The stamp act was plainly ad simply to raise money, the act extended to the colonies the system of stamp duties then employed in Great Britain and was intended to raise money to lower the cost of maintaining the military defenses of the colonies. This act nearly affected nearly everyone who used any taxed paper, nut mostly on those who relied on official documents. Completely unexpected was the massive amount of protest from the colonists, who nullified the Stamp Act but refusing to use the stamps and by riots. Prime Minister George Grenville said that this direct tax was intended for the colonies to pay for defense. Colonists upheld their rights as Englishmen to taxed only by their own consent through their own representative assemblies.
The American Revolution was a result of the colonists unrest caused by their abhorrence towards their British Mother Country. For several centuries the colonies had been subject to rule by the English Crown and it’s Parliament. They no longer wanted to be controlled by a country an ocean away, and in turn sought independence. A huge factor in the start of the American Revolution was the French and Indian War that changed the age-old bond between the colonies and England. Decades of conflict followed, starting with the revolt as a result of the Stamp Act in 1765, leading to the eruption of war in 1775.
The British imperial policies between 1763 and 1776 intensified colonials’ resistance to British rule and their commitment to republican ideals and popular sovereignty. The reversal of the policy of Salutary Neglect and other policies placed upon them: the Stamp Act, the Tea Act, and the Intolerable Acts led to insurrection in the colonies, the sons of liberty and the Stamp Act Congress, the Boston Tea Party, and the First Continental Congress and the Suffolk Resolves. The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765. The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. Ship's papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, other publications, and even playing cards were taxed.
The French however were trying to cause a true revolution, a reason to overthrown their king and remove all the inequalities there was. The American Revolution, beginning in 1776, had started with tensions between Britain and its colonist due to the debt that the Britain’s accrued from the war with the French and Indians. Up to this point the colonist had elected their own assemblies and had grown accustomed to running their own affairs. The British began passing legislation, which increased the taxation of American colonies, tightening their control over the colonists. One of the regulations that Parliament passed was the Stamp Act of 1765.
Part 6 Chapter 1 American Prologue "A People's History of the World" by Chris Harman This chapter gives us details about how the United States came to be. It’s not the entire story of the Revolutionary War, but rather the ‘prologue’ to that story. Before even any ideas about rebellion came into anyone’s head, the general American public thought of themselves as British. They existed within separate colonies, each with its own base of power. The colonies prospered independently and their population was growing.
The American Revolutions was initiated due to the tension that existed between the thirteen American colonies, and Great Britain. There was a war debt that Great Britain had obtained while defending the American colonists after seven years of war along with helping out financially. As a solution to the debt, the British began passing legislation which raised taxes for the American colonies. The British believed or envisioned a single empire with Parliament as the supreme authority. Only Parliament could make laws for all the people, including the American colonists.
Americans felt that since they had no representation in Parliament, and that there were decisions being made for them without proper representation, that they were slaves to the forceful word of the British crown. Even some countrymen in Great Britain felt that the Americans were being treated unfairly. Lord Camden believed that Americans were not being given their natural born rights as men. “My position is this – I repeat it – I will maintain it to my last hour, - taxation and representation are inseparable: - this position is founded on the laws of nature,” (pg.95, Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution, Brown). It seems there was a miscommunication, because Britain was treating the Americans different from other British and also wanted to keep major control in anyway, like restricting trade from any other country (like France and Spain).
The colonists citing “no taxation without representation” and they completely stopped paying taxes. In October of that year, colonial landowners, merchants and artisans organized and decided to boycott British goods. This was the first time the colonies acted in unity. Committees of Correspondence, which had been created to encourage opposition to earlier acts, now grew to coordinate the boycott efforts. They helped make people aware of their rights and liberties.
After the British conquering the Seven Years war, America was seized by Great Britain. Being forced to pay taxes and pay off the expenses was just a normal was of life from now on for the Americans. A major action that took place in Britain was the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act was mainly that all documents had to be tattooed with a marking indicating that the tax on the document was paid off. Americans were fuming when the British allowed the East Indian Tea Company to send the merchandise directly to the colonies.
The Battles of Lexington and Concord in the spring of 1775 marked the beginning of open hostilities between the Colonies and Britain. These battles were the culmination of difficulties between England and the American colonies. The Colonists were fighting against the economic exploitation and political oppression of Parliament. The root cause of the revolution was the fact that Britain refused to believe that the colonies had outgrown, both economically and psychologically, their former status. Many, many things caused the revolution.