THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION 1700 1774
THE AMERICAN ENLIGHTENMENT INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
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Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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Great Britain attacked the colonists.
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The colonists felt their rights were violated, because they were not consulted about new taxes.
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Parliament was imposing regulations on colonial agriculture
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Great Britain was restricting trade with Native Americans
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Detailed explanation-1: -In short, many colonists believed that as they were not represented in the distant British parliament, any taxes it imposed on the colonists (such as the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts) were unconstitutional, and were a denial of the colonists’ rights as Englishmen.
Detailed explanation-2: -The English felt that the colonists should pay taxes because the English government was providing services that the colonists would otherwise have had to do without. The Americans felt the taxes were unfair because they were being imposed by a government in which the colonists had no “voice."
Detailed explanation-3: -Many American colonists refused to pay Stamp Act tax Prominent individuals such as Benjamin Franklin and members of the independence-minded group known as the Sons of Liberty argued that the British parliament did not have the authority to impose an internal tax.
Detailed explanation-4: -The main reason the colonies started rebelling against ‘mother England’ was the taxation issue. The colonies debated England’s legal power to tax them and, furthermore, did not wish to be taxed without representation. This was one of the main causes of the Revolutionary War.
Detailed explanation-5: -Colonists reacted so strongly to the Stamp Act instead of the Sugar Act because the Sugar Act was an indirect tax. The Sugar Act affected the manufacturer of other products and was not directly felt by the colonist. The Stamp Act, instead, was a direct tax on the colonists.