories cheap um in any case a colonial leaders colonial leaders soon began to fear that their very independence was under threat they feared that the new taxes would lead to ever increasing more taxes that would enrich the elite and royal governors but impoverished common taxpayers so perhaps it was the relative equality of the American society that was under threat and the state of Independence that was

27:07 under threat again this this celebrated equality is only underwritten by slavery colonial leaders began to see that their good fortune as middle-class property property owner owners was entirely unusual within the Empire owning land being an independent member of society not an economic dependent was entirely unusual for the time because inequality and dependence was the norm not only in Great Britain but the rest of the world so we're looking at this profound shift of gravity between 1763 and the outbreak

27:52 of the war right up until the very end and here we see the same statue of George the third erected after the French and Indian War and here we see it actually being pulled down after the outbreak of the American Revolution so the shift of gravity so right up until the very end very few American colonists wanted independence what they wanted really this is an excellent way of looking at it what they wanted was to preserve their privileged position in the bridge Empire what do I mean by that well basically the American columns were virtually untaxed beneficiaries of imperial trade the military British Army and Navy and British constitutional Liberty so basically they had the benefits of being British citizens

28:39 without paying for it until the British began to tighten the Empire in the 1760s and impose these new taxes and regulations the colonists had a very good feel and they knew it they wanted to reserve this privileged position British College resisted the new taxes and regulations in the hopes that Britain would back down and preserve the traditionally loose relationship with the mother country but of course the British would not and it brought on a long civil war that no one really wanted and unexpected events like the toppling of the statue that the proud colonists and proud British subjects had it erected only ten years or so before okay so now we're gonna start looking at some

29:26 of the specific things that trigger the tense fraught relations between Britain and the colonies and we'll begin with the proclamation of 1763 okay um so the background to the pocket proclamation of 1763 is this Parliament had actually promised not to allow settlers to settle west of the Allegheny Mountains in Native American lands this was in order to protect the Native American right so it's more or less west of this line so Parliament had not prominent had promised Parliament had promised to

30:12 allow settlers not to settle west of this line in Native American land and this was in order to protect Native American rights protect their settlements protect their autonomy and independence however this protection of Native American rights and land was deeply resented by colonial settlers nonetheless in spite of the agreement and promises the settlers trust passed on Native American lands they weren't supposed to and at the same time English fur traders behaved roughly and were cheated out first definitely by this time the Native

30:58 American tribes are deeply dependent on European manufactured goods the tribes are devastated by disease and warfare and the tribe came to depend on European tools guns cloth rum and other things to obtain these goods they traded furs in exchange for the European goods however so much time was spent on fur trapping that agriculture often wasn't properly attended to and food shortages resulted so this this this situation was obviously bad for almost all of the Native American tribes the settlers are encroaching on their lands settling west

31:44 of where the British government wanted them to and they're forced into these unequal trade relationships so let's let me tell you about the proclamation of 1763 but to do that first let me tell you about Pontiacs war Pontiac war was launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of Native American tribes mostly from the Great Lakes region it was a crusade to return to their earlier and simpler simpler way of life and it was a crusade led by Native American Chiefs encouraging their peoples to give up European values give

32:30 up European goods tools rum alcoholism was a problem so it was launched by a loose confederation of Native American tribes from the Great Lake region and the Ohio country who were unhappy with British policies British settlement and corrupt British traders after the Seven Years War it was led by a chief an Ottawa chief named Pontiac and it was launched in May 1763 their goals were to defend their lands defend their traditional way of life and to encourage other Indians to overthrow European values overthrow European goods alcohol etc in alliance with other tribes

33:19 Pontiac destroyed and attacked many of the Western outposts many a sorry let me say that again Pontiac destroyed and attacked many Western forts and outpost he did not destroy forts like Detroit Pittsburgh or Niagara in any case it lasted for about two years the proclamation of 1763 was issued partially in response to this and the proclamation of 1763 is often regarded as one of the early important signs of the policy of Salian salutary neglect over and this was a new era of direct

