American War For Independence P2

Early Tensions, 1765 - The immediate chain of events that led to the War for Independence started more than a decade before the Declaration of Independence was penned. 

In 1765, the British Parliament (that is, its legislature) imposed a Stamp Act tax upon the colonists. This required that published materials such as newspapers and legal documents be printed only on paper embossed with a royal stamp, indicating that a tax had been paid on those materials. The colonists were not opposed to paying taxes, for they paid many taxes enacted by their own colonial legislatures. But they were adamantly opposed to paying taxes when they had no voice in the decision. Because the Americans had no representative elected by them serving in the British Parliament, in their view the Stamp Act tax was a violation of their fundamental rights as citizens.

Content sourced from The American Story The Beginnings by David Barton and Tim Barton