Responding to the Townshend Acts of 1767.

On this day in 1769, George Washington openly defied Great Britain’s fiscal and judicial attempts to maintain its control over the American colonies. Protesting the British policy of “taxation without representation,” Washington introduced a proposal, drafted by his friend George Mason, calling for Virginia to boycott British goods until the Townshend Acts of 1767 were repealed.

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The Townshend Acts were a series of British Acts of Parliament passed during 1767 and 1768 and relating to the British in North America. The acts are named after Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who proposed the program. Historians vary slightly as to which acts they include under the heading "Townshend Acts", but five acts are often mentioned:[1]

The New York Restraining Act 1767 (passed on June 5, 1767)

The Revenue Act 1767 (passed on June 26, 1767)

The Indemnity Act 1767 (passed on June 29, 1767)

The Commissioners of Customs Act 1767 (passed on June 29, 1767)

The Vice Admiralty Court Act 1768 (passed on July 6, 1768)

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The purposes of the Townshend Acts were

To raise revenue in the colonies to pay the salaries of governors and judges so that they would remain loyal to Great Britain

To create more effective means of enforcing compliance with trade regulations

To punish the Province of New York for failing to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act

To establish the precedent that the British Parliament had the right to tax the colonies[2]

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The Townshend Acts were met with resistance in the colonies, which eventually resulted in the Boston Massacre of 1770.

The Townshend Acts placed an indirect tax on glass, lead, paints, paper, and tea. These goods were not produced within the colonies and had to be imported from Britain. This form of revenue generation was Townshend's response to the failure of the Stamp Act of 1765, which had provided the first form of direct taxation placed upon the colonies. However, the import duties proved to be similarly controversial. Colonial indignation over the Townshend Acts was predominantly driven by John Dickinson's anonymous publication of Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, as well as the Massachusetts Circular Letter. As a result of widespread protest and non-importation of British goods in colonial ports, Parliament began to partially repeal the Townshend duties.[3] In March 1770, most of the indirect taxes from the Townshend Acts were repealed by Parliament under Frederick, Lord North. However, the import duty on tea was retained in order to demonstrate to the colonists that Parliament held the sovereign authority to tax its colonies, in accordance with the Declaratory Act of 1766. The British government continued to try to tax the colonists without providing representation in Parliament. Resentment and corrupt and abusive enforcement spurred colonial attacks on British ships, including the burning of the Gaspee in 1772. Retaining the Townshend Acts' taxation on imported tea, enforced once again by the Tea Act of 1773, subsequently led to the Boston Tea Party in 1773, in which Bostonians destroyed a shipment of taxed tea. Parliament responded with severe punishments in the Intolerable Acts in 1774. The Thirteen Colonies drilled their militia units, and tensions escalated into violence in April 1775, launching the American Revolution.

Townshend Acts wiki

Our founding fathers had big, brass balls.

This post was edited on 5/17/19 at 7:56 am