34:06 control okay the proclamation of 1763 the purpose was to prevent Native Americans from being exploited by white settlers or corrupt fur traders I mentioned to you the new troops being stationed in the colonies and one reason why the British Redcoat soldiers stationed in North America after the war were so hated and resented is because the columns believed that they were not there to protect them they're not there to protect them from the French but they believed that these soldiers were there to help the natives because the soldiers are partially enforcing legislation rights so in the eyes of the American colonists the British the British

34:54 soldiers were not helping them the colonists the colonists wanted would have liked the soldiers to help them dispossessed the natives from their land but the soldiers are doing the opposite okay so in any case the purpose of the topic of proclamation was to prevent Native Americans from being exploited by white settlers or fur traders the proclamation barred white settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains at least temporarily it imposed strict regulations on the fur trade designed to stop abuse and corruption I'm not going to go on to the specifics and declared

35:40 that future land purpose land purchases of Western land could only be made with the approval of royal but not colonial officials the most important thing that I mentioned was the line right so it barred white colonial settlement west of the Appalachians along this personal line and the result was that an engendered anti-british sentiment the result was that potential settlers or land speculators fur traders felt that they were being cheated out of the opportunity of settling this land and relating back to the French and Indian War they felt that they were being cheated out of the opportunity of

36:26 enjoying and exploiting the western lands that they had helped to conquer in the French and Indian War okay the proclamation of 1763 it was really only the beginning of a new era of tense relations and we're gonna start that now so you can look at what followed as a sort of tug of war between colonies and the Parliament the Parliament pulls in one direction the colonies pull in another it's not always just the taxation but the nature of the taxation that the colonists opposed to okay so we can begin by looking back at the Navigation Acts the navigation acts

37:12 had been on the books since 1651 but they weren't strictly enforced and a lot of the legislation is reiterating the Navigation Acts and also strictly enforcing it I'm not going to repeat what they were but it's again the whole idea of the British monopoly of trade okay so that brings us to the first of the new taxes the Sugar Act in light of Indian relations the British decided it was necessary to maintain a large standing army of about 10,000 British regular soldiers in the colonies to protect the Indian settlements and to promote the enforcement of this line as we said British national debt doubled

37:58 after the French Indian War and since taxes were already high in England and the colonists were actually paying nothing the Parliament decided that the colonists had to bear some brunt of the taxation and at least part of the annual cost of the army Americans were sharply divided on this as well as the stationing of troops they wondered why 800 troops were stationed in the colonies when France was actually a threat right why did they need more troops now they made the argument that the colonists had handled Indian relation three four before on their own and they didn't need British troops now in any case the Sugar Act was the first of the new taxes imposed the Sugar Act

38:49 was devised by George George Grenville who was a Whig and that's basically the Liberal Party who tended to take a more cooperative friendly approach towards the colonies in any case this act was devised by George Grenville and he devised what he thought was a reasonable tax on sugar sugar imported from the British West Indies to the colonies the tax would supply about 45,000 British pounds annually towards the army and it was passed to defray the cost of defending the colonies and to prevent illegal black market trade it was clear from the

39:36 beginning the provisions of the law made it clear that this tax would be strictly enforced unlike the earlier molasses act so in fact the tax was fair and gent generous and the Sugar Act for instance actually lowered the duty on the lower the tax on molasses from sixpence to 3 pence so like I said he was trying to be fair about the tax what else was new was that British customs officials were ordered to take up residence in the colony to enforce the tax and to oversee the administration of

40:24 the tax previously they had sent a deputy just a representative and there were also to be naval ships to patrol the coast to present I'm sorry naval ships to patrol the coast to prevent illegal trade direct trading with other nations you know forbidden by the Navigation Acts the law angered New England merchants who were suffering from the postwar depression from the loss of military contracts they predicted that the Sugar Act would destroy the New England rum and fishing and lumber industries that would hurt New England industry and shipping in general politically colonists colonial

