Townshend Acts

During June and July 1767, the British parliament passed a series of four laws known as the Townshend Acts. The name came from Charles Townshend (1725–1767), who was the chancellor of the exchequer and who sponsored the laws. The Townshend Acts angered the American colonists, leading to extensive protests throughout the British colonies.

The acts

The first of the four laws was the Suspending Act. It suspended the activities of the New York State Assembly, the colony's lawmaking body, until the colony complied with the Quartering Acts of 1765. That law required colonies to supply British troops stationed in their areas with shelter and other necessary supplies.

An increased amount of troops being stationed in New York presented an unexpected financial burden for the colony. Instead of providing funding for all of the troops, the Assembly had chosen to appropriate funds only for the usual number of troops, refusing to provide additional monies. The Suspending Act, which forced New York to comply with the Quartering Acts, caused great concern among the colonists. They worried that Parliament's assumption of authority over a colonial legislature might lead to attacks on other American rights and to enforcement of other laws that the colonists considered unjust.

The second of the four Acts was the Townshend Duties Act. It is perhaps the best known of the Townshend Acts because it served to establish England's right to tax the American colonies. Earlier British attempts to impose taxes directly on goods (such as sugar and stamps) were met with violent protests. In an effort to avoid such controversies, Townshend proposed a series of indirect taxes on luxury goods that were typically imported to the colonies from England. Duties were imposed on glass of all kinds, paper, lead, painters' colors, and tea.

The duties stirred anger both in the colonies and in England. English merchants and manufacturers complained that it would encourage competing industries in America or discourage the use of the taxed items. American colonists were again angered by England's taxation of the colonies without colonial representation in Parliament.

With the third of the Townshend Acts Parliament established a Board of Customs Commissioners. The board was stationed in Boston to have complete control over customs, or import taxes, in the American colonies. It had broad authority to search and seize colonists' property to collect unpaid taxes and to punish smugglers. Five new customs officials were dispatched to Boston, and new Courts of Admiralty were created for trials of accused smugglers without juries.

The cost of running the board and the new courts was to be paid out of tax revenue and out of seizures from smugglers. Anything collected beyond those costs was to be used to pay the salaries of judges, governors, and other crown employees in the colonies. Until then, such salaries had been paid annually by local assemblies, or legislatures. This form of local self-government had allowed the colonies to maintain some control over the royal officers.

Parliament's new system removed local control and thus was seen by the colonists as a form of political enslavement. Colonial resentment took the form of agitation, nonimportation agreements, evasion of the duties, promotion of competing American businesses, and even open hostility to the enforcing officers.

The fourth of the Townshend Acts permitted tea to be imported to the colonies free of all taxes placed on goods passing through England for the colonies.

Impact of the Townshend Acts

The Townshend Acts provoked serious protests in the colonies. Opposition to the taxes led the customs commissioners to request the support of British troops in 1768. Most of the troops were withdrawn in 1769, but two regiments remained. Strained relations between the colonists and the soldiers led to the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770. By coincidence, most of the Townshend Acts were repealed that same day, with the exception of the tax on tea. It was left as a symbol of Parliament's authority to tax the colonies.