From 1754 to 1763, the two great empires of Britain and France waged a war for hegemony around the world.
The war was waged in two phases and in two regions. Beginning in 1754, Britain and France first fought a war in North America over the battle for the Ohio Valley. In 1754, the Virginia colonial authorities sent a 22-year-old civilian army led by George · Washington to be defeated by the French at the Ohio River, and the following year the United Kingdom regular army suffered another defeat in the same area. This led United Kingdom to begin preparations for a full-scale war. The second phase of the war broke out in 1756, and the battlefield spread not only to North America, but also to India and other places, until 1763, known as the "Seven Years' War".
At the beginning of the war, United Kingdom lost in various theaters. In 1757 , the government was forced to reorganize and William · Pitt took de facto power. Pitt advocated the commercial interests of active overseas expansion, opposed aristocratic superiority, and opposed the entanglement of United Kingdom's interests with the interests of continental European countries, and he advocated the expansion of colonies and the establishment of overseas empires.
After Pitt came to power, he focused the British army's operations on the Americas, and he invested the resources of the United Kingdom's regular army and treasury in North America, desperately betting all his bets on the future. The United Kingdom navy besieged the French fleet, cutting off France from Canada. Let the East India Company fight on its own in India, and the government will only provide naval protection for it, cutting off France's military aid.
The British army made good progress in the Americas, conquering many French fortresses, as well as Quebec and Montreal, and Canada actually fell into the hands of United Kingdom. At the same time, the armed forces of the East India Company gradually gained superiority, ending in victory in 1761. In 1759, the United Kingdom navy defeated the France Eastern Mediterranean Fleet and the Atlantic Fleet, and by 1760, the France sea power had been basically annihilated. In 1762 United Kingdom declared war on Spain , and the British conquered Havana and Manila , and Spain was defeated. In 1763 , the warring parties signed the Treaty of Paris , and the Seven Years' War ended in a great victory for United Kingdom.
Under the terms of the peace treaty, United Kingdom acquired Canada and the area east of the Mississippi River, exchanging Havana for Florida in Spain, and Spain received Louisiana from France as compensation. At this point, France's influence in North America was almost completely eliminated, and United Kingdom's colonial empire in North America was basically laid. In India, in the West India Islands, in Africa, and in Europe, United Kingdom has acquired or recovered some new territories, and a worldwide British empire has begun to take shape, and United Kingdom has become the most powerful maritime hegemon.
All honest Americans admit that victory in the war depended primarily on United Kingdom's military and United Kingdom's finances. The colonies were of course happy to let the regular United Kingdom army take on the main force of the frontal battlefield, and they were even more willing to let the United Kingdom crown bear the burden of a long war. Although the colonial parliament shared some of the costs of the war, spending elsewhere was insignificant compared to the £82 million paid by United Kingdom for the worldwide conflict, with the exception of Massachusetts and Virginia. The victory filled the American people with a sense of gratitude to the British King and the Mother Country.
However, new problems followed with victories. On the United Kingdom side, the first to bear the brunt of fiscal problems. To win the war, United Kingdom spent a lot of money, a lot of which was borrowed. Between 1754 and 1763, United Kingdom's national debt doubled, and now these debts must be repaid. Clearly, this economic burden should be borne by all members of the British Empire, the beneficiaries of the war, rather than by the indigenous population. Moreover, managing the day-to-day expenses of such a vast empire as North America to India is far from what United Kingdom taxpayers are willing to afford. Before the Great War to defend the empire began, administrative expenses in the North American colonies amounted to only £70,000 a year, which increased to five times that amount in 1763.
On the North American colonies, the victory in the war intensified the desire of the Americans to expand westward through the Anachian Mountains, which was bound to lead to more conflicts and even wars with the Indians living there, bringing endless trouble and more money to the administration of the United Kingdom. Therefore, as soon as the war ended, the United Kingdom issued a proclamation prohibiting Americans from moving west. The United Kingdom's Board of Trade held that the boundaries drawn by the proclamation were "also necessary to maintain the subordination of the United States." This decision naturally aroused the anger of the Americans, and the effect was like waste paper.
