Massachusetts Government Act

Examples of Massachusetts Government Act in the following topics:

• The Coercive Acts

  • The Massachusetts Government Act provoked even more outrage than the Port Act because it unilaterally altered the government of Massachusetts to bring it under control of the British government.
  • Under the terms of the Government Act, almost all positions in the colonial government were to be appointed by the governor or the king.
  • The act also severely limited the activities of town meetings in Massachusetts to one meeting a year, unless the Governor called for one.
  • Colonists outside of Massachusetts feared that their governments could now also be changed by the legislative fiat of Parliament.
  • They therefore viewed the acts as a threat to the liberties of all of British America, not just Massachusetts.

• Tax Protests

  • The first wave of protests attacked the Stamp Act of 1765, and marked the first time Americans from each of the thirteen colonies met together and planned a common front against illegal taxes.
  • The British responded by trying to crush traditional liberties in Massachusetts, leading to the American revolution starting in 1775.
  • The Parliament attempted a series of taxes and punishments which met more and more resistance, namely the First Quartering Act (1765), the Declaratory Act (1766), the Townshend Revenue Act (1767), and the Tea Act (1773).
  • In response to the Boston Tea Party Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts: the Second Quartering Act (1774), the Quebec Act (1774), the Massachusetts Government Act (1774), the Administration of Justice Act (1774), the Boston Port Act (1774), and the Prohibitory Act (1775).
  • By this point, the 13 colonies had organized themselves into the Continental Congress and began setting up shadow governments and drilling their militia in preparation for war.

• Government in the English Colonies

  • The way the British government was run in the colonies inspired what the Americans would write in their Constitution.
  • The variety of taxes imposed led to American disdain for the British system of government.
  • After the Boston Tea Party, Great Britain's leadership passed acts that outlawed the Massachusetts legislature.
  • The Quartering Act and the Intolerable Acts required Americans provide room and board for British soldiers.
  • American distaste for British government would lead to revolution.

• The Glorious Revolution in America

  • He had revoked the Massachusetts Bay Colony charter in 1684 after its Puritan rulers refused to act on his demands to streamline the administration of the small colonies and bring them more closely under the crown's control.
  • He also enforced the Navigation Acts, laws that restricted New England trade.
  • James also attempted to place sympathizers in Parliament who would repeal the Test Act, which required a strict Anglican religious test for many civil offices.
  • The Massachusetts agents then petitioned the new monarchs and the Lords of Trade (who oversaw colonial affairs) for restoration of the Massachusetts charter.
  • As a result, the restored governments lacked legal foundations for their existence.

• The Dominion of New England

  • Andros' commission called for governance by himself, again with a council.
  • He also enforced the Navigation Acts, laws that restricted New England trade.
  • When the other New England colonies in the Dominion were informed of the overthrow of Andros, pre-Dominion colonial authorities moved to restore their former governments to power.
  • Rhode Island and Connecticut resumed governance under their earlier charters, and Massachusetts resumed governance according to its vacated charter after being temporarily governed by a committee composed of magistrates, Massachusetts Bay officials, and a majority of Andros' council.
  • As a result, the restored governments lacked legal foundations for their existence.

• Conclusion: The Consequences of the British Parliamentary Acts

  • An increasing tide of unrest rose in the British American colonies from 1763-1774 as the British government imposed a series of imperial reform measures.
  • This act recast the decade-long argument between British colonists and the home government as an intolerable conspiracy against liberty and an excessive overreach of parliamentary power.
  • The British largely ignored the demands of the Continental Congress and tried to disarm colonial insurgents in Massachusetts by confiscating their weapons and ammunition and arresting the leaders of the patriotic movement.
  • However, this effort faltered on April 19, 1775, when Massachusetts militias and British troops fired on each other as British troops marched to Lexington and Concord, an event immortalized by poet Ralph Waldo Emerson as the “shot heard round the world.”
  • (credit a: modification of work by the United Kingdom Government; credit b: modification of work by the United Kingdom Government)

• British Taxes and Colonial Grievances

  • The Sugar Act of 1764 reduced the taxes imposed by the Molasses Act, but at the same time strengthened the collection of the tax.
  • Following the Quartering Act, Parliament passed one of the most infamous pieces of legislation: the Stamp Act.
  • The legislature of Massachusetts requested to hold a conference concerning the Stamp Act.
  • Parliament repealed the Stamp Act but passed the Declaratory Act in its wake.
  • Parliament eventually agreed to repeal much of the Townshend legislation, but they refused to remove the tax on tea, maintaining that the British government retained the authority to tax the colonies.

• The Townshend Acts

  • The first of the Townshend Acts, sometimes simply known as the Townshend Act, was the Revenue Act of 1767.
  • This act represented a new approach for generating tax revenue in the American colonies after the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766.
  • The British government thought that because the colonists had objected to the Stamp Act on the grounds that it was a direct (or internal) tax, colonists would therefore accept indirect (or external) taxes, such as taxes on imports.
  • They helped end the Stamp Act in 1766.
  • In Massachusetts in 1768, Samuel Adams wrote a letter that became known as the Massachusetts Circular.

• The Dawes Act and Indian Land Allotment

  • Dawes of Massachusetts.
  • The act also provided that the government would purchase Indian land "excess" to that needed for allotment and open it up for settlement by non-Indians.
  • The Curtis Act of 1908 completed the process of destroying tribal governments by abolishing tribal jurisdiction of Indian land.
  • Government for 25 years;
  • It was followed by the Curtis Act of 1898, which dissolved tribal courts and governments.

• The Habit of Self-Government

  • Colonies have sometimes been referred to as self-governing in situations where the executive has not been under the control of the imperial government; the term self-governing can refer to the direct rule of a Crown Colony by an executive governor elected under a limited franchise.
  • This type of government was seen in Plymouth Colony between 1630 and 1684.
  • Storms forced them to land at the hook of Cape Cod, however, in what is now Massachusetts.
  • Many of the colonists chose to establish a government.
  • The Sugar Act established a tax of six pence per gallon of sugar or molasses imported into the colonies, and by 1750, the Parliament had begun to ban, restrict, or tax several more products.