No taxation without representation (March 5th, 1770)

The French and Indian War ended in 1763 with the French losing Canada and all their land east of the Mississippi River.

King George III decided to leave troops in the American colonies in case of future French incursions or native uprisings.

British troops were to be paid with taxes collected from the colonies: the Sugar Tax of 1764, the Stamp Tax of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767, taxing glass, paint and paper.

As the Colonies had no representative in Parliament, the cry arose, “No taxation without representation.”

The King imposed Writs of Assistance in 1765 allowing British authorities to arrest anybody, anytime, anywhere on any suspicion, read their personal correspondence, and detain them indefinitely.

Citizens could have their houses, property and farms taken without a warrant or due process.

As there were no barracks, British troops forcibly entered into colonists’ homes and lodged or “quartered” in them, leaving families to live in barns, basements or attics.

On March 5, 1770, a mob formed in Boston to protest, and in the confusion British troops fired into the crowd, killing five, one of which was the African American patriot, Crispus Attucks.

Paul Revere’s popular engraving of the Boston Massacre fanned flames of anti-British sentiment.

On the 2nd anniversary of the Massacre, 1772, the President of Massachusetts’ Colonial Congress, Joseph Warren, who would later send Paul Revere on his midnight ride, stated:

“If you perform your part, you must have the strongest confidence that the same Almighty Being who protected your pious and venerable forefathers…will still be mindful of you…

May our land be a land of liberty…until the last shock of time shall bury the empires of the world in one common undistinguishable ruin!”

On the 4th anniversary of the Boston Massacre, 1774, John Hancock, who would be the first to sign the Declaration of Independence, stated:

“Will not a well-disciplined militia afford you ample security against foreign foes?

We want not courage; it is discipline alone in which we are exceeded by the most formidable troops that ever trod the earth…

A well-disciplined militia is a safe, an honorable guard to a community like this, whose inhabitants are by nature brave, and are laudably tenacious of that freedom in which they were born.

From a well-regulated militia we have nothing to fear; their interest is the same with that of the State.

When a country is invaded, the militia are ready to appear in its defense; they march into the field with that fortitude which a consciousness of the justice of their cause inspires…

…They do not jeopard their lives for a master who considers them only as the instruments of his ambition, and whom they regard only as the daily dispenser of the scanty pittance of bread and water.

No; they fight for their houses, their lands, for their wives, their children; for all who claim the tenderest names, and are held dearest in their hearts; they fight pro aris et focis, for their liberty, and for themselves, and for their God…

And may the same kind Providence which has watched over this country from her infant state still enable us to defeat our enemies!…”

“I cannot here forbear noticing the signal manner in which the designs of those who wish not well to us have been discovered. The dark deeds of a treacherous cabal have been brought to public view.

You now know the serpents who, whilst cherished in your bosoms, were darting the envenomed stings into the vitals of the constitution.

But the representatives of the people have fixed a mark on these ungrateful monsters, which, though it may not make them so secure as Cain of old, yet renders them, at least, as infamous…

Surely you never will tamely suffer this country to be a den of thieves. Remember, my friends, from whom you sprang…

Not only that ye pray, but that ye act; that, if necessary, ye fight, and even die, for the prosperity of our Jerusalem.

Break in sunder, with noble disdain, the bonds with which the Philistines have bound you.

Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed, by the soft arts of luxury and effeminacy, into the pit digged for your destruction…

I thank God that America abounds in men who are superior to all temptation, whom nothing can divert from a steady pursuit of the interest of their country, who are at once its ornament and safeguard…

Let us catch the divine enthusiasm; and feel, each for himself, the godlike pleasure…of delivering the oppressed from the iron grasp of tyranny; of changing the hoarse complaints and bitter moans of wretched slaves into those cheerful songs, which freedom and contentment must inspire.

There is a heartfelt satisfaction in reflecting on our exertions for the public weal (good), which all the sufferings an enraged tyrant can inflict will never take away; which the ingratitude and reproaches of those whom we have saved from ruin cannot rob us of.

The virtuous asserter of the rights of mankind merits a reward… I have the most animating confidence that the present noble struggle for liberty will terminate gloriously for America…”

“And let us play the man for our God, and for the cities of our God; while we are using the means in our power, let us humbly commit our righteous cause to the great Lord of the Universe, who loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity.

