CHAPTER TWo • FoRGiNG A NEW GovERNmENT: THE CoNsTiTuTioN 23
the first colonies under Crown charters. Theoretically, London governed the colonies. In
practice, owing partly to the colonies’ distance from London, the colonists exercised a
large measure of self-government.
The colonists were able to make their own laws, as in the Fundamental Orders of
Connecticut in 1639. The Massachusetts Body of Liberties in 1641 supported the protec-
tion of individual rights. In 1682, the Frame of Government of Pennsylvania was passed.
Along with the Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges of 1701, it foreshadowed our modern
Constitution and Bill of Rights. All of this legislation enabled the colonists to acquire crucial
political experience. After indepen dence was declared in 1776, the states quickly set up
their own new constitutions.British Restrictions and Colonial Grievances
The conflict between Britain and the American colonies, which ultimately led to the
Revolutionary War, began in the 1760s when the British government decided to raise
revenues by imposing taxes on the American colonies. Policy advisers to Britain’s King
George III, who ascended the throne in 1760, decided that it was only logical to require
the American colonists to help pay the costs of Britain’s defending them during the
French and Indian War (1754–1763). The colonists, who had grown accustomed to a
large degree of self-government and independence from the British Crown, viewed the
matter differently.
In 1764, the British Parliament passed the Sugar Act, which imposed a tax that many
colonists were unwilling to pay. Further regulatory legislation was to come. In 1765,
Parliament passed the Stamp Act, providing for internal taxation of legal documents and
even news papers—or, as the colonists’ Stamp Act Congress, assembled in 1765, called it,
“taxation without representation.” The colonists boycotted the purchase of English com-
modities in return.
The success of the boycott (the Stamp Act was repealed a year later) generated a feel-
ing of unity within the colonies. The British, however, continued to try to raise revenues
in the colonies. When Parliament passed duties on glass, lead, paint, and other items
in 1767, the colonists again boycotted British goods. The colonists’ fury over taxation
climaxed in the Boston Tea Party: colonists dressed as Mohawk Indians dumped almost
350 chests of British tea into Boston Harbor as a gesture of tax protest. In retaliation,
Parliament passed the Coercive Acts (the “Intolerable Acts”) in 1774, which closed Boston
Harbor and placed the government of Massachusetts under direct British control. The
colonists were outraged—and they responded.The First Continental Congress
New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island proposed the convening of a colonial gather-
ing, or congress. The Massachusetts House of Representatives requested that all colonies
hold conventions to select delegates to be sent to Philadelphia for such a congress.
The First Continental Congress was held in Philadelphia at Carpenter’s Hall on
September 5, 1774. It was a gathering of delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies
(delegates from Georgia did not attend until 1775). At that meeting, there was little talk of
indepen dence. The congress passed a resolution requesting that the colonies send a peti-
tion to King George III expressing their grievances. Resolutions were also passed requiring
that the colonies raise their own troops and boycott British trade. The British government
condemned the congress’s actions, treating them as open acts of rebellion.Copyright 2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
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