After the whole group of colonies had long been left in salutary neglect
by the British authorities, George III and his ministers undertook the
creation of an imperial control; and Parliament was too much at the king's
command for opposing statesmen to stop the project. The Americans wakened
resentfully to the new conditions. The revived navigation laws, the stamp
act, the tea duty, and the dispatch of redcoats to coerce Massachusetts
were a cumulation of grievances not to be borne by high-spirited people.
For some years the colonial spokesmen tried to persuade the British
government that it was violating historic and constitutional rights; but
these efforts had little success. To the argument that the empire was
composed of parts mutually independent in legislation, it was replied that
Parliament had legislated imperially ever since the empire's beginning, and
that the colonial assemblies possessed only such powers as Parliament might
allow. The plea of no taxation without representation was answered by the
doctrine that all elements in the empire were virtually represented in
Parliament. The stress laid by the colonials upon their rights as Britons
met the administration's emphasis upon the duty of all British subjects
to obey British laws. This countering of pleas of exemption with
pronouncements of authority drove the complainants at length from proposals
of reform to projects of revolution. For this the solidarity of the
continent was essential, and that was to be gained only by the most
vigorous agitation with the aid of the most effective campaign cries. The
claim of historic immunities was largely discarded in favor of the more
glittering doctrines current in the philosophy of the time. The demands for
local self-government or for national independence, one or both of which
were the genuine issues at stake, were subordinated to the claim of the
inherent and inalienable rights of man. Hence the culminating formulation
in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The cause of the community was to be
won under the guise of the cause of individuals.

In Jefferson's original draft of the great declaration there was a
paragraph indicting the king for having kept open the African slave trade
against colonial efforts to cl