Editing Intolerable Acts (section)

==Background==
[[File:The able doctor, or America swallowing the bitter draught (NYPL Hades-248165-425086).jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|This Patriot cartoon depicting the Coercive Acts as the forcing of tea on a Native American woman (a symbol of the American colonies) was copied and distributed in the Thirteen Colonies.|alt=A Patriot cartoon depicting the Coercive Acts as the forcing of tea on a Native American woman (a symbol of the American colonies), who is lying down, was copied and distributed in the Thirteen Colonies. Others watch and a man, believed to be Lord Sandwich, pins down her feet and peers up her skirt. The caption of the cartoon itself is "The able Doctor or America swallowing the Bitter Draught."]]

Relations between the [[Thirteen Colonies]] and the British Parliament slowly but steadily worsened after the end of the [[Seven Years' War]] (French and Indian War) in 1763. The war had plunged the British government deep into debt, and so the [[Parliament of Great Britain|British Parliament]] enacted a series of measures to increase tax revenue from the colonies. Parliament believed that these acts, such as the [[Stamp Act 1765]] and the [[Townshend Acts]] of 1767, were legitimate means of having the colonies pay their fair share of the costs of maintaining the [[British Empire]]. Although protests led to the repeal of the Stamp and Townshend Acts, Parliament adhered to the position that it had the right to legislate for the colonies "in all cases whatsoever" in the [[Declaratory Act 1766]].

Many colonists argued that under the unwritten [[British constitution]], a British subject's property could not be taken from him (in the form of taxes) without his consent (in the form of representation in government). Therefore, because the colonies were not directly represented in Parliament, it followed that Parliament had no right to levy taxes upon them, a view expressed by the slogan "[[No taxation without representation]]". After the Townshend Acts, some colonial essayists took this line of thinking even further, and began to question whether Parliament had any legitimate jurisdiction in the colonies at all.<ref>Middlekauff, ''Glorious Cause'', 241.</ref> This question of the extent of [[Parliamentary sovereignty|Parliament's sovereignty]] in the colonies was the issue underlying what became the American Revolution.