On this day 250 years ago in London, Parliament passed Lord North’s “Conciliatory Resolution.” Although it promised to revoke taxes on any Colony that agreed to tax itself, the American revolution had become about much more than taxes and it would arrive in the Colonies only after Lexington and Concord. This was too little too late:

Resolved, That it is the opinion of this Committee, that when the Governour, Council, and Assembly, or General Court, of any of his Majesty’s Provinces or Colonies in America, shall propose to make provision, according to the condition, circumstances, and situation of such Province or Colony, for contributing their proportion to the common defence, (such proportion to be raised under the authority of the General Court, or General Assembly of such Province or Colony, and disposable by Parliament,) and shall engage to make provision also for the support of the Civil Government, and the Administration of Justice, in such Province or Colony, it will be proper if such proposal shall be approved by his Majesty and the two Houses of Parliament, and for so long as such provision shall be made accordingly, to forbear, in respect of such Province or Colony, to levy any Duty, Tax, or Assessment, or to impose any farther Duty, Tax, or Assessment, except only such Duties as it may be expedient to continue to levy or to impose for the regulation of commerce; the nett produce of the duties last mentioned to be carried to the account of such Province or Colony respectively.

Source: https://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=UA47VCCY1LBJUK1

In Massachusetts, “Novanglus” (aka John Adams) quoted legal scholars that

“the laws of God and men, are therefore of no effect, when the magistracy is left at liberty to break them; and if the lusts of those who are too strong for the tribunals of justice, cannot be otherwise restrained than by sedition, tumults and war, those seditions, tumults and wars, are justified by the laws of God and man.

“I will not take upon me to enumerate all the cases in which this may be done, but . . . when he or they . . . assume a power . . . that the law does not give; or turn that which the law does give, to an end different and contrary to that which is intended by it.

“The same course is justly used against a legal magistrate, who takes upon him to exercise a power which the law does not give: for in that respect he is a private man, . . . and may be restrained as well as any other, because he is not set up to do what he lists, but what the law appoints for the good of the people; and as he has no other power than what the law allows, so the same law limits and directs the exercise of that which he has.”

Applying the legal principles to Massachusetts, Adams contended:

The port bill, charter bill, murder bill, Quebec bill, making all together such a frightful system, as would have terrified any people, who did not prefer liberty to life, were all concerted at once: but all this art and violence have not succeeded. This people under great trials and dangers, have discovered great abilities and virtues, and that nothing is so terrible to them as the loss of their liberties. If these arts and violences are persisted in, and still greater concerted, and carried on against them, the world will see that their fortitude, patience and magnanimity will rise in proportion.

Source: “VI. To the Inhabitants of the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay, 27 February 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-02-02-0072-0007. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 2, December 1773 – April 1775, ed. Robert J. Taylor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977, pp. 288–307.]