After the Seven Years War between the European powers, Britain after defending her colonies during the war, including the American colonies, resulted in the empire to go into debt. Understandably, Parliament decided to raise taxes on the colonies it defended as compensation for maintaining their safety. To their surprise the American colonies were enraged by the amount of taxes that were levied on them. Why did these protests occur? To put it simply, despite having been protected by the British during the war, the colonists found it unfair that they had no consent in the making of these tax legislatures, let alone did not have any representation either. As the founding fathers stated in The Declaration of Independence, as they provided evidence of the failure the King was as a Prince for the colonies,”For imposing taxes without our consent”. To the American colonists, failure to allow consent of these tax laws was an infringement to the social contract established between the citizens and the British monarchy. The failure of Parliament to follow their personal will of the island nation instead of the general will of her state AND her colonies is what angered the colonists. This eventually lead to the rise of the Sons of Liberty, whom opposed the taxes levied such as the stamp act, performing multiple actions against the British loyalists, and eventually causing the infamous Boston Tea Party, a major turning point that would remove negotiations off the table and made independence from the empire as the only favorable choice for the founding fathers.

Interestingly enough, despite agreeing with most if not all the arguments that the American colonists, including the founding fathers, yet there seems to be some outliers at play. What reasons do you believe that other British colonies such as those in Canada didn’t have such harsh opinions about the taxes as their American brethren? Were the American colonies simply selfish or are there are reasons?