Excise Bill
The Excise Bill of 1733 was a proposal by the British government of
Englishman's house is his castle".[1]
Walpole proposed the bill while at the height of his powers, during the
Whig Ascendency, but its defeat was an early sign of the waning of his dominance over British politics which came to an end in 1742. Opposition Tory Mps were joined by the emerging Patriot Whigs
to oppose the measure, signalling an alliance between these two forces.
Aftermath
Much of the ideology and arguments used against the bill in Britain, later influenced American resistance to the Stamp Act. Like the opposition to the Excise Bill, this focused on the argument that governments had a right to tax external trade through customs, but not to interfere in private exchanges by British subjects.[2]
References
- ^ Clark & Erskine-Hill 2001, p. 160.
- ^ Slaughter 1988, p. 14.
Bibliography
- Clark, J.; Erskine-Hill, H. (2001). Samuel Johnson in Historical Context. Springer.
- Langford, Paul (1975). The Excise Crisis: Society and Politics in the Age of Walpole. Clarendon Press.
- Slaughter, Thomas P. (1988). The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution. Oxford University Press.