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America’s First Constitutions and Declarations of Rights
the form of a boycott by the merchants and some southern planters
against the importation of British goods; and in Boston a clash between
seven soldiers and a mob of townspeople, which resulted in the death of
four citizens in the so-called Boston Massacre, aroused the people of
Massachusetts to a fever of agitation.
Confronted with the fact that the Townshend Acts were a failure, both
politically and economically, the ministry in London once again made a
strategic withdrawal from the field of contention. The Townshend Duty
Act was repealed in April 1770, except that the duty on tea was retained
to save the principle that Parliament had the authority to tax the colonies.
From that moment it was clear that the ministry, despite the folly of continuing the contest, was determined to subdue the colonies. Lord North,
in fact, formally declared in Parliament that repeal of all the new taxes
could not occur until the Americans were brought to the feet of Great
Britain. By now the disposition to resistance had struck deep roots in
every American colony. At first the Americans had only denied the right
of Parliament to tax them; but the scope of their rebuttal had increased, by
degrees. They began to question the authority of Parliament altogether.
The brief hiatus following the partial repeal of the Duty Act was broken in 1773 when Parliament enacted the Tea Act. The purpose of this illconsidered statute was to shore up the crumbling financial structure of
the East India Company, and to establish a precedent to