ABSTRACT
The Declaration of Independence informed the world that the American colonies held it as self-evident that “men are created equal” and had the right, when they so desired, to “assume amongst the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them.” The modern counter-colonization movement had begun. It was the outcome of a new political philosophy, not a more or less spontaneous outbreak against repression, such as had frequently taken place when subject nations had risen against foreign oppressors who had burdened them with tributes, taken their lands, or interfered with their accustomed ways. It resulted from the actions of a self-conscious democracy, which deliberately applied the fundamental principles of Anglo-Saxon self-government to inter-imperial relations. The American colonies, who objected to the Stamp Act, took their stand on the old English principle: “No taxation without representation,” which, in their opinion, should govern the relations between a dependency and a mother-country. “They are not represented in the House of Commons,” the resolutions on the Stamp Act explained, “but only in their own assemblies, which therefore have the sole right to tax them.” 1
