Tea Party movement of what the Tea Party is, and if there is an attempt to put structure and formality around it, or to co-opt it by Washington, D.C., it's going to take away from the free-flowing nature of the true Tea Party movement. The name "Tea Party" is a reference to the Boston Tea Party, a protest in 1773 by colonists who objected to British taxation without representation, and demonstrated by dumping British tea taken from docked ships into the harbor. The event was one of the first in a series that led to the United States Declaration of Independence and the
No taxation without representation It was afterwards put forward with approbation by the celebrated Dr. Adam Smith, and advocated for a time, but afterwards rejected and strongly opposed, by Dr. Benjamin Franklin." The eloquent 1768 Petition, Memorial, and Remonstrance objecting to taxation, written by the Virginia House of Burgesses and endorsed by every other Colony, was sent to the British Government, which seems to have ignored it. The phrase had been used for more than a generation in Ireland. By 1765, the term was in use in Boston, and local politician James Otis was most famously associated with the phrase, "taxation without representation is