(Guest article by Phil Hart) Back in the 1770’s there was a collection of radicals, who were highly educated in the natural law and the errors and successes of past political and economic systems. They were American Colonists with names like John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, et. al. They believed that each man was uniquely created by God and could have a personal relationship with the Creator if he or she chose to do so. This mind-set also caused these men to reject the idea that God only spoke to men through either the Pope or the King, and that the political theory of the “Divine Right of Kings” was a scam used by kings to justify their dictatorial form of government. Claiming their divine right, kings would claim they represented God to the people and that all their policies were God ordained and therefore infallible.
Instead, these radicals reasoned that if each of them were uniquely created in God’s image, not only were they all equal before God in the spiritual sense, but that every man was also equal politically. Back in the 1700’s such thinking was radical compared to the status quo. They also believed that men were capable of governing themselves and writing their own laws.
In 1765, the “Divine Right of Kings” form of government clashed with the “all men are created equal” way of thinking when the King’s government imposed a tax on tea in the American Colonies. The amount of the overall tax burden was small, only about 2%, but the way the tax was imposed on Americans was highly offensive to them. American Colonists objected to any tax being imposed on them that they did not approve of through representation in the legislative body imposing the tax.
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