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Taxation WITHOUT Representation [APUSH Review Unit 3 Topic 3 (3.3)] Period 3: 1754-1800 - YouTube
Channel: Heimler's History
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Well hey there and welcome back to Heimler’s
History. In the last video we began dealing
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with Unit 3 of the AP U.S. History curriculum
by talking about the French and Indian War,
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and in this video we about to talk taxation
without representation. So if you’re ready
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to get them brain cows milked, you
know I’m ready, so let’s get to it.
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Now over the course of these next few videos we’re
working our way towards the American Revolution,
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and the reason we began with the French and
Indian War is because the effects of that war
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had lasting consequences for what ultimately led
the British American colonists to revolt against
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that tiny island across the sea, which is to say,
Britain. So as I mentioned in the last video,
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the French and Indian War, and the Seven
Years’ War of which it was a small part,
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was exceedingly expensive to wage. And so in
order to pay for it, the British sought to clamp
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down on the American colonies and require
them to help bear the financial burden.
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Now, to the British government, this made
all the sense in the world. This group of
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American colonies belong politically to
us, these people are British citizens,
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this war has won them massive amounts of land
east of the Appalachians: of course they’re
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going to pay their taxes and help pay for all of
this. But it wasn’t that simple to the American
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colonists, and here’s where I introduce
you to the concept of salutary neglect.
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You see, it was true that Britain had political
sovereignty over the American colonies, so they
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were in charge. But practically, that’s not really
how it worked because at the end of the day,
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Britain is here and the colonies were here, and
separating the two was a giant ocean. And so as
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a practical matter of rule, the British Parliament
left many of the day to day decisions of political
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rule to the colonists themselves. This had
some interesting consequences when it came,
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for example, to trade. Parliament had passed
a series of Navigation Acts which restricted
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the trade of the colonies to British ships and
British merchants. But the colonists thought
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of this more as a suggestion than a law and
engaged in large scale smuggling and illegal
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trade with other nations as well. And the thing
is, the British really didn’t enforce these laws
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with any umph. And this is what we call salutary
neglect and it led the colonists to believe that
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they were more independent of the British than
the king and Parliament believed them to be.
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And that situation went on for a long time. But
now that Britain was in serious need of some cash,
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they were like: salutary neglect? SHUT IT DOWN.
So in order to regain control of the colonies,
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British Prime Minister George Grenville
implemented a three-pronged plan. The first
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part of the plan included stricter enforcement
of current laws like the Navigation Acts, which,
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as I mentioned, colonists had routinely
avoided through smuggling. Second,
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Parliament decided to extend
wartime provisions into peacetime,
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and here we got the Quartering Act of 1765.
This law kept British soldiers stationed
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in the colonies in order to enforce the
British clamp down, and just for funsies,
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it also meant that colonists were responsible for
providing housing and food for these soldiers.
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And baby, the British are just getting started.
Next came the Sugar Act which imposed taxes on
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coffee and wine and various luxury items, and
also enforced the existing taxes on molasses.
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And then they imposed that most odious
of taxes: the Stamp Act of 1765. This
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was a tax on all paper items produced in
the colonies like newspapers and playing
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cards and legal contracts and on and on.
And then to further add to the turd salad
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that was the British imposition of new taxes,
Parliament also passed the Currency Act which
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prohibited colonial assemblies from printing
their own paper currency. And that was a big
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deal because it effectively meant that while
at the same time the British were demanding
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more tax revenue from the colonists, the
money supply was also being restricted.
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Like, okay, can you start to feel the
restriction here? It’d be like if your
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parents had no rules about who you dated
and then all of the sudden they were like,
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“yeah you can’t see him any more” “It’s
not a phase, dad, I LOVE HIM.” Like,
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all of the sudden as the era of
salutary neglect passed away,
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the colonists were feeling altogether suffocated
by all these new demands and restrictions.
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And this rise in taxes was especially odious to
the colonists because Americans were experiencing
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declining wages with a corresponding rise in
unemployment. And so take all this together
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and it sparked a debate among colonists
whether it was right and just to impose
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taxes on the colonists who had precisely no
representatives in Parliament. And this is
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where we get the famous phrase no taxation
without representation. Like, somehow,
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somewhere, the colonists had gotten the crazy idea
that they were involved in a social contract with
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their government and had natural rights that could
not be violated. And where would they get such
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foolish ideas? Oh, the Enlightenment. Thanks,
John Locke. Thanks, Rousseau. Thanks, Voltaire.
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Thanks Kant. Honestly, if you asked me to name
anymore Enlightenment thinkers, I just Kant.