The feud between the Americans and the United Kingdom government also spread to the United Kingdom itself. Many United Kingdom hated the Americans because the colonies were rich too quickly and too powerful. As early as 1751, Franklin predicted that in a century "the majority of the population of United Kingdom would live on this side of the Atlantic." If the United Kingdom did not say anything before the war about the prospects for the future, but from this time on, they began to think seriously.
In April 1764, the United Kingdom Parliament passed the Cane Sugar Act, which decided to impose a large number of cane sugar on the United States.
Coffee, liquor, and other goods are taxed. Soon after, the annual revenue from customs duties was 15 times that of the pre-war period.
Until then, the United Kingdom Parliament had never attempted to collect taxes on the North American colonies. Traditionally, colonial customs duties were legislated by the United Kingdom Parliament, and its internal taxes were legislated by colonial legislation. Benjamin · Franklin, who had represented Pennsylvania and four other colonies in United Kingdom, wrote: "Forcing a colony to give money without their consent is like collecting money from an enemy country, rather than taxing them for the benefit of the United Kingdom." Robert · Walpole, who was Prime Minister of United Kingdom in the sixties of the eighteenth century, took note of the colonies' opinions, and in response to the suggestion that parliament should collect taxes from the colonies, he said: "I will leave this to some of my successors, who may be more courageous than I am." ”
Robert · Walpole
The provisions of the Navigation Ordinance prohibiting the import and export of certain commodities were intended to regulate trade and did not seriously infringe on the profits of American merchants. In fact, the Navigation Regulations were seen only as an instrument of British imperial foreign policy, and were taken to be the domain of London's rightful administration. But the direct purpose of the Sugar Act was to generate revenue. For the first time, the title of the tax bill was used in the bill, and the form of the tax bill was also used in the preamble. This immediately alarmed Americans, and Massachusetts Congressman James · Otis wrote in his famous pamphlet "The Rights Asserted and Proven in the British Colonies": "No one may arbitrarily deprive another of his property, and no one shall be taxed except with his own consent or that of other representatives." ”
Otis's statement has a reason. John · (1632~1704), a thinker during the bourgeois revolution in United Kingdom, made it clear in his "Theory of Government" that property, like life and liberty, is also a natural right. The property of the people is never detachable without consent. This is not because the value of material things is higher than the value of other things, but because the freedom of the people cannot be guaranteed if any such arbitrary power exists.
The Boston Parliament wrote a letter to the United Kingdom Parliament in which it asked: "If [London] can tax our trade, can it also be taxed on our land, the products of the land, and everything we own and use?" ”
For the United Kingdom, the protest of the Americans against the lack of representation was not valid, arguing that the colonies were "actually represented" in the United Kingdom Parliament and that each member of parliament was a representative of the interests of the British Empire as a whole. But this argument of "factual" representation does not make sense in the United States. For, from the very beginning of settlement, the colonial parliaments were composed of representatives elected on the basis of territoriality. The contradiction between "factual" representation and "real" representation (on a territorial basis) reflects a long divergence between colonial and United Kingdom political realities.
It is fair to say that in order to maintain the public interest and public order, the inhabitants of any society are obliged to pay taxes to the government to pay their expenses. At the beginning of the establishment of the North American colonies, there was relatively little public demand, and the colonists had more freedom, so there was not much tax burden; But more than 100 years later, as the colonies expanded and matured, more public problems arose that required all members of society to pay taxes to solve them, and yet most Americans did not seem to be ready to face this sooner or later problem.
At the same time, the instinct of self-interest led the Americans to a narrow and practical attitude towards their relations with the Empire, and it was their instinct to circumvent the Navigation Regulations, but in the Anglo-French War, the negative performance of the American militia outside the confines of their colonies was regretted even by their descendants.