41:10 leaders protested the attacks on constitutional and economic grounds and politicians constantly referred to themselves as potential slaves a radical Boston politician named Samuel Adams said quote if taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal representation are we not reduced from the character of free subjects to the miserable state of tributary slaves so this was the first of a series of new taxes passed on sugar but soon colonial protests would be transferred to a new and more annoying Act the Stamp Act Parliament passed the

41:56 Stamp Act in march march 1765 and it affected really the learned in classes educated people writers journalists people who use paper it wasn't just postal stamps the law requires that that official British stamps be attached to all legal documents like business papers licenses pamphlets newspapers almanacs playing cards even like printed sermons if you did not comply violators were to be tried in military courts and it was intended to raise about sixty thousand pounds to support the British Army so the leveling of the Stamp Act was a

42:44 grave error on the part of the British government yes Parliament had always taxed under colonial trade before meaning trade between the colonies and the mother country and/or other countries but never had Parliament attempted to tax the colonies directly direct taxation of the colonies was something that was always reserved for the colonial assemblies in the time between the law was passed it was passed in March and was to go in effect in November of the following year so in the time after it was passed colonial opinion leaders mobilised public opinion

43:32 against the acts and keep in mind that colonial elite and opinion leaders people like merchants lawyers politician ministers are the people who are hit hard by this act because they're reading riting their genuine gender generating so much paper and printed material across the colonies Sons of Liberty were organized so let's come back to this idea across the colonies Sons of Liberty were organized they were secret societies made up of patriotic men who protested the Stamp Act the groups were made of farmers shopkeepers artisans apprentices and tended to have

44:18 reputations as rabble rousers located in the major cities Boston New York Philadelphia the Sons of Liberty organized and used the threat of force against Imperial stamp masters and imperial officials they attacked tax collectors and burned effigies of British colonial leaders for instance in Boston the home of the British stamp master was attacked and ruined and basically by November 1765 no stamp master remain at his post they drove them out by force um let's talk about this pamphlet pamphlets political

45:04 pamphlets denounced the idea of virtual representation now this was an argument made by British politicians according to this doctrine a member of parliament represented the economic interest of the entire Empire and not just a geographical district the colonies were represented virtually indirectly in Parliament and thus the parliamentary taxation was legal so even though the the colonies had no direct representative to Parliament the Parliament had the right to tax the colonies nonetheless through this virtual representation through the way that all members of parliament supposedly represented them now again when we study

45:52 the American Revolution we always hear about the idea of taxation without representation it's complicated the colonists weren't represented in Parliament that's true but at the time in England much of the English population was not yet represented in Parliament and let me explain a little bit why so so according to English voting laws many English subjects were in the same position as the colonists industrial newer industrial cities like Manchester and Liverpool had no elected representative to Parliament let me explain why first of all it was not until the 19th century roof Formax Reform Act of 1832

46:40 1867 1884 and 1885 it was not until series of three reform acts in the 19th century that the majority of British male citizens actually had the right to vote before that a small fraction of the population voted this is also very big England was also plagued by the problem of an antiquated electoral map so that is to say representation to Parliament was based on basically medieval population and demographic patterns so the parliamentary electoral map did not evolve to reflect the growth of newer cities and towns and industrial eras so like in its plain language as I can say the way that representation to

47:25 Parliament was allotted was based on villages towns cities that have had population large populations in the Middle Ages perhaps but definitely not at this time in history in the 18th century the parliamentary electoral map did not evolve to reflect the growth of newer cities and towns and industrial areas so like industrial cities Manchester Liverpool are just not represented in Parliament they're in the same position as the colonists there was also the problem of the so called rotten boroughs rotten boroughs it's a it's a nickname it refers to old medieval boroughs with very low populations that aristocrats sort of automatically controlled and

48:10 were automatically elected - even though the population in the 18th century did not reflect the population that the representation to Parliament was based on so once again they were all the rotten boroughs were old medieval medieval boroughs with very low population that nonetheless still had a seat in parliament and allowed rich politicians risked rich aristocrats to sort of keep in their pockets they would be reelected to control those seats although there weren't actually many people living there unlike the newer areas so again the point is that many subjects of Great Britain also did not

