What was the cause of passing the Declaratory Act in 1766?

The Stamp Act, passed in 1765 by the British Parliament, caused the first mass outbreak of violence. The Act, which required the payment of taxes on all legal documents, newspapers and other printed materials, never came into force.

Explanation:

Revolts initiated by merchants and lawyers under the auspices of the secret society “Sons of Freedom” forced the tax collectors to be revoked. A meeting on the stamp act with the majority of the colonies met in New York to protest the taxation imposed without their knowledge by the English Parliament. Frightened by the scale of resistance of the Americans, the governments of Marquis Rockingham in 1766 canceled the law on stamp duty. At the same time, a Declaratory Act was adopted, confirming the priority of parliamentary power over the colonies in all matters. The only prominent British politician who challenged the absolute sovereignty of Parliament over the colonies was William Pitt, who believed that Parliament could legislate for the colonies, but tax collection was a matter for the colonists themselves.

According to contemporaries, the purpose of the law was to resolve all misunderstandings and disagreements by establishing an undeniable provision under which Parliament had the constitutional right to make decisions and laws concerning the colonies. This would have been used if someone had had the wrong opinion and idea of abolishing the law of the press, if they had refused to do so. The Declarative Act makes it clear that it has all the rights and powers to make provisions and laws that are fully enforceable and right in the relationship between the colonies and the American people, British citizens, in all circumstances. In addition, the law stated that all votes, changes, orders, and court cases in the colonies that denied or called into question the rights and powers of Parliament under a law undeniable to the colonies were null and void in all circumstances.

Even if the law seemed clear to current generations, it was not sufficiently well formulated and vague to give people with different constitutional views what they needed. Basically, a law can be seen as covering or eliminating taxing rights, particularly if one takes the view that there are differences in taxation from the law. The initiative to introduce a reference to taxation was supposedly immediately rejected as an unnecessary challenge to the colonial situation.

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