bout a year from when the Stamp Act had been repealed the parliament would go ahead and pass another tax on America and the British colonies to raise a revenue. This time the Townshend Act placed taxes on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea. This time the tax was being placed on the items imported into the colonies from Great Britain, not from other countries. The Townshend Act would be used to “…defray the charge of administration of justice and the support of civil government, in such provinces were it shall be necessary” (The Townshend Act). It was being used mostly to pay for government officials that required a salary. John Dickinson raised the concern once the Townshend Act was enacted. He stated, “There is another late act of parliament, which appears to me to be unconstitutional, and as destructive to the liberty of these colonies, as that mentioned in my last letter” (Dickinson, John. Letters from a farmer II). The colonists were seeing this as another way for Great Britain to raise revenue instead of regulating trade like it was supposed to do. It seems that the British designed each act not to regulate trade but to take money from a thriving American economy. Dickinson also states that it was “…designed to restrain the commerce of one part”. He is saying is that these were being used to destroy one area of commerce to better another area of commerce. This time it was a way for the British to destroy the American commerce for the goods taxed while it bettered the British because the American’s had to pay extra on the goods that they once bought without a tax. Great Britain also knew that the colonies couldn’t get these goods elsewhere other then from Great Britain. Dickinson noted this in his letters, “These colonies require many things for their use, which the laws of Great Britain prohibit them from getting any where but from her. Such are paper and ...
