Every fourth of July Americans celebrate their independence from Great Britain. The American Revolution was supposingly fought over the high tax burden the Parliament of Great Britain imposed on the colonies. There are two problems with this theory.
First, the tax burden imposed on the colonies is estimated to be less than 5%. There was no income tax. There was tariffs, yes, but most goods were bought domestically in colonial America. Today, income taxation alone, between the state and federal government, takes about 40% of your wealth.
Second, the tax burden was being reduced by the Parliament of Great Britain from 1770 onward. The only Townshend duty not repealed was the duty on tea, which was a modest levy of threepence per pound.
The Boston Tea Party
The British East India Company was struggling to compete with the smugglers. So the British Parliament passed the Tea Act of 1773 to reduce duties on tea and help the British East India Company. The smugglers did not take kind to the reduction of taxation that would put them out of business.
Wikipedia has an entry on this:
“Even with the Townshend duty in effect, the Tea Act would allow the East India Company to sell tea more cheaply than before, undercutting the prices offered by smugglers, but also undercutting colonial tea importers, who paid the tax and received no refund. In 1772, legally imported Bohea, the most common variety of tea, sold for about 3 shillings (3s) per pound. After the Tea Act, colonial consignees would be able to sell it for 2 shillings per pound (2s), just under the smugglers’ price of 2 shillings and 1 penny (2s 1d).”
The Boston Tea Party took place because of a reduction of taxes. It was a bunch of pirates destroying private property of a private company. It is no coincidence that the heart of the American Revolution started in Boston, home of the smugglers.
The Constitution
The first constitution was the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation had no federal government. None with the power to tax anyway. The thirteen colonies were, by and large, thirteen different governments. The Federalist did not like the idea of the US without a strong central government. James Madison tried endlessly to get a convention in Philadelphia to alter the Articles of Confederation. George Washington was retired and did not want to be bothered. Madison knew he needed George Washington to get a constitutional convention. Then Shays Rebellion occurred.
Dr. North gives a concise view of legend versus reality:
“The 1786/7 rebellion in Massachusetts known as Shays’ Rebellion is generally believed to be the event that moved George Washington off the sidelines regarding Madison’s proposed convention in Philadelphia. He had resisted Madison’s repeated requests that he attend the convention. Washington was told by two trusted informants in Massachusetts that this was a widespread revolt of the lower classes.
These rebels were undermining public order in their quest to overturn property rights. Washington believed these reports. He decided that it was time for a change in the fundamental laws of the United States. What I did not know in 1989, and no historian knew, was that the Shays’ Rebellion was an armed resistance movement of about 4,000 property-owning men in western Massachusetts. Contrary to reports from the anti-Shays faction in 1787, and contrary to most textbook accounts ever since, it was not a revolt of impoverished, indebted rural radicals. It included men of all economic classes. Many of them were veterans of the American Revolution, including Daniel Shays, who served from the battle of Bunker (Breed’s) Hill onward, and was a distinguished officer who worked his way up from the ranks to captain.
Lafayette awarded him a sword for his valor. These men revolted against a group of speculators who had recently gained control of the governor’s office. For over two centuries, Americans did not know the truth. Then, in one of those fluke events that every historian dreams about, Professor Leonard Richards of the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) stumbled onto a fact that no previous historian had bothered to investigate. After the defeat of the rebels, the state required each of them to sign a loyalty oath. Unlike previous political rebellions, there were archival records of those who had participated. These records were right under Prof. Richards’ nose, yet it took several months for him to learn that they were actually in his own university’s library: on microfilm. He then made a detailed investigation of the participants: the towns they lived in, their family connections, their debt position in 1786, and their political offices, if any. What he learned enabled him to re-write the story of Shays’ Rebellion. It was not a revolt of indebted farmers. It was a tax revolt.”
The stage was set. A constitutional convention was to be held. “Never let a crisis go to waste” is as old as the sun. They agreed to meet and change the Articles of Confederation. Patrick Henry was one of the Virgina Assembly men who was invited to the constitutional convention. He refused to go. He famously said, “I smell a rat.” He knew they were planning to junk the Articles of Confederation. Dr. North correctly called the constitutional convention a conspiracy based on the following:
“The Convention was assembled under false pretenses.
All attendees took a vow of lifetime silence.
They held their meetings on the second floor: no eavesdroppers
The press was barred from attending.
The legislatures’ instructions were deliberately violated.”
I would add that at the constitutional convention, the Federalist outnumbered the Anit-Federalist by a large margin.
Madison kept notes on the debate in Philadelphia. On day one, they scraped the Articles of Confederation and pulled out the Virgina Plan, which would morph into the US Constitution .
The purpose of the US Constitution was to centralize power to the Federal Government. The Federalist Papers, written by Madison, Hamilton and to a lesser extent John Jay, was propaganda to convince the colonies that what they were doing was legal. It was not. It was strictly forbidden by the Articles of Confederation. The US Constitution was poorly written. It gave enormous power to the Federal Government.
Lysander Spooner sums up the US Constitution in his work No Treason:
“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”
Conclusion
I do not celebrate the fourth of July. Neither should you. The colonies had a saying “No taxation without representation”. Now we have representation with absurd taxation levels.
I will give up my vote any day to go back to the taxation under the British Parliament in 1775. My view on the American Revolution can be summed up in one scene.