These measures seemed very fair to British politicians, who had spent large sums of money to defend their American colonies during and after the French and Aboriginal War. Surely his reasoning was that the settlers were to bear some of these expenses. But the colonists feared that the new taxes would hinder trade, and that the British troops stationed in the colonies could be used to crush the civil liberties that the settlers had enjoyed until then.

In general, these fears were unfounded, but they were the forerunners of what have become traditions deeply rooted in American politics. Citizens distrust "powerful government"; After all, millions of immigrants came to the United States to escape political repression.

In 1765, representatives of nine colonies met as "Congress on the Stamp Act" and protested against the new tax. Merchants refused to sell British goods, stamp distributors were threatened by the angry crowd and most settlers simply refused to buy the stamps. The British parliament was forced to revoke the Stamp Act, but enforced the Housing Act, enacted taxes on tea and other goods, and sent customs officials to Boston …show more content…
In 1773, a group of patriots responded to this tax by staging the Boston Tea Party: disguised as Aborigines, they boarded British merchant ships and threw 342 cups of tea in Boston's waterfront. Parliament then enacted the "Intolerable Laws": the independence of Massachusetts colonial rule was drastically restricted and more British soldiers were sent to Boston Harbor, which was already closed to merchant ships. In September 1774 the First Continental Congress was held in Philadelphia, a meeting of colonial leaders opposed to what they perceived as British oppression in the colonies. These leaders urged settlers to disobey Intolerable Laws and to boycott British trade. Settlers began organizing militias and storing weapons and