Hello and welcome to a history of the United States. Episode 131, the Adams family. I'd like to start off this

week by thanking everybody who was involved with the Intelligence Speech 2020 conference. Last weekend,

I had a fantastic time listening to all the brilliant talks, as well as giving two of my own. I had a solo talk

where I got to compare the Second Punic War to the Seven Years' War, as well as have a live

Q&A with some listeners. Then I was on the ancient history panel with Ryan from the history

of ancient Greece, Dominic from the history of Egypt, and Jenny and Jen from ancient history fan girl. I'm not sure

what exactly is going to happen with the audio from those two sessions, but I'm sure it will be made

available one way or another. It was also a resounding success, I think. So we'll be doing it again

in the not too distant future, but that's enough

shop talk. In our last episode, we looked at how the reaction to the Stamp Act and the Quartering Act

heated up across America. After the Virgin Resolves were published in New England, with a few more

clauses, a series of riots broke out.

Stamp distributors were forced into resigning, left, right and centre, with the notable

exception of Georgia. In a desperate attempt to gain some control of this situation, the colonial

assemblies spent late 1765 issuing further

resolves along the lines of Virginia's, namely denouncing taxation without representation. A stamp

act Congress was held in New York to establish a unified response, but there was a problem with this approach.

If they appealed to Parliament, they would explicitly acknowledge Parliament's authority over them,

which was in direct opposition to their own argument. They petitioned the King, which wasn't an

issue, but their petition to the Commons ended up

rather confused. The line they took was that the Commons should voluntarily make a distinction

which acknowledged their legislative authority over the American colonies, but that they did not have the authority to tax.

...