Question

Why did the British raise taxes in the American colonies? How did colonists react?

Answer 1

Hint: In 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected president (Opens in a new window), partially because of the South's expectation that he would follow policies more in line with the interests of Southern planters and slaveholders.

Complete answer: The Stamp Act was the first direct tax on the American colonies by Parliament, and like those passed in 1764, this act was enacted to raise funds for Britain. Newspapers, Almanacs, pamphlets, broadsides, legal documents, dice, and game cards were taxed. The stamps, issued by Britain, were affixed to documents or packages to demonstrate that the tax was paid. Legal documents, magazines, playing cards, newspapers, and several other forms of paper used in the colonies were included in printed materials, and it had to be paid in British currency, not in colonial paper money. After the French and Indian War, the objective of the tax was to pay for British military troops posted in the American colonies, but the colonists had never, to begin with, expected a French invasion and believed that they had already paid their share of the war expenses.
To its Southern critics, the tariff became known as the Tariff of Abominations. Tariffs intensified sectional tensions because they increased imported product rates, which favoured the Northern domestic manufacturing industry but was poor for Southern slaveholders who had to pay higher commodity prices. Southerners also worried that higher tariffs on raw materials manufactured in the South would be enacted by foreign countries. In addition, because the British decreased their exports to the United States and They had less money to pay for US imports,
especially cotton from the South, in response to the tariffs. As a result, less cotton was supplied by the British, further depressing the Southern economy.
Indeed as his vice president, Jackson had picked John C. Calhoun, a native of South Carolina.
Many Southerners wanted Jackson to eliminate or at least decrease the so-called
Tariff of Abominations and better defend their interests than John Quincy Adams didIn July, the Tariff of 1832, which earned the support of most Southerners and Northerners in Congress, but could not satisfy South Carolina, was signed into law by Andrew Jackson. A state convention adopted the "Ordinance of nullification" in 1832, which declared tariffs of 1828, were unconstitutional. Therefore, In 1832, passed by a state convention, the Nullification Ordinance, which declared tariffs in 1828, was unconstitutional and unenforceable.
This led to the Nullification Proclamation, on 10th December which threatened to send government troops to enforce the tariffs, but in March a new negotiated tariff, the compromise Tariff of 1833, which was satisfactory to South Carolina.

Note: The crisis was over and reasons to rejoice were found on both the northern and southern sides, as the tariffs were reduced, but the doctrine of nullification of state rights remained contentious.