While Americans were opposed in principle to paying taxes without representation, they did not agree on a common revolt. Many parliaments in the colonies drafted protests, but they were scattered and fragmented, and few of the merchant groups responded to the initiative to boycott the goods covered by the tax. Because, after all, the Sugar Act was an indirect tax, the burden of which could be passed on, and it is difficult to say that the property rights of Americans had been substantially violated. But a year later, when the United Kingdom Parliament proposed a stamp duty on the North American colonies, it provided a rare opportunity for Americans to unanimous opinion.
In 1765, the United Kingdom Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which imposed stamp duty on all prints, licenses, certificates, and legal instruments in the North American colonies. The Parliament is of the view that this tax is relatively light and should be easy to levie. In United Kingdom, stamp duty is £100,000 a year, and in North America the United Kingdom government hopes to collect £60,000 a year, which is used according to the Stamp Act "for the defence, protection and security of the colonies." ”
Yes, the stamp duty rate is not very high. But it was still a heavy burden for the North American colonies, which were not yet commercially developed at that time. At that time, the wages of the labourers in the city were only 3 shillings a day, but the stamp duty for an advertisement in the newspaper cost 2 shillings, a will cost 5 shillings, and a license to sell liquor cost 20 shillings. Stamp duty not only harms the business of lawyers, merchants, newspaper editors and tavern owners, but also the clerical staff, who are also required to pay the tax. These people are precisely the people who are extremely influential to the public.
More importantly, stamp duty is a direct tax that is levied on individuals rather than goods entering customs. Taxation of unrepresented Americans could easily be seen as an infringement of their right to liberty. Moreover, the Act also provides that those who do not comply with the law will be tried by a maritime court controlled by the United Kingdom Government, which does not allow a jury, and the defendant must prove his innocence or be guilty; This is yet another violation of the right to liberty of Americans.
The Stamp Act provoked opposition from almost all Americans. The Virginia Parliament was the first to demand that the United Kingdom abolish stamp duty. Massachusetts proposed the creation of a trans-colonial organization of "Stamp Duty Conferences," passing a series of protests emphasizing that stamp duty was "unaffordable and unbearable." "There can be no doubt that the most basic freedom of the people is that no one has the right to tax them without their consent."
At the grassroots level, informal organizations, such as the Sons of Freedom, began to agitate for action. For the first time in the history of the United States, there have been organized protests that are not permitted by law. In Boston, someone ransacked the home of the Commissioner of Stamp Revenue. In New York, activists put up notices: "The first person to distribute or use a revenue stamp should be careful about his house, his person, and his belongings." We do what we say. "A ship with a revenue stamp cannot dock at all in the colony; Those assigned to distribute tax stamps also resigned one after another, fearing for their lives. The Americans also rose up to boycott United Kingdom goods. This trick hit important merchants in United Kingdom hard, and they also pressured Parliament to abolish stamp duty.
The United Kingdom Parliament debated the levy and abolition of stamp duty. By this time, the Grenville Cabinet, which had introduced stamp duty, had collapsed, and the pro-American Whigs had the upper hand in the cabinet. The new prime minister, while in favour of abolishing stamp duty, fears that it will leave a dangerous precedent. They decided to pass a Statement of Rights Act at the same time as the repeal, affirming the full sovereignty of Congress over the North American colonies (which of course included the right to tax); They explained that the repeal of the Stamp Act was not a waiver of sovereignty, but rather a proper exercise of sovereignty (i.e., Burke's idea that "possession of sovereignty" and "exercise of sovereignty" could be separated).
