Essay: Grievances of the Founding Fathers with British Rule

Sample Essay

Words 1,320

The biggest objection of the colonialists was on the issue of taxation. The British government had imposed taxation specifically targeting the American colonies for example the Stamp Act of 1765 that obligated that printed materials in the colonies, such as newspapers carry a tax stamp (Murrin, 2007). The ‘Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress’ wanted the British parliament to be barred from“…every idea of taxation internal or external, for raising a revenue on the subjects, in America, without their consent”

The Taxation and Spending Clause of the constitution (Article 1 section 8 clause 1) of the constitution necessitates that all taxes be levied uniformly of all parts of the country and that the direct taxes on a state would be levied in proportion the proportion of its population to the population of the whole country.

The Quebec Act was aimed at assuring freedom of religion for the newly conquered Francophone Catholic people and to protect the Native Americans of the Ohio Valley from White settlement. Taking advantage of the prevalent anti-Catholic feeling, it was presented as an attempt to establish the Catholic Church in the Colonies and as an attempt to take away religious freedom rather than an attempt to affirm religious freedom for all (Murrin, 2007; Lardner, 1951; Schofield 2002).

The third article of the Bill of Rights addresses these fears by forbidding the establishment of a National religion or interfering with citizen’s practice of their religion: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”

The constitution was a product of its times and some parts of the constitution reflected issues current in the minds of its authors. Later events necessitated changes in the constitution for example the Taxation and Spending Clause was abrogated with the Sixteenth amendment. Other parts of the constitution became irrelevant, for example the Third Amendment is generally irrelevant because there has been no war on the territory of the United States for a long while now.

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