No taxation without representation the House of Commons must include colonial representatives when it voted on colonial matters, or operate by using the consent of the colonial Assemblies. The Americans rejected the Stamp Act of 1765 brought in by British Prime Minister George Grenville, and violently rejected the remaining tax on tea imports, under the Tea Act passed in May 1773, at the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773. The Parliament considered this an illegal act because they believed it undermined the authority of the Crown-in-Parliament. When the British then used the military to enforce laws that the colonists believed Parliament had passed
No taxation without representation to legitimise the pernicious policies of the Stamp Act. In English history, "no taxation without representation" was an old principle and meant that Parliament had to pass all taxes. At first, the "representation" was held to be one of land, but, by 1700, this had shifted to the notion that, in Parliament, all British subjects had a "virtual representation." "We virtually and implicitly allow the institutions of any government of which we enjoy the benefit and solicit the protection," declared Samuel Johnson in his political pamphlet "Taxation No Tyranny". He rejected the plea that the colonists, who had no vote,