48:57 have representation in Parliament now again there's a there's a flurry of political pamphlets down denouncing these new taxes and they make a distinction often these political pamphlets between internal and external taxes generally pamphleteers argued that enter that taxing intercolonial trade was okay external taxes were okay so external taxes would be like import and exit duties import and export taxes on goods at exiting or entering the colonies inter colonial trade was okay but internal taxes for the purpose of raising revenue like stamps that's not inter colonial trade right so these

49:44 pamphlets argue that internal taxes for the purpose of revenue could only be levied by colonial legislatures okay once again stamps on documents don't have anything to do with inter colonial trade and they only conceded Parliament the right to collect external taxes however some radicals went even further and denied the right of Parliament to collect any taxes at all in the Virginia House of Burgesses the radical Patrick Henry introduced a set of regulations which completely denied England right to tax the colonies at all it was not passed but nonetheless it was entertained okay and finally just Stamp Act Congress from

50:31 Congress well Patrick Henry's revolutions did not pass the House of Burgesses but they were circulated through the colonies they drew attention and one thing that did come out of the Stamp Act was that a Stamp Act Congress met in October 65 and tended to agree with Patrick Henry at the Stanback Congress the Pennsylvania politician John Dickinson drafted a Declaration of Rights and grievances it was very respectful to the crown in Parliament he couched it as being you know British subjects so his declaration of Rights and grievances paid respect to the crown in Parliament but argued as

51:16 you see here that no taxes have ever been or can be constitutionally imposed but on them by their respective legislatures no taxation without representation so once again the the intercolonial Congress protested the taxes another prominent response came in the form of economic protests and boycotts women organized themselves as daughters of Liberty and did various things to enforce non importation of British goods as you see here they mean they made homes but they made homespun clothing home fun cloth for themselves

52:03 and refused to buy imported British cloth imported British goods put a lot of pressure on merchants to not carry British goods this is a cartoon satirizing the daughters of Liberty it's a British cartoon basically painting them as no gooders and that these women are exceeding their place and they're leaving their children to run amok and go crazy while they're getting into politics but in case the economic protest boycotts was quickly felt by English merchants who you know did not like this lessening of trade and put pressure on Parliament to repeal the

52:51 Stamp Stamp Act so by this time this so by this time a new Prime Minister has come to power his name is William Pitt and that's the same Prime Minister that was Prime Minister during the French and Indian War so you should remember him William Pitt came to power in the middle of this fiasco and he was a wig he was a liberal so he dealt with the colonies and a bit more friendly manner he was very generous with the colonies in fact he conceded that the idea of virtual representation was misguided he accepted

53:38 the distinction between external and internal texts and he actually agreed with the colonists in some ways he conceded that the Americans would be slaves if submitting to arbitrary unfair taxes so he accepted the difference between external and internal taxes but still Pitt still insisted that England could tax the colonies he still could tax intercolonial trades so external taxes and passed something new so Pitt did repeal the Stamp Act but at the same time he repeals the Stamp Act he passes the declaratory act now in effect you

54:27 can you can read the actual language here I'll let you read that so basically in effect he was affirming Parliament's power of the colonies to make laws and issue taxes while granting important concessions and reforms he repealed the Stamp repealed the Stamp Act so hated but at the same time laid down the law Parliament ignoring the old language right ought to have full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient for stability to bind the colonies in people of America subjects of the crown of Great Britain in all cases whatsoever okay so it's sort of a big a mixed bag the declaratory act

55:14 affirmed Parliament's rights to tax and make legislation for the colonies in all cases but at the same time it acknowledged that the Stamp Act had been a practical mistake had gone too far what was the American response Americans colonists celebrated the repeal of the Stamp Act that sort of glossed over the declaratory act okay so we're going to take a pause in the chronology and come back for the last part of the road to revolution whenever you're ready thank you