3.3 Taxation Without Representation AP Classroom Notes

9/30/21

Key Concepts:

• The Imperial struggles of the mid-18th century as well as new British efforts to collect taxes without direct colonial representation or consent and to assert imperial authority in the colonies, began to unite the colonists against perceived and real constraints on their economic activities and political rights

• Colonial leaders based their calls for resistance to Britain on arguments about the rights of British subjects, the rights of the individual, local traditions of self-rule, and the ideas of the Englightenment

Imperial Priorities

• Reducing expenses of Empire= Initiate new taxation policies

• Fully integrate Colonial America into Europe

• Impress upon colonists that they had responsibilities to the Empire

• Hold the line of Mercantilism

• Reduce illegal smuggling within the Colonies

• Restrict colonial manufacturing development

Imperial Means to Imperial Ends

• Proclamation of 1763

• Sugar Act

• Currency Act

• Quartering Act

• Stamp Act

• Collective intent: have the colonists “pay their fair share” as members within the Briish Empire

• British lawmaking for the colonies was based upon the theory of “virtual representation” by which the role of Parliament was to legislate on behalf of the Colonists

The Colonial Competing Narrative

• Identified themselves as Englishmen, in full possession of all the political rights of Englishmen, who just happen to live on this side of the Atlantic

• Fell back upon traditions of Salutary Neglect, as well as the democratizing influences of the Great Awakening, and Enlightenment Ideals about the Social Contract/consent of the governed to argue that British legislating for the colonies was tyranny

Where “The Big Question” Leads

• Big Question: “Who has control over the colonies?”

• This starts a process by which Colonists, irrespective of their colony of residence, become increasingly suspicious of Imperial motives, and begin to see things being done to them instead of for them

• This represents the beginning of an intercolonial common cause, as shared grievances begin to gradually draw the 13 previously nonaligned colonies into an alignment

3.3 Video 2 Notes

Key Concepts:

• The effort for American Independence was energized by colonial leaders such as Benjamin Franklin as well as by popular movements that include the political activism of laborers Artisans and women.

• In the face of economic shortages and the British military occupation of some regions, men and women mobilized in large numbers to provide financial and material support to the Patriot movement.

Gradual Steps Towards Organized Colonial Unity

• Committees of Correspondence

• Stamp Act Congress

• First Continental Congress 1774

Commonalities & Characteristics

• These groups all focused upon points of principle; legalistic formulations of arguments and discussions of Liberty in governance.

• Embody a much greater working-class presents

• Prone to more direct physical action (tarring and Feathering intimidation of Royal officials destruction of property)

• Boston Massacre and Boston Tea Party; examples of public Defiance as public statements or propaganda victories

More Grassroots Movements of Protest

• The Sons of Liberty

• Nonimportation Agreements

• The Minutemen

Gender and Revolutionary Activism

• Women were critical to the success of the boycott movement

• The production of handmade alternatives to British produced (and purchase) goods became a political statement

• The success of boycotts as tools of economic Warfare required the discipline participation of persons from all levels of society

Colonial Mobilization

• The Sons of Liberty began to collect and store weapons and supplies, established intelligence networks, and create shadow governments at the local level

• The semi-regular militia (the Minutemen) was the outgrowth of these processes

• Women allied with the Patriot cause produce bandages, clothing, foodstuffs, gunpowder, bullets, and provide General supplies to the Army

• Once the hostilities commenced some traveled with the res camp followers, tending to the wounded and providing General support