Читать книгу American Democracy in Context - Joseph A. Pika - Страница 57

Some things never change: People hate taxes—or, at least, taxes that seem excessive or otherwise unfair. The colonists seethed at taxes imposed on them by Parliament because they considered them not only unfair but a flagrant violation of parliamentary power. Since the colonists had no elected representatives in Parliament, they believed that these taxes violated a fundamental principle of the English Bill of Rights: no taxation without representation. The Bill of Rights declared freedom from taxation by royal prerogative and instead gave Parliament the power to tax because that body represented the people. Anger over taxation without representation is, in no small measure, what led to the American Revolution.