Lessons · Teaching · the road to independence
A tax argument that became an argument about consent
After an expensive war, Britain taxed the colonies to pay for it. Colonists objected that they had no representatives in the Parliament levying the taxes. The dispute escalated through protest, boycott and confrontation into war, and the Declaration of Independence in 1776 stated the case for separating.
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What it is for
'No taxation without representation' is a slogan children learn without the idea inside it, which is consent: that a government's authority comes from the people it governs. That idea is the thread running into the Constitution, and it is the examinable one.
How to think about it
Trace the escalation as a sequence of actions and reactions rather than a list of events, because each step is a response to the last. Then separate the Declaration, which announced and justified separation, from the Constitution, which set up a government eleven years later.
Worked example
War debt led Britain to tax the colonies directlyThe cause behind the cause. Without the debt there is no tax.
Colonists objected to being taxed by a body they had no representatives inThe objection was to consent, not to the amount.
Protest, boycott and confrontation escalated on both sides into armed conflictEach step a response to the last, which is why a list of dates misses it.
1776: the Declaration announces separation and gives the reasons for itIt is not a plan of government. That comes later and separately.
Your turn
Name the year of the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration of Independence was adopted in
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Confusing the Declaration with the Constitution. One announced independence in 1776 and argued why; the other created a government in 1787. They are eleven years and two entirely different jobs apart.