"Taxation without Representation!" was the cry that’s behind the reason for our celebrations on the 4^th of July. It all started with the thirteen colonies in America objecting to being forced to pay taxes to England’s King George III while they had no representatives in the British Parliament. While there was increasing objections to British control and British taxation without any say so in the British Parliament, the Stamp Act of 1765 and tax on imports were particularly hated by the colonies. The Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773 was a protest of the import tax on tea. This was the event which ultimately sparked the American revolution because it resulted in the King sending troops to occupy the colonies which in turn led to the revolutionary war.

The tax was imposed because the British East India Company sold large amounts of tea to the colonies with a virtual monopoly. The colonies tried to import tea from other sources which could be sold more cheaply then that of the Company. To discourage the colonies from importing tea, a tea import tax was imposed the British Parliament, but it did not apply to tea imported by the British Company. The result was the Company could sell tea at a lessor cost then that sold by colony tea merchants who imported from elsewhere.

John Hancock, signer of the Declaration of Independence, owned the ship Liberty which was seized by British customs for smuggling tea without payment of the tax. He was defended by John Adams and was acquitted, but Hancock organized a boycott against buying tea from the British company. When the HMS Dartmouth arrived in Boston harbor in November of 1773 with a load of tea from China imported by the British company, protest meetings were held with large crowds of people in attendance. On the evening before the tea was to be unloaded, Samuel Adams and a group pretending to be Mohawk Indians, went to the wharf where the ship was docked. Casks of tea were opened and the tea dumped overboard. Tea washed up on the shores around Boston for weeks afterwords. It caused a large financial loss to the British Company. The King responded by sending troops to put down the protests and to crack down on the colonists. In return the colonies formed their own militias and confrontations occurred. There was increasing public support of independence.

The phrase "taxation without representation" is said to have been coined by the Reverend Jonathan Maythew in a sermon in Boston and it became the battle cry of the colonies in rebellion to the King. The protests against the King’s highhanded treatment of the Colonies led to calls for war. Patrick Henry’s famous speech of March 23, 1775 captured the spirit of the time. This is an excerpt from that speech:

"They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable–and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace– but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

War with Great Britain did follow. The famous phrase "the shot heard ‘round the world" was a line from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Concord Hymn, and refers to the Battle of Lexington and Concord at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts on April 19, 1775 when shots were exchanged between the local militia and the British occupation army. The war for independence had begun.

Colony representatives met as a Continental Congress to draft independence documents and create an agreement among the colonies. On June 11, 1776 at the Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia , a committee was formed to draft the document of independence. The committee included Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, but it was Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independence. It was adopted on July 4, 1776. In 1777, Philadelphian’s rang bells, fired guns and set firecrackers off on the 4^th of July to honor the adoption of the documents. When the war ended in 1783 the date became a holiday and day of celebration. In 1941 Congress declared July 4^th a national holiday and we have celebrated independence from Great Britian on that date ever since.