For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.

The Stamp Tax of the early 1760s was the first major cause of the quarrel between the Americans and the British. It occasioned the first strong articulation of the principles of the Declaration by James Otis in 1764, entitled "The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved." The principle "no taxation without representation" was soon extended to the whole conduct of government. Not just taxes, but all acts of government must be by "the consent of the governed."

Close