The Sugar Act (citation 4 Geo. III c. This is a list of Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament during that body's existence prior to the Act of Union of 1707 This is a list of Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament during that body's existence prior to the Act of Union of 1707 This is a list of Ordinances and Acts of the Parliament of England from 1642 to 1660, during the English Civil War and the Interregnum. This is a list of Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament during that body's existence prior to the Act of Union of 1707 This is a list of Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament during that body's existence prior to the Act of Union of 1707 List of Acts of the Scottish Parliament to 1707 is a list of Acts of Parliament of the Parliament of Scotland. This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of Ireland for the years up to 1700. This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of Ireland for the years 1701 to 1800. This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain for the years 1707-1719 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain for the years 1720-1739 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain for the years 1740-1759 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain for the years 1760-1779 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain for the years 1780-1800 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1801-1819 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1820-1839 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1840-1859 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1860-1879 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1880-1899 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1900-1919 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1920-1939 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1940-1959 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1960-1979 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1980-1999 This is a list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 2000 to the present "Acts of the Scottish Parliament" redirects here For pre-Union acts see List of Acts of the Scottish Parliament to 1707. This is a list of Acts of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, from its first session in 1921 to suspension in 1972. This is a list of Acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly passed by that body from its establishment in 2000 until its suspension in 2002 and from its re-establishment in |align=left| Contemporary Welsh Law English Law Courts of England and Wales ---- National Assembly The is a list of Orders in Council for Northern Ireland which are Primary legislation for the province when it is being directly ruled from London and also for A Statutory Instrument ( SI) is the principal form in which delegated or Secondary legislation is made in Great Britain. TalkCommonewalth realm.--> The monarchy 15), officially called the American Duties Act, passed on April 5, 1764, was a revenue-raising Act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain. Events 456 - St Patrick returns to Ireland as a missionary bishop Year 1764 ( MDCCLXIV) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and Parliament of Scotland The preamble to the act stated that, "it is expedient that new provisions and regulations should be established for improving the revenue of this Kingdom . . . and . . . it is just and necessary that a revenue should be raised . . . for defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same. "[1] The earlier Sugar and Molasses Act, which had imposed a tax of six pence per gallon on molasses, had never been effectively collected due to colonial evasion. Sugar and Molasses Act of March 1733 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain (citation 6 Geo II Molasses or Treacle is a thick Syrup by-product from the processing of the Sugarcane or Sugar beet into Sugar. By reducing the rate in half and increasing measures to enforce the tax, the British hoped that the tax would actually be collected. [2]
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Background
The earlier Sugar and Molasses Act of 1733 was passed by Parliament largely at the insistence of large plantation owners in the British West Indies. Sugar and Molasses Act of March 1733 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain (citation 6 Geo II A large trade had grown between the New England and Middle colonies and the French, Dutch, and Spanish West Indian possessions. Molasses from the British West Indies, used in New England for making rum, was priced much higher than its competitors and they also had no need for the large quantities of lumber, fish, and other items offered by the colonies in exchange. The British West Indies in the first part of the 18th Century were the most important trading partner for Great Britain so Parliament was attentive to their requests. However, rather than acceding to the demands to prohibit the colonies from trading with the non-British islands, Parliament passed the prohibitively high tax on the colonies for the import of molasses from these islands. If actually collected, the tax would have effectively closed that source to New England and destroyed much of the rum industry. Yet smuggling, bribery or intimidation of customs officials effectively nullified the law. [3]
During the Seven Years' War, known in America as the French and Indian War, the British government substantially increased the national debt to pay for the war. The Seven Years' War (1756&ndash1763 involved all of the major European powers of the period causing 900000 to 1400000 deaths The French and Indian War (1754&ndash1763 was the North American chapter of the Seven Years' War. Government debt (also known as public debt or national debt) is Money (or credit) owed by any level of government either Central government In February 1763, as the war ended, the ministry headed by John Stuart, the Earl of Bute, decided that continuing Indian problems in North America necessitated the maintenance of a standing army of ten thousand British regular troops in the colonies. John Stuart 3rd Earl of Bute, KG, PC (25 May 1713 &ndash 10 March 1792 styled Lord Mount Stuart before 1723 was a Scottish nobleman Shortly thereafter, George Grenville replaced Bute. George Grenville (14 October 1712 &ndash 13 November 1770 was a British Whig statesman who served in government Grenville supported his predecessor's policy, even more so after the outbreak of Pontiac’s Rebellion in May 1763. Pontiac's Rebellion was a war launched in 1763 by North American Indians who were dissatisfied with British policies in the Great Lakes region after Grenville faced the problem of not only paying for these troops but servicing the national debt. The debt grew from £75,000 before the war to £122,600,000 in January 1763, and over £800,000,000 by the beginning of 1764. [4]
