# How oppressive were the British taxes on the American colonies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Tags:** liquor-alcohol\ **Created:** [September 15, 2024, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-oppressive-were-the-british-taxes-on-the-american-colonies/1007302 "2024-09-15T15:43:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2024, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-oppressive-were-the-british-taxes-on-the-american-colonies/1007302/21 "2024-09-16T05:39:13Z")
I was reading the book _The Hamilton Scheme_ which says Hamilton basically was trying to create a more powerful central government to increase the wealth of the new nation, and particularly enrich his mentors, some of the more wealthy merchants. The Articles of Confederation gave no taxation power to congress, so they were reliant on a funds from the states, who had their own financial problems. Unpaid promissory notes were common. The idea was to get a national tax, a reliable source of funds to pay off the IOU’s left over from the Revolution - preferrably at face value, preferrably with interest. His mentors and other rich elite had bought up these notes for pennies on the dollar from poorer, desperate folk. First thing was an import tax - that could be collected in major ports, just like the British. After getting a national tax for imports, his second scheme was a whiskey tax. It was particulalry skewed to larger producers, which is why the smaller producers in the west rebelled against the idea. The whiskey tax allowed the government to create its own list of stills (it was mandatory to register them) and a force of “revenoors” to go inspect and collect taxes, based on the size of the still. While the industrial scale stills ran 24-7, most smaller ones were small time occasional ventures, that did not make enough to pay the tax. But that was the start of collecting information and major data about who had something worth taxing. > [@Lumpy](#): > > This illustrates something that often goes over modern audiences’ heads: why originally voting was limited either to the propertied (land owners) or those who had paid a poll tax. Precisely - and also because the landless were more transient and less documented. Not just a class thing. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2024, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-oppressive-were-the-british-taxes-on-the-american-colonies/1007302/22 "2024-09-16T10:37:04Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > Always fun to think about how a, let’s say, casual relationship with historical facts has been baked into American political dialog from day one.) To be fair, most countries will have their own [cough] historical myths and legends, about themselves and their historical antagonists. There’s a subterranean cultural battle in the UK about the Empire (among much else), and no doubt the foundation narratives in quite a lot of countries might differ quite a bit from their neighbour/antagonist’s accounts of the same events. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2024, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-oppressive-were-the-british-taxes-on-the-american-colonies/1007302/23 "2024-09-16T13:36:08Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > So you’re saying taxation without representation is a standard feature of American society? I think the point is that they pitched a fit over a problem that they didn’t even try to solve once they’d won the political power to do so, suggesting they weren’t being honest about their actual aims. See [post 6](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-oppressive-were-the-british-taxes-on-the-american-colonies/1007302/7) above. And THAT, my friend, definitely has been a standard feature of American society from the beginning. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2024, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-oppressive-were-the-british-taxes-on-the-american-colonies/1007302/24 "2024-09-16T15:53:28Z")
Underlying this, too, is that there was continual tension between the colonial governor appointed by Britain and the local legislatures, which had very little power but kept pushing the bounds - which caused excessive retaliation from the governors. . ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2024, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-oppressive-were-the-british-taxes-on-the-american-colonies/1007302/25 "2024-09-16T16:21:30Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > To be fair, most countries will have their own [cough] historical myths and legends, about themselves and their historical antagonists. There’s a subterranean cultural battle in the UK about the Empire (among much else), and no doubt the foundation narratives in quite a lot of countries might differ quite a bit from their neighbour/antagonist’s accounts of the same events. I was searching for an image for the caption contest thread the other day and ran across this: [![](https://imgix.ranker.com/user_node_img/50099/1001974578/original/history-is-written-by-the-victor-photo-u1?fit=crop&fm=pjpg&q=60&w=650&dpr=2) ](https://imgix.ranker.com/user_node_img/50099/1001974578/original/history-is-written-by-the-victor-photo-u1?fit=crop&fm=pjpg&q=60&w=650&dpr=2) > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > I think the point is that they pitched a fit over a problem that they didn’t even try to solve once they’d won the political power to do so, Heh, one of the complaints against the British government was that it tried to prohibit private land purchases by the colonials from the natives. After the revolution, the federal government assumed an exclusive treaty power with native American tribes. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2024, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-oppressive-were-the-british-taxes-on-the-american-colonies/1007302/26 "2024-09-16T17:26:50Z")
That same principle, set out in the Royal Proclamation of 1763, is part of Canada’s Constitution. “the stone that the builders rejected, etc.” ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2024, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-oppressive-were-the-british-taxes-on-the-american-colonies/1007302/27 "2024-09-16T18:20:15Z")
Some folks say that taxes were not the real issue. The real problem was that after the French and Indian War, Britain actually began cracking down on the rampant smuggling in the colonies in order to make their money. Many wealthy folks in the colonies were highly inconvenienced by the sudden disruption of their income but couldn’t just complain that they were not being allowed to operate criminally anymore. So officially it was taxes that were a problem and we should declare independence right now! [This book](https://www.amazon.com/Smuggler-Nation-Illicit-Trade-America/dp/0199360987) covers the topic as part of Americas traditional love of smuggling. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2024, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-oppressive-were-the-british-taxes-on-the-american-colonies/1007302/28 "2024-09-16T19:02:40Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > So you’re saying taxation without representation is a standard feature of American society? You think non-citizen immigrants (legal or otherwise) don’t pay taxes? It is worse for the undocumented since they pay SS taxes and will never collect. Then there are organizations devoted to making it hard for citizens to vote, but I will stop before it gets political. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-oppressive-were-the-british-taxes-on-the-american-colonies/1007302.md?page=1)