aw for the American colonies, and taking away a right
which belonged to the colonial assemblies.

Washington had grown up with an intense love of law, and in this he was
like other American Englishmen. In England there were very few persons
who made the laws, the vast majority had nothing to do but to obey the
laws. Yet it is among the makers of laws that the love of law prevails;
and since in America a great many more Englishmen had to do with
government in colony and in town than in England, there were more who
passionately insisted upon the law being observed. An unlawful act was
to them an outrage. When they said that England was oppressing them,
and making them slaves, they did not mean that they wanted liberty to
do what they pleased, but that they wanted to be governed by just laws,
made by the men who had the right to make laws. And that right belonged
to the legislatures, to which they sent representatives.

So it was out of his love of law and justice that Washington and others
protested against the Stamp Act; and when the act was repealed, they
threw up their hats and hurrahed, not because they now should not have
to buy and use stamps, but because by repealing the act, Parliament had
as much as said that it was an unlawful act. However, this was an
unwilling admission on the part of Parliament, which repealed the act,
but said at once: "We can tax you if we choose to."

In fact, Parliament stupidly tried soon after to prove that it had the
right by imposing duties on tea, paper, glass, and painters' colors. But
the people in the colonies were on the alert. They had really been
governing themselves so long that now, when Parliament tried to get the
power away from them, they simply went on using their power. They did
this in two ways; the colonial governments again asserted their rights
in the case, and the people began to form associations, in which they
bound themselves not to buy goods of England until the offensive act was
repealed. This latter was one of the most interesting movements in the
breaking away of the colonies from England. It was a popular movement;
it did not depend upon what this or that colonial assembly might do; it
was perfectly lawful, and so far as it was complete it was effective.
Yet all the while the movement was doing more, and what but a very few
detected; it was binding the scattered people in the colonies together.

Washington took a great deal of interest in these association