James Otis Arguments In Favor Of The Sugar Act

The Sugar act got created in 1764. It lowered the tax on molasses. It listed foreign goods to be taxed comprised of sugar, certain wines and coffee, pimento. “the Molasses Act colonial merchants (people who traded and owned shops in the colonies) were required to pay a tax of six-pence per gallon on the importation of foreign molasses.”

The Molasses Act of 1733 came from the parliament of great Britain was something that taxed the citizens of the colonies 6 pence every time a gallon of molasses was shipped. This act was imposed to make trades with the french cheaper. This act vitally impacted the global mass trade. The Molasses was used to make rum in New England, this made it much more valuable than anything the colonies had to offer, may it be fish or anything else. Since they had the molasses the British west Indies were considered the most valuable trade partners out there.

One act that the colonies never approved and greatly hated was the Tea Act of 1773. It was cheaper for Americans to import teas from other companies than the British East India Company. Reasons why Salutary Neglect came about was due to the distance between the Americas

The sugar act started in 1764. “April,5 1764... A new law passed called the Sugar and Molasses Act. Colonial merchants...were required to pay tax of six-pence…” All molasses was imported. Most of the colonist tried to buy french molasses and sugar at a cheaper price.

So with that according to the website landofthebrave.info says, “the colonists were the economic impact as well as the constitutional issue of taxation without representation. The colonists were undergoing a period of financial difficulties and their resentment was due to both the economic impact of the Sugar Act as well as the constitutional issue of taxation without

This was alarming to the colonist because they familiar with the “no taxation without representation”. This Act resulted in a strong unified violent response from the colonists. The colonist issue was not with the tax itself, it was the fact that parliament was trying to tax them with no elected representatives in Parliament.

The Sugar Interest already hiked up the price of sugar for the colonists, and that led to many acts being placed on the colonists which caused complications. First came the Currency Act of 1764. This was practically reinforcing the Currency Act of 1751 because Parliament was scared of the colonists bonding together. This act was created just for the New England colonies, and it really made money have no value as England prohibited the colonists from issuing new bills or reissuing new currency. Soon the Sugar Act was enforced also after already having been in existence for a while.

The Sugar Act caused alarm in the American colonies because of the expected economic disadvantages, and its difficult implementation in all thirteen colonies. Added to this was a general post-war depression that affected the colonies. It was this combination of factors which provided the background for the oppositional activities. One of the steps taken, was to threat with a boycott all of English products. Meanwhile rumors of a possible new act which was being prepared by the British added to the growing tension in the American

The Sugar Act frustrated the colonists with how it began, Taxation Without Representation, how it lead to the Revolutionary War, and the other effects it had. One of the many reasons The Sugar Act infuriated the colonists was the reason that it was passed by the British Parliament. The main goal of The Sugar Act was to crack down on smuggling and raise money for the British Military and pay for the French and Indian War. It was passed because the British waited a long

In 1764, the Sugar Act was passed, and unlike similar laws before it that were leniently enforced due to salutary neglect, the Sugar Act was actually enforced. This tax on sugar and molasses lead to the colonists finding their own ways to obtain these substances. Many smuggled them in from rival nations such as the Dutch and Spain. They resisted and avoided the tax by doing so, thus costing the British more money.

The beginning of the seven-year war between Great Britain and the French was fought to remove the French from American colonies. The war came with a price though such a big price that it depleted the purse of Great Britain and it needed to get the money from somewhere. The king of coarse thought, “ who else better to pay this than the American colonist”, which he tried to protect in the first place. Taxes on sugar began to erupt and the colonist where pretty outraged that they could be controlled even though the king was sees away. As time passed more taxes came to play as the stamp act, which now began to enrage the colonies and ideas of democracy, was emerging from the people since deep down they wanted freedom and justice from the king.

A subsequent policy, known as the Molasses Act of 1733 sought to give British sugar planters a price advantage through additional taxes on the product (Henretta and Edwards, 2012, p. 93). Fearing a crippling of the distilling industry and reductions in farm exports and colonial income; colonists again reacted by smuggling French molasses and offering bribes to customs officials (Henretta and Edwards, 2012, p. 93). Relations between the American colonies and the British Empire were further strained as colonial currency declined, degradation of the colonial economy ensued, and

This angered the colonists and they began to boycott purchasing taxed items. The stamp act was repealed on March 18, 1766. The British government began placing new taxes on the colonists such as the Sugar Act and the Currency

"The Sugar Act was introduced by Prime Minister George Grenville, and it reduced taxes on molasses but it helped to end the widespread smuggling in colonies and also allowed smugglers to be judged without a jury". The Stamp was introduced to tax all materials printed within the colonies. This act was met with

The following fifteen years consisted of the colonies finding their path to revolution and independence. To pay off the debt caused by the war, the Sugar Act was enacted and the colonists began to be taxed. Following the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act and Quartering Act were passed. The House of Commons considered repealing the Stamp Act but the Declaratory Act was passed in wake of the Stamp Act repeal. The Parliament of Great