In 1766, parliament began a heated debate on the subject. William · Pitt insisted that the Americas were not represented in the House of Commons in any sense, and that the legislative power of the Legislature in North America could never include the right to tax. Grenville objected that the deputies were not necessarily elected by the actual people, and that in the interests of the Americas, every member of the parliament was in fact its "substantive representative". and accuse the gangs in the House of Commons of actually inciting riots in the Americas. Pitt responded that the North American people's resistance to taxes was a manifestation of the spirit of freedom, and said that subjugating North America on this event would destroy the constitution of United Kingdom. He suggested that United Kingdom's legislative power over North America was unlimited, which should be affirmed, and that stamp duty should be abolished immediately.
At the same time, the colonial minister also suggested from the perspective of national security that the struggle with the North Americans might force them to surrender to France or Spain, the enemies of United Kingdom. Under all these pressures, stamp duty was finally abolished. At the same time, some taxes on North American exports have been reduced or eliminated. Hearing this, Americans were jubilant, and the boycott of United Kingdom goods was lifted. They congratulated each other: the Americans courageously defended their principles.
The Americans stuck to their principles, and the United Kingdom did not abandon them. The United Kingdom felt that since it was unwise to impose a direct tax, they should collect an indirect tax similar to the Sugar Act, which was not strongly resisted. In June 1767, Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles · Townsend proposed a tax on goods imported into North America such as glass, lead, paintings, paper, and tea. Townsend saw Americans as ungrateful children, saying that he would rather see North America become a "primitive society" than treat them as equals. The parliament adopted his proposal.
The Townsend Ordinance reignited the extinguished anger of the Americans, who quickly launched a new boycott of United Kingdom goods, in addition to vigorously developing manufacturing in the colonies to reduce imports. A lawyer in Philadelphia published "a letter from a Pennsylvania peasant to all the inhabitants of the British colony." "Let us act like a proper child, even though this child has been undeservedly whipped by our beloved parents," the letter said. He made it clear that the United Kingdom Parliament had no power to collect taxes on the colonies. Another Philadelphian, John · Reeler, put it this way: "If America is taxed by a parliament without American representation, Americans are no longer United Kingdom, but slaves." ”
In 1768, the Massachusetts Legislature sent a "circular" to the other colonial legislatures expressing their "humble opinion" that the Townsend Statute "violated their natural constitutional rights." The United Kingdom responded by ordering the Governor of Massachusetts to dissolve Parliament and transfer two regiments of British troops to Boston. Tensions intensified, and in March 1770, there was a bloody clash between the citizens of Boston and the British army, resulting in five casualties.
Massachusetts State Capitol
At this time, the United Kingdom cabinet on the other side of the Atlantic was reshuffled, and North became prime minister. The thorny issue facing the new Cabinet is the consequences of the Townsend Regulations. In the two years since the Act was implemented, the annual income was less than £300. United Kingdom spends £170,000 a year on maintaining its North American garrison.
The boycott of United Kingdom goods also caused heavy losses to its industry and commerce. As Burke put it, "Authoritarian regimes are incompetent fundraisers." It doesn't know how to save or how to squeeze it. Under pressure, the North Cabinet decided to amend the Townsend Regulations to remove tariffs on five of these goods, but the tea tax of 3p per pound remained in place as a symbol of United Kingdom sovereignty. A United Kingdom official smugly said: "A peppercorn symbolizing power is worth more than a million peppercorns that have no meaning." ”
This is actually stupid. Such symbols may have been retained before, but after the confrontation since the Cane Sugar Act, Americans have developed a deep suspicion, self-esteem and sensitivity towards United Kingdom. The stubborn retention of the tea tax will shift the focus of the confrontation between the two sides from interests to principles. And when anything involves principles, it is difficult for the parties to compromise. Therefore, Burke, in his speech in the House of Commons, "On Taxation in America," said: "The revocation of part does not bring some good results, but only evil everywhere." ”
After that, the boycott of British goods was stopped. But the boycott of tea continues. On the surface, the Americans have settled down, but the core problem of the contradiction between the two sides has not been eliminated, and the spark may ignite at any time.