Editor’s note: Great Britain’s powers that be tried their own hand at declaration crafting during the revolutionary era. Parliament’s aim was to put the colonists in their place — but their Declaratory Act only served to make them more unified against king and parliament over the longer haul. After repealing the loathed Stamp Act of 1765, Britain issued the Declaratory Act, as a means to reclaim at least some of their authority and dignity. In the act, parliament declared that it had carte blanche power to tax the colonists, just as it did British subjects in the motherland. Colonists considered this an usurpation of the rights given to them in the Magna Carta. After Britain lost the Revolutionary War, the Declaratory Act nonetheless remained in all its remaining colonies in the western hemisphere, and wasn’t revoked until 1964.
The Declaratory Act (March, 18, 1766)
AN ACT for the better securing the dependency of his Majesty’s dominions in America upon the crown and parliament of Great Britain.
WHEREAS several of the houses of representatives in his Majesty’s colonies and plantations in America, have of late, against law, claimed to themselves, or to the general assemblies of the same, the sole and exclusive right of imposing duties and taxes upon his Majesty’s subjects in the said colonies and plantations; and have, in pursuance of such claim, passed certain votes, resolutions, and orders, derogatory to the legislative authority of parliament, and inconsistent with the dependency of the said colonies and plantations upon the crown of Great Britain: … be it declared …,
That the said colonies and plantations in America have been, are, and of right ought to be. subordinate unto, and dependent upon the imperial crown and parliament of Great Britain; and that the King’s majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons of Great Britain, in parliament assembled, had, hash, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever.
II. And be it further declared …, That all resolutions, votes, orders, and proceedings, in any of the said colonies or plantations, whereby the power and authority of the parliament of Great Britain, to make laws and statutes as aforesaid, is denied, or drawn into question, are, and are hereby declared to be, utterly null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever.
Source:
The Statutes At Large, of England and of Great Britain, Vol. XII, John Raithby, Ed., London: Printed by George Eyre and Andrew Strahan, Printers to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, 1811, p. 480.
Image source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Great_Britain#/media/File:Westminster_16C.jpg
Further reading:
Eminent Americans, Benson J. Lossing, New York: Hovendon Company, 1890.
Events That Changed America in the 18th Century, John E. Findling, Frank A. Thackeray, Eds., Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998.