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Anyway, as the colonists started protesting all
this taxation without representation, British
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official argued right back: Oh no, you don’t
understand, you all ARE represented, but it’s
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virtual representation. To which the colonists
responded, “Yeah, you’re headed the right way
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for a virtual smackbottom.” But to the British
this made sense. The members of Parliament,
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even though none of them came from the colonies,
represented not necessarily locations, but rather
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the interests of all the British classes, of
which the American colonists were part. But
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colonial leaders were like nuh uh, and argued
that the only people who could truly represent
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their interests were those who were from
the colonies. So to be clear, there was
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a big discrepancy between how the British
understood representation, which is to say,
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by classes of people, and how the Americans
understood it, which is to say, by location.
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So back in the colonies there were a few
organized groups that started to give
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voice to these protestations, namely, the
Sons of Liberty, the Daughters of Liberty,
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and Vox Populi. And these groups included in
their ranks all manner from folks like merchants
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and traders and artisans. And they sprang
up especially in response to the Stamp Act.
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And one of the results of this more organized
resistance was the gathering of the Stamp Act
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Congress in 1765 which included 27 delegates
from nine colonies. And their basic goal was
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to petition the British Parliament to repeal the
Stamp Act because taxation without representation
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amounted to tyranny. But it’s going to be very
important for you to know that even though I
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began by saying all of this is leading up to
the American Revolution, the congress made its
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petitions by acknowledging that they were loyal
subjects of king and country. So revolution is
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not yet on the table. These folks just wanted
to get what they were owed AS BRITISH CITIZENS.
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And as a result of these petitions,
Parliament actually repeated both the
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Stamp Act and the Sugar Act in 1766.
But in a delicious moment of irony,
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they simultaneously bit their thumbs at the
colonists by passing the Declaratory Act
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which affirmed that Parliament had the right to
pass whatever law they wanted in the colonies.
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So the Americans counted that a victory, but
that turd salad got a couple of croutons put
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on it in 1767 with the passage of the Townshend
Acts, which levied taxes on items like paper,
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tea, and glass which were imported into the
colonies. And upon its passage, the colonists
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erupted in highly organized protests to boycott
these goods. And this had the effect of uniting
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the colonists from all classes. Everyone seemed
to be willing to participate in the boycott,
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especially women who were responsible for
purchasing most of the goods for their
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households. So instead of buying manufactured
cloth from England, women spun clothes by hand
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for their families. Instead of purchasing British
tea, they concocted their own herbal teas.
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And so the tension between Britain and its
colonies in North America was continuing to mount,
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and, you know, I bet its only going to take
one spark to blow this whole thing up. And yes,
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I’m right about that, and here’s where we talk
about the Boston Massacre in 1770. So one night
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a group of boys and young men began harassing a
group of British soldiers, the number of which
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had been growing steadily in Boston. They began
to throw snow balls and stones at the soldiers,
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and from there the accounts get a little dicey.
Someone fired a gun, and that led the British
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soldiers to fire their own guns into the crowd.
And when the shooting ceased, eleven colonists
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had been shot and four were dead. And this
event, understandably, enraged the colonists.
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But the soldiers were put on trial,
and were defended by none other than
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future president John Adams,
and as it turned out, Adams,
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who shared the American distrust of the
British, successfully defended these men,
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and six out of eight were acquitted. Even so,
most Americans in their rage over the massacre,
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judged it a massive miscarriage of justice and
further evidence of increasing British tyranny.
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Another act of colonial resistance you should know
about is the Boston Tea Party in 1773. Earlier
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that year Parliament passed the Tea Act which
was a tax on tea and provided exclusive rights
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to the British East India Company to buy and ship
tea to the colonies. Now, this angered colonists
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who were used to dealing in smuggled Dutch tea,
and so in December of that year about 50 members
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of the Sons of LIberty disguised themselves as
Indians and dumped 45 tons of British tea into
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the Boston harbor. And in case you don’t know the
value of 45 tons of 18th century imported tea,
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it’d be something like two million dollars
in today’s currency. So it was a big deal.
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In response to this outrage, Parliament passed
the Coercive Acts in 1774 which closed down the
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Boston Harbor until all that lost tea was paid
for. And just to further crank up the heat,
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they went ahead and passed yet another
Quartering Act, and these pieces of
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legislation taken together became known
in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts.
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And so colonial leaders who identified
themselves as Patriots spread the news
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throughout the colonies rapidly, and many
colonists began to arm themselves and
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gather into militias and vowed to protect
themselves from further British tyranny.
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And that’s where we’ll leave it in this
video, we’ll see what happened next time.
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Okay, that’s what you need to know about Unit
3 Topic 3 of the AP U.S. History curriculum.
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If you want even more help on this Unit
and all the units, then you can grab my
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APUSH Ultimate Review Packet here. And if
you want to send me a signal that you want
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me to keep making these videos, then you can
subscribe and I shall oblige. Heimler out.
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