Changes

Realizing that it had underestimated the colonies, Britain repealed the Stamp Act in 1766 but passed the Declaratory Act asserting a right by Britain to pass legislation against the colonies in future.  Public outrage decreased dramatically because the Stamp Act was repealed, even though the Sugar Act, Quartering Act, and Proclamation Line (the line preventing colonies from expanding westward) were still in effect.

Realizing that it had underestimated the colonies, Britain repealed the Stamp Act in 1766 but passed the Declaratory Act asserting a right by Britain to pass legislation against the colonies in future.  Public outrage decreased dramatically because the Stamp Act was repealed, even though the Sugar Act, Quartering Act, and Proclamation Line (the line preventing colonies from expanding westward) were still in effect.

===Townshend Acts===

===Townshend Acts===

In 1767, Charles Townshend replaced William Pitt in Britain as a leader in the British House of Commons.  Pitt had been generous to the colonies, and quite popular in America.  But Townshend viewed America as an opportunity for imposing taxes on the colonies in order to increase revenue for the benefit of the English government.  His attempts to do this were a series of taxes called the Townshend Acts.  They taxed paper, lead, paint, and tea in colonies to pay salaries of royal judges and governors.  Townshend also tried to divide the colonies from each other by telling only New York and Massachusetts to suspend their assemblies for failing to levy taxes to house and feed British troops in their colonies.  But the rising conflict, particularly that of the Stamp Act, had already begun to unify the colonies, and they realized that they must rise or fall together.  

In 1767, Charles Townshend replaced William Pitt in Britain as a leader in the British House of Commons.  Pitt had been generous to the colonies, and quite popular in America.  But Townshend viewed America as an opportunity for imposing taxes on the colonies in order to increase revenue for the benefit of the English government.  His attempts to do this were a series of taxes called the Townshend Acts.  They taxed paper, lead, paint, and tea in colonies to pay salaries of royal judges and governors.  Townshend also tried to divide the colonies from each other by telling only New York and Massachusetts to suspend their assemblies for failing to levy taxes to house and feed British troops in their colonies.  But the rising conflict, particularly that of the Stamp Act, had already begun to unify the colonies, and they realized that they must rise or fall together.

 

Townshend was financially wise but politically foolish.  His new taxes raised little revenue for England, but were a direct interference with the American colonial traditions of self-government.  Townshend taxed goods essential to colonists, which angered them further.  He also used revenue from the taxes to pay British officials directly, which decreased the dependence of those officials on colonial legislatures and thereby weakened the power of the colonists, which they disliked.

The colonies did not react as swiftly as they had to the Stamp Act.  But they did resist, primarily due to clever pamphlets that educated and incited them.  John Dickinson's pamphlet, "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" was first published in 1767, and spread throughout the colonies as well as to Ireland, England, and France.  Dickinson, known as the "Penman of the Revolution," was a superb writer who also drafted the "Declaration of Rights" for the Stamp Act Congress, the "Olive Branch Petition," and the Articles of Confederation.   

The colonies did not react as swiftly as they had to the Stamp Act.  But they did resist, primarily due to clever pamphlets that educated and incited them.  John Dickinson's pamphlet, "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" was first published in 1767, and spread throughout the colonies as well as to Ireland, England, and France.  Dickinson, known as the "Penman of the Revolution," was a superb writer who also drafted the "Declaration of Rights" for the Stamp Act Congress, the "Olive Branch Petition," and the Articles of Confederation.