" Now the colonists
had come to believe that their only true representatives were those for
whom they voted personally, the members of the provincial assemblies.
Each colony had its representative assembly; and these assemblies, like
the parent Parliament in Great Britain, had become very important by
acquiring the function of voting taxes. The colonists, therefore,
claimed that taxes could be voted only by their own assemblies, while
the British government replied, with some pertinency, that Parliament,
although elected by a very small minority of the population, was
considered to be generally representative of all British subjects.
[Sidenote: The Stamp Act Congress, 1765]
Many colonists, less learned than the lawyers, were unacquainted with
the subtleties of the argument, but they were quite willing to be
persuaded that in refusing to pay British taxes they were contending
for a great principle of liberty and self-government. Opposition to the
stamp tax spread like wildfire and culminated in a congress at New York
in October, 1765, comprising delegates from nine colonies.
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