Understanding No Taxation Without Representation

foreign hi this is Mr image in order to better understand the American Revolution and the issues behind taxation we should probably know a little bit more about how the government is set up in terms of England and the colonies this isn't going to be a super deep dive but should be relatively quick so one thing we need to know is that the colonies are under the control of the British governments and the British government is a constitutional monarchy we'll come back to that in a minute the people living in the American colonies are British citizens

and are subject to British law so let's find out how laws are passed in England so again under a constitutional monarchy we do have a monarch who acts essentially as the executive their power is to enforce the laws now under a constitutional monarchy the people also were represented via a legislative branch of government called Parliament Parliament is made up of two houses the House of Lords and the House of Commons but that's not important for this lesson but what is important is to understand that this legislative body makes the laws and this legislative body is

generated by votes from the male population of England's not many men in England could vote but they did vote to elect representatives to Parliament and Parliament acting on behalf of the British people would then pass laws everybody in England and everybody within the Empire would be subject to those laws including people in the colonies and this is where we start to see a real issue the colonists are British citizens but have no representation in Parliament they don't send anybody across the Atlantic to sit in parlor to actively participate in conversation and debate or to vote

on any legislation Parliament says that the colonies have virtual representation just like everybody else in England because not everybody in England can vote Parliament takes that into consideration when making its laws and just dies to do its best to make sure that the laws are fair to everybody but the colonists aren't buying this and without representation in Parliament that is going to become a huge issue and the basis for the protests against the taxes implemented and then enforced by the king so that's what the phrase no taxation without representation means and it's one that we

are going to hear as we go through our lessons on the American Revolution hopefully this clears up and will help you to understand this phrase and other things connected to it as we move forward and look at the events leading up to the start of the American Revolution thanks for watching and I hope you learned something [Music] foreign