Causes

Main article: American Revolution

Disputed control over taxation

The close of the Seven Years' War in 1763 saw Great Britain triumphant in driving the Kingdom of France from North America, but heavily in debt. Britain's national debt at the end of the war had doubled to £130,000,000 and the annual cost of the British civil and military establishment in America in 1764 was £350,000, five times the cost of 15 years earlier.^[30] In part due to the policy of Salutary Neglect, whereby smuggling in the colonies had for over a century been tacitly accepted, the British government's expenditure in the colonies was four times higher than the total taken in revenues.^[31] London therefore decided upon a more vigorous approach by clamping down on avoidance of customs duties. It also passed a number of new taxes.
Parliament passed the Stamp Act in March 1765, which imposed direct taxes on the colonies for the first time. This was met with strong condemnation among American spokesmen, who argued that their "Rights as Englishmen" meant that there could be "no taxation without representation"—that is direct taxes could not be imposed on them by Parliament because they lacked representation in Parliament.^[32] Civil resistance prevented the Act from being enforced, and organized boycotts of British goods were instituted. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act as inexpedient, but also passed the Declaratory Act, which stated, "the said colonies and plantations in America have been, are, and of right ought to be, subordinate unto, and dependent upon the imperial crown and parliament of Great Britain."^[33] In 1767 Parliament passed the Townshend Act in order to demonstrate its supremacy. It imposed duties on various British goods exported to the colonies. The Americans quickly denounced this as illegal as well, since the intent of the act was to raise revenue and not regulate trade.^[34]
In 1768 violence broke out in Boston over attempts to suppress smuggling and 4000 British troops were sent to occupy the city. Parliament threatened to try Massachusetts residents for treason in England. Far from being intimidated, the colonists formed new associations to boycott British goods. In March 1770 five colonists in Boston were killed by panicky soldiers in the Boston Massacre, sparking outrage.^[35] That same year Parliament agreed to repeal all taxes except the one on tea. The landing of this tea was resisted in all the colonies and, when the royal governor of Massachusetts refused to send back the tea ships in Boston, Patriots destroyed the tea chests.^[36]

Crisis

This iconic 1846 lithograph by Nathaniel Currier was entitled "The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor"; the phrase "Boston Tea Party" had not yet become standard. Contrary to Currier's depiction, few of the men dumping the tea were actually disguised as Indians.^[37]

Nobody was punished for the "Boston Tea Party" and in 1774 Parliament ordered Boston Harbor closed until the destroyed tea was paid for. It then passed the Massachusetts Government Act to punish the rebellious colony. The upper house of the Massachusetts legislature would be appointed by the Crown, as was already the case in other colonies such as New York and Virginia. The royal governor was able to appoint and remove at will all judges, sheriffs, and other executive officials, and restrict town meetings. Jurors would be selected by the sheriffs and British soldiers would be tried outside the colony for alleged offenses. These were collectively dubbed the "Intolerable Acts" by the Patriots.
Although these actions were not unprecedented (the Massachusetts charter had already been replaced once before in 1692), the people of the colony were outraged. Town meetings resulted in the Suffolk Resolves, a declaration not to cooperate with the royal authorities. In October 1774 an illegal "provincial congress" was established which took over the governance of Massachusetts outside of British-occupied Boston and began training militia for hostilities.
Meanwhile, in September 1774 representatives of the other colonies convened the First Continental Congress in order to respond to the crisis. The Congress rejected a "Plan of Union" to establish an American parliament that could approve or disapprove of the acts of the British parliament. Instead, they endorsed the Suffolk Resolves and demanded the repeal of all Parliamentary acts passed since 1763, not merely the tax on tea and the "Intolerable Acts". They stated that Parliament had no authority over internal matters in America, but that they would "cheerfully consent" to trade regulations, including customs duties for the benefit of the empire.^[38] They also required Britain to acknowledge that unilaterally stationing troops in the colonies in a time of peace was "against the law". Although the Congress lacked any legal authority, it ordered the creation of Patriot committees who would enforce a boycott of British goods starting on December 1, 1774.
This time, however, the British would not yield. While Edmund Burke introduced a motion to repeal all the Acts of Parliament the Americans objected to and waive any rights of Britain to tax for revenue, it was defeated 210–105. Parliament voted to restrict all colonial trade to Britain, prevent colonists from using the Newfoundland fisheries, and to increase the size of the army and navy by 6,000. In February 1775 Prime Minister Lord North proposed not to impose taxes if the colonies themselves made "fixed contributions". This would safeguard the taxing rights of the colonies from future infringement while enabling them to contribute to maintenance of the empire. This proposal was nevertheless rejected by the Congress in July as an "insidious maneuver", by which time hostilities had broken out.