Will this be a Deja'vu moment
for the Obama Administration?
On April 19, 1775 a British detachment of 800 men under the command of Lt. Col. Francis Smith was deployed to Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts to seize stored colonial arms and ammunition and to arrest the ringleaders of the plot to assert America's independence from England. What caused this action? A series of oppressive British taxes known collectively as the Intolerable Acts.

They were the result of massive British debt resulting from The Seven Year War in Europe, which had just ended. England's war debt, owed to the Rothschilds and other banking families in Europe stood at a staggering £133 million—a tax load of £18 for every man, woman and child living in England. (That's closely equivalent to Obama's debt of $2,400,000,000,000.00 today.) It was a generational debt that the great, great, grandchildren of those who fought The Seven Year War would be paying off. Conversely, Americans paid the British Crown a tax of about 18 shillings per year per person.

When George Grenville became England's Prime Minister in 1763, he decided the Americans needed to pay their fair share. The Intolerable Acts included the Colonial Currency Act which depreciated the value of colonial scrip, making it virtually worthless outside the colonies. While The Sugar Act reduced the tax on imported sugar from six to three pence per gallon (molasses being a key ingredient in making rum), it added a tax on certain wines, coffee, pimiento, cambric and printed calico, and assorted farm products, and placed a tariff on the exportation of iron and lumber from the colonies. In addition, The Sugar Act made evading these taxes a more serious crime and charged the British garrisons in America to stop the smuggling and collect the taxes. The Stamp Act (which was the first of four "intolerable acts") required a tax stamp on all commercial and legal documents, on all published material, almanacs, books, phamplets and newspapers and even playing cards and dice. The stamp you see on every deck of cards you purchase is a throwback to The Stamp Act. And, finally, adding insult to injury, Grenville enacted The Quartering Act which forced colonial citizens to billet British soldiers in their homes if there was not adequate military billeting available.

The colonies petitioned the Crown to repeal The Intolerable Acts and grant them a voice in the national government as well as a degree of control over their own local governments. By 1774, the tax revenue stream from the colonies was supporting the British government. The economy in colonial America had grown some 1000% the colonies were formed, and the birth rate in the colonies was 4 times that of England. Yet, England chose to think of the colonies as a outpost supplying its world empire.

Unwisely, the British Crown and its Parliament agreed to let the colonials address their grievances, but did not require Parliament to listen to those complaints, or work to resolve their differences. Several diplomats, most notably Benjamin Franklin, journeyed to England to warn its leaders that if tax relief did not come quickly, the colonies would no longer import British goods after Dec. 1, 1774, nor would the colonies export any American goods to England. On May 27, 1774 the Virginia House of Burgesses adopted a formal resolution calling for the creation of a Congress of the Colonies. On Sept. 9, 1774 the leaders of Suffolk County, Massachusetts met at Faneuil Hall in Boston to draft a resolution after the British governor disenfranchised the citizens of Massachusetts. The Suffolk Resolves, as they became known, denounced the Intolerable Acts and pledged to support a colonial government in Massachusetts. The draft of the Suffolk Resolves was approved was adopted at Woodward Tavern in Dedham, Massachusetts. They were ceremonially signed at the Daniel Voss House on Adams Street in Milton, Massachusetts.

Major General Thomas Gage dispatched Col. Smith to arrest the troublemakers who had been fanning the seeds of revolution in the colonies. Gage was convinced if the two troublemakers, John Hancock and Samuel Adams were arrested and shipped off to England to stand trial for treason, and then hanged, the revolution would die. First, Smith needed to seize the weapons stored in John Hancock's warehouse in Concord. As Smith's men came under fire crossing the Concord River, a second detachment under the command of Sir Hugh Percy, which was on its way to arrest Sam Adams in Lexington, also came under fire. Neither force could stand under the withering fire from colonials with smooth bore squirrel guns, and the Brits retreated back to Boston. On April 20, 1775 the colonials laid siege to Boston, and held the city until the British evacuated the city under a flag of truce eleven months later on March 17, 1776.

On July 4, 1776 the newly formed United States of America published their declaration of independence from England. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris on Sept. 3, 1783 the British realized what their arrogance cost them. Had they given their citizens in America a platform upon which to address their grievances with their government—and had that government listened and worked to resolve those differences, England today would still be the most powerful nation on Earth. Are we about to experience Deja'Vu?