And having secured the approbation of our hearts, by a faithful and unwearied discharge of our duty to our country, let us joyfully leave our concerns in the hands of him who raiseth up and pulleth down the empires and kingdoms of the world as he pleases; and with cheerful submission to his sovereign will, devoutly say:

‘Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the field shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls; yet we will rejoice in the Lord, we will joy in the God of our salvation.'”

John Hancock concluded:

Nice.

At the end of the French-Indian war, Colonists were VERY loyal and patriotic towards the Mother country Great Britain. Ben Franklin wanted large tracts of land in the west to be a Lord over. George Washington wanted to become a British Officer.

However, the native British were contemptuous of the colonists, considered them rubes. Nevermind that the American colonies had established the highest standard of living in the world. They were considered the "'necks" of the British Empire. This lack of respect for American colonists was apparent in their inability to understand the feelings of the Colonists, who had lived pretty much independently of the British government the previous 160 years.

Another thing that nobody considers: The spiritual and moral decay of the Great Britain during the mid-1700's. While the Colonies was a haven of religious freedom and devotion, there was intense injustice, inequality, and corruption among the Nobles and commoners in England. It wasn't uncommon for the nobility to have party invitations that asked men to share their "food and wives". The colonists had contempt for British nobility, who to them were a bunch of inbred retards who only attained their status by accident of birth. Mind you, the 1770's was around the beginning of the Wesleyan Revival, and the great Christian Empire of Great Britain (that destroyed slave camps in Africa and sent missionaries around the world) was still far in the future.

What America faced during the Revolution was a spent nation, morally decadent, on the cusp of the same sort of Revolution that overtook the French in the 1790's. The big surprise was that it took so long for the Colonists to win their independence.

Why do I envision DC as I read that?

It has gotten FAR FAR worse than what they fought over. We have become a socialist nation and nary a shot was fired or building burned down.

We have let them take over our lives and turn us into their slaves.

That said, their day is coming and it won't be very pretty.

Imagine how different world history would be if Parliament bent and gave a seats to representatives from the colonies. With a population of 2.5 million vs. about 10 million in Britain, about 20% of the Parliament would have been from the 13 colonies. Add a few hundred thousand more from Canada and maybe 25% of Parliament would be from the North America if seats were distributed proportionately.

Before I looked it up, I thought the difference in population was much greater. I hadn't expected that a quarter of Parliament would have to be from this side of the pond.

The British learned from their experience with the American colonies. They were much more respectful of the Canadian colonies, and the Christian powerhouse Great Britain was in the 19th Century (destroying slavetrading cities in Africa, sending missionaries throughout the world, etc.) treated colonies much better than the 18th Century.

If the Brits had given the Colonies representations, America would've grown like Canada, much more controlled. The United States in the 19th Century was a free-for-all, with little government interference.

Imagine how it would have gone for slavery in the Southern colonies. Jamaica, Barbados, Bahamas, and the other West Indian British colonies had their slavery stopped when Parliament passed the Emancipation Act in 1833... And they paid the slave owners about 1 billion Pounds Sterling for it.

Now how much more would it have cost them if they also had to pay the slave owners of Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida (which was a British possession they only gave back to Spain at the Treaty of Paris).

Would the colonists still press on beyond the Appalachians and settle beyond the Quebec Proclamation Line of 1763? Would the Southern colonists bring their slaves with them, as they did when they settled Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi when it was the young United States?

Imagine that the Connecticut Yankee Eli Whitney still invents the cotton gin? Could Great Britain afford to compensate slave holders then?

Imagine the Southern colonists declaring their independence over slavery in the 1830s, and the Northern colonies fighting them along with Great Britain to keep them in the Empire?

Would Louisiana and all the territory of the Louisiana purchase become Anglo-American? What about Texas, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and California?

Makes one wonder how different things might have been, eh?

Also, without the American Revolution, would Louis 17 have fallen and France go through its Revolution? Would Napoleon’s rise and wars never occur?

Would Monarchs all over Europe still prevail?

Would Spain have kept her colonies in Central and South America? Would Cook have sailed round the world and claimed Australia for Britain? What would become of Lord Nelson and Trafalgar Square without the battle both are famed for?

So many ripples in the pond due to our Independence!

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