Grenville did not expect the colonies to contribute to the interest or the retirement of the debt, but he did expect a portion of the expenses for colonial defense to be paid by the Americans. Estimating that the expenses of defending the continental colonies and the West Indies to be approximately £200,000 annually, Grenville’s goal was that the colonies would be taxed for £78,000 of this needed amount. [5]
Passage of the Sugar Act
The Sugar and Molasses Act was set to expire in 1763. The Commissioners of Customs anticipated greater demand for both molasses and rum as a result of the end of the war and the acquisition of Canada. They believed that the increased demand would make a sharply reduced rate both affordable and collectible. When passed by Parliament, the new Sugar Act of 1764 halved the previous tax on molasses. In addition to promising stricter enforcement, the language of the bill made it clear that the purpose of the legislation was not to simply regulate the trade (as the Molasses Act had attempted to do by effectively closing the legal trade to non-British suppliers) but to raise revenue. [6]
The new act listed specific goods, the most important being lumber, which could only be exported to Britain. Ship captains were required to maintain detailed manifests of their cargo and the papers were subject to verification before anything could be unloaded from the ship. Customs officials were empowered to have all violations tried in vice admiralty courts rather than jury trials in local colonial courts where the juries generally looked favorably on smuggling as a profession. [7]
Historian Fred Anderson wrote that the purpose of the Act was “to resolve the problems of finance and control that plagued the postwar empire. ” To do this “three kinds of measures” were implemented -- “those intended to make customs enforcement more effective, those that placed new duties on items widely consumed in America, and those that adjusted old rates in such a way as to maximize revenues. ”[8]
Effect on the American colonies
The Sugar Act was passed by Parliament on April 5, 1764, and it arrived in the colonies at a time of economic depression. Year 1764 ( MDCCLXIV) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a A good part of the reason was that a significant portion of the colonial economy during the Seven Years War was involved with supplying food and supplies to the British Army. An economy is the realized social system of production exchange distribution and consumption of goods and services of a country or other area The Seven Years' War (1756&ndash1763 involved all of the major European powers of the period causing 900000 to 1400000 deaths Colonials, however, especially those impacted directly as merchants and shippers, assumed that the highly visible new tax program was the major culprit. As protests against the Sugar Act developed, it was the economic impact rather than the constitutional issue of taxation without representation, that was the main focus for the Americans. " No taxation without representation " began as a Slogan in the period 1763–1776 that summarized a primary grievance of the British Colonists [9]
New England especially suffered economic losses from the Sugar Act. The stricter enforcement made smuggling more dangerous and risky, and the profit margin on rum, so the colonists argued, was too small to support any tax. Forced to increase their prices, many Americans, it was feared, would be priced out of the market. The British West Indies, on the other hand, now had undivided access to colonial exports and with supply well exceeding demand the islands prospered with their reduced expenses while all New Englanders saw the revenue from their exports decrease. The foreign West Indies had also been the primary colonial source for specie, and as the reserves of specie were depleted the soundness of colonial currency was threatened. [10]
Two prime movers behind the protests to the act were Samuel Adams and James Otis, both of Massachusetts. Samuel Adams ( – October 2 1803 was an American Statesman, Politician, Writer and political philosopher, brewer James Otis Jr (February 5 1725 &ndash May 23 1783 was a lawyer in colonial Massachusetts who was an early advocate of the political views that led to the American In August 1764, fifty Boston merchants agreed to stop purchasing British luxury items, and in both Boston and New York there were movements to increase colonial manufacturing. Merchants function as professionals who deal with Trade, dealing in commodities that they do not produce themselves in order to produce Profit. There were sporadic outbreaks of violence, most notably in Rhode Island. [11] Overall, however, there was not an immediate high level of protest over the Sugar Act either in New England or the rest of the colonies. That would begin in the later part of the next year when the Stamp Act was passed. The Stamp Act of 1765 (short title Duties in American Colonies Act 1765; 5 George III c [12] The Sugar Act was repealed in 1766 and replaced with a further reduced tax of one pence per gallon on all molasses imports, British or foreign. This occurred around the same time that the Stamp Act of 1765 was repealed (cancel an act or law). The Stamp Act of 1765 (short title Duties in American Colonies Act 1765; 5 George III c [13]
Notes
- ^ Miller pg. 101
- ^ Miller pg. 100-101
- ^ Miller pg. 96-99
- ^ Gary Nash pg. 45. Middlekauff pg. 55-63.
- ^ Middlekauff pg. 62.
- ^ Miller pg. 100-101
- ^ Middlekauff pg. 65.
- ^ Anderson pg. 574
- ^ Middlekauff pg. 66-67. Miller pg. 101. Miller wrote, "The legislation was declared to have caused greater alarm in New England than the forays of the French and Indians during the darkest days of the Seven Years' War. "
- ^ Miller pg. 101-102.
- ^ Alexander pg. 24. Middlekauff pg. 67-73.
- ^ Miller pg 149-50.
- ^ Draper pg. 290-291
Bibliography
- Alexander, John K. Samuel Adams: America’s Revolutionary Politician. (2002) ISBN 0-7425-2114-1
- Anderson, Fred, Crucible of War, 2000, ISBN 0375406425
- Draper, Theodore. A Struggle For Power:The American Revolution. (1996) ISBN 0-8129-2575-0
- Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. (2005) ISBN 13:978 0-19-516247-9
- Miller, John C. Origins of the American Revolution. (1943)
- Nash, Gary B. The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America. (2005) ISBN 0-670-03420-7
- The Sugar Act. Retrieved on December 6, 2005.
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