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After the Seven-Years War, the British government issued taxes, such as the Stamp Act, to pay for war efforts. Daniel Dulaney wrote, “It is an essential principle of the English constitution, that the subject shall not be taxed without their consent.” All twelve original stamp collectors had resigned by November.
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What started as a street fight during a riot on King Street quickly became a bloody slaughter. The patriots attacked a loyalist’s store, and Ebenezer Richardson fired his gun through his window, killing and 11-year-old boy. Several days later a fight broke out between workers and some British soldiers. It ended with no serious bloodshed, but propaganda turned into a bloody massacre.
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Angry at Britain for “taxation without representation,” the “Sons of Liberty” threw 342 chests of imported tea into the Boston Harbor.
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In retaliation to resistance to British rule, the Parliament carried out four measure that would become known as the Intolerable Acts. The acts became justification for the First Continental Congress later that year.
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On May 10, the Congress voted that all states that hadn’t already established a revolutionary government should do so. Henry Lee offers his resolution, and on July 2, it was passed 12-0, New York having abstained. Two days later, the Declaration of Independence was created.
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The British were fighting France, Holland, and Spain, so their funding for the war in North America was significantly less. Naturally, the Americans took advantage of this, and in October, General Washington marched his troops from New York to Virginia in an attempt to trap the southern British lead by General Cornwallis
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September 3, peace negotiations took place in France and the war came to an official end.
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Delegates at the Philadelphia Convention sign the Constitution on September 17.
