A great Civil War between forces loyal to King John and those loyal to the Barons produced the Magna Carta, hammered out in 1215 and signed by a desperate King eager to reclaim his crown jewel – the city of London which had fallen to the Barons.  Much of that document seems arcane and uninteresting Read More

Today, Americans look back at 1765-1791 as our Foundational era.  In 1775, every English school child looked to the 17th Century as their own key period of Constitutional tumult and foundation. After Queen Elizabeth died childless, her cousin James I had declared himself a ruler by Divine Right with no earthly limit. His son and successor, Read More

For 11 years, (1629-1640) Charles raised money without Parliament. The most nefarious end run around the Magna Carta and the Petition of Right – Ship’s Money – produced the greatest Constitutional resistance. Traditionally, during a wartime emergency, the King could require seaports to supply ships for defense of the realm. Everyone agreed that Queen Elizabeth Read More

In 1629 King Charles I granted the Massachusetts Bay Company a Charter entitling colonists who would settle there all “Liberties and immunities of free and natural Subjects” within England.  The King’s ministers had assumed the company would hold its meetings in London but they moved to Massachusetts, thereby freeing themselves somewhat from English control.  Within Read More

After England beheaded its King for refusing to restrict his own power, for a while there was no king nor even a hereditary House of Lords. A disappointing decade in which Oliver Cromwell, “the Protector” governed with a Parliamentary remnant produced a restored monarchy and House of Lords. Charles’ son, Charles II, back on the throne, knew Read More

The Glorious Revolution had placed two very popular monarchs on the British throne who embraced limits on Executive power and readily guaranteed all subjects their Liberties and basic Rights.  Most English subjects smugly believed they had witnessed the Revolution to end all Revolutions and had achieved a unique and perfect constitutional blend of monarchy (King) Read More

The British American colonies ranged widely in their legal structure and degree of authority that the King, Privy Council, Board of Trade and Secretary of State in London actually exercised from afar.  The two most autonomous American colonies, Connecticut and Rhode Island, chose their own Governors and largely controlled their own internal affairs.  But every Read More

The American Revolution, John Adams declared, was fought “in the hearts and minds” of Americans 10 years before the first shot was fired at Lexington and Concord.  He was referring to the Stamp Act Crisis. In 1763, Britain and France ended their Seven Years War, a world war which swelled the British Empire but depleted Read More

But what about the longstanding Constitutional guarantee of “no taxation without representation”?  The American colonies sent no representatives and could not vote for members of Parliament.  No matter, the Administration replied, neither did women and children.  In fact, whole towns in England sent no representatives to Parliament.  Were they likewise unrepresented and free to disobey Read More

American radicals went far beyond argument to active resistance.  Colonel Barre, in a famous speech in Parliament, praised American resisters as the “Sons of Liberty.”   Under the leadership of Samuel Adams, extra-legal vigilante groups, now calling themselves “Sons of Liberty”, tarred and feathered stamp collectors and made them resign; they burned down stamp houses Read More

While reports of individual acts of American resistance might stiffen Parliamentary resolve to continue the Stamp Tax, the organized boycott of British goods wounded the economy.  English merchants vigorously lobbied Parliament for its repeal. “Punish the violence but redress the grievance,” declared Pitt in Parliament.  “I think them deprived of a right; but by an Read More

The colonial resisters knew they had won – but exactly what had they won?  They had effectively and forcibly resisted the Stamp Tax, boycotted British goods and pressured Parliament into repealing that tax.  They had issued their formal denunciations.  But Parliament still declared its own unlimited right to legislate and “bind the colonies in all Read More

“The opposition they make to the Stamp Act is only the beginning of troubles,” warned Anti-Sejanus, the English hardliner who publicly resented the “ungrateful” American colonists’ resistance and repeatedly called for “rigorous” enforcement rather than repeal of the Stamp Tax.  American opposition, he warned “is nothing but a prelude to the game that they intend Read More