Townshend Acts - Background

Background

Following the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), the British Empire was deep in debt. To help pay some of the costs of the newly expanded empire, the British Parliament decided to levy new taxes on the colonies of British America. Previously, through the Trade and Navigation Acts, Parliament had used taxation to regulate the trade of the empire. But with the Sugar Act of 1764, Parliament sought, for the first time, to tax the colonies for the specific purpose of raising revenue. American colonists initially objected to the Sugar Act for economic reasons, but before long they recognized that there were constitutional issues involved.

According to the British Constitution, British subjects could not be taxed without the consent of their representatives in Parliament. Because the colonies elected no members of the British Parliament, many colonists viewed Parliament's attempt to tax them as a violation of the constitutional doctrine of taxation only by consent. Some Britain politicians countered this argument with the theory of "virtual representation", which maintained that the colonists were in fact represented in Parliament even though they elected no members. This issue, only briefly debated following the Sugar Act, became a major point of contention following Parliament's passage of the 1765 Stamp Act. The Stamp Act proved to be wildly unpopular in the colonies, contributing to its repeal the following year, along with the lack of substantial revenue being raised.

Implicit in the Stamp Act dispute was an issue more fundamental than taxation and representation: the question of the extent of Parliament's authority in the colonies. Parliament provided its answer to this question when it repealed the Stamp Act in 1766 by simultaneously passing the Declaratory Act, which proclaimed that Parliament could legislate for the colonies "in all cases whatsoever".