The Tea Act of 1773 Was a Test of Obedience
By: Michael Boldin
On May 10, 1773, the British Parliament passed the Tea Act.
To the average observer, it seemed like a break. Cheaper tea. A financial rescue for the struggling East India Company. A convenient solution.
But to the American Revolutionaries, it was a trap.
And Benjamin Rush didn’t mince words about what it meant:
“The baneful chests contain in them a slow poison in a political as well as a physical sense. They contain something worse than death – the seeds of slavery.”
This was never about tea. It was about submission. It was about accepting that Parliament could tax them – without consent.
HAMILTON’S HAMMER
More than a year before shots were fired, a young Alexander Hamilton mocked the idea that the colonies were fighting over a few pennies.
“What then is the subject of our controversy with the mother country? … What can actuate those men, who labour to delude any of us into an opinion, that the object of contention between the parent state and the colonies is only three pence duty upon tea?”
This wasn’t a debate over pennies. It was a reminder of the real fight: whether Parliament could claim – and exercise – unlimited power.
“The parliament claims a right to tax us in all cases whatsoever: Its late acts are in virtue of that claim. How ridiculous then is it to affirm, that we are quarrelling for the trifling sum of three pence a pound on tea; when it is evidently the principle against which we contend.”
THE POWER BEHIND THE PRICE
That principle didn’t emerge overnight. In 1763, Britain won the Seven Years’ War – and walked away with a mountain of debt.
As History.com explains, the British turned to the colonies to recoup their costs.
“The British government looked to its North American colonies as an untapped source of revenue. In 1765, the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, the first direct, internal tax that it had ever levied on the colonists.”
Colonial resistance nullified the Stamp Act and forced its repeal in 1766 – but not the underlying claim of power behind it.
That same day, Parliament passed the Declaratory Act, asserting power over the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.”
THE RELENTLESS PUSH
After the nullification and repeal of the Stamp Act, Parliament didn’t retreat. They regrouped – and tested colonial resolve with a new scheme.
JL Bell briefly explains the series of key events that followed
“Then in 1767, London instituted the Townshend duties. Once again, the colonies responded with nonimportation, and those taxes were repealed in 1770 – except for the one on tea.”
That remaining tax carried more than economic weight. Bell notes that by 1773, Americans had made up their minds.
“A wide swath of Americans were steeped in the beliefs that any tax levied by Parliament without local approval was despotic, and that the Tea Act was just the latest step in an attempt to oppress them.”
A DECADE OF CONFLICT
David Ramsay – writing in 1789, just years after the war ended – traced the crisis through a ten-year chain of confrontation.
“For ten years, there had now been but little intermission to the disputes between Great-Britain and her colonies. Their respective claims had never been compromised on middle ground.”
There was no misunderstanding. No middle ground. One side claimed unlimited power. The other denied it completely.
When the Stamp Act collapsed under colonial resistance, Parliament retaliated with the Townshend duties.
“The calm which followed the repeal of the stamp act, was in a few months disturbed, by the revenue act of the year 1767. The tranquility which followed the repeal of five sixths of that act in the year 1770, was nothing more than a truce.”
They gave up glass, paper, and paint – but not tea. Not because it made financial sense, but because it upheld political power.
“When the duties which had been laid on glass, paper and painters colours, were taken off, a respectable minority in parliament contended, that the duty on tea should also be removed.”
They were overruled. The reason was plain – repeal the tea tax, and you repeal the claim of power behind it.
“To this it was replied, ‘That as the Americans denied the legality of taxing them, a total repeal would be a virtual acquiescence in their claims; and that in order to preserve the rights of the Mother Country, it was necessary to retain the preamble, and at least one of the taxed articles.’”
This wasn’t buried in fine print. It was admitted openly.
Repealing the tea tax would have meant the colonies were right – so they kept it to prove Parliament still ruled.
“As the parliament thought fit to retain the tax on tea for an evidence of their right of taxation, the Americans in like manner, to be consistent with themselves, in denying that right, discontinued the importation of that commodity.”
That resistance created an uneasy balance. As long as the tea wasn’t shipped in under force, both sides were able to hold their ground under a tense peace.
“While there was no attempt to introduce tea into the colonies against this declared sense of the inhabitants, these opposing claims were in no danger of collision.”
That collision was now just one shipment away.
A BOILING POINT
The boycott wasn’t just symbolic. It caused real damage – fast.
In early 1773, Benjamin Franklin reported that the East India Company had bet against American resolve – and lost.
“The continued refusal of North America to take tea from hence, has brought infinite distress on the company. They imported great quantities in faith that that agreement could not hold”
Franklin clearly saw the outcome.
and now they can neither pay their debts nor dividends; their stock has sunk to the annihilating near three millions of their property”
But the blow didn’t stop there. The British government was bleeding too.
“…and government will lose its four hundred thousand pounds a year; while their teas lie on hand.”
Parliament had been counting on profit – and submission.
They got neither.
So they changed the plan.
THE BAIT IS SET
On May 10, 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act – designed to break the boycott without backing down on the power.
It gave the East India Company something they’d never had before – permission to ship tea directly to the American colonies without paying British export duties.
“[They may] export such tea to any of the British colonies or plantations in America, or to foreign parts, discharged from the payment of any customs or duties whatsoever”
On the surface, it sounded great. Lower prices. No more London auctions. No more middlemen.
But the goal wasn’t savings. It was submission.
Parliament wasn’t backing down. They were baiting the colonies into swallowing the tax – and the power behind it.
As noted in The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Lord North’s intent was openly declared:
“Lord North avowed the object of retaining this threepenny tax to be for the purpose of asserting and maintaining the right of Parliament to tax the colonies.”
Even full repeal was considered. But power came first.
“He said that ‘he even wished to have repealed the whole, if it could have been done without giving up that absolute right; that he should, to the last hour of his life, contend for taxing America.’”
DICKINSON’S WARNING: IT’S A TRAP
John Dickinson didn’t need to see the Tea Act to recognize the danger. He had already sounded the alarm about it six years earlier – when the Townshend duties first passed in 1767.
At the time, some argued the taxes were too minor to resist. Dickinson saw through it immediately.
“The authors of this law would never have obtained an act to raise so trifling a sum as it must do, had they not intended by it to establish a precedent for future use.”
This wasn’t about revenue. It was about writing a new rule into the imperial playbook – that Parliament could tax the colonies whenever it pleased.
Dickinson made clear what it meant to accept even the smallest part of it.
“To console ourselves with the smallness of the duties, is to walk deliberately into the snare that is set for us, praising the neatness of the workmanship.”
WARREN SAW IT TOO
Mercy Otis Warren reached the same conclusion – the price didn’t matter. The tax was a trojan horse.
“This inconsiderable duty on teas finally became an object of high importance and altercation.”
It wasn’t an accident. The British government knew exactly what it was doing – using a small tax to normalize a massive claim of power.
“It was not the sum, but the principle that was contested. It manifestly appeared that this was only a financiering expedient to raise a revenue from the colonies by imperceptible taxes.”
There was nothing neutral about it. The goal was to get Americans to accept Parliament’s power without realizing it was happening.
Warren, like Dickinson, saw the real danger – once you accept the principle, it becomes permanent policy.
THE REAL STRATEGY
Parliament didn’t just want the tax paid. They wanted it swallowed – quietly, automatically, and with no resistance.
Benjamin Franklin explained exactly how they planned to pull it off – make the tea cheap enough that Americans wouldn’t fight it. Let them drink it – and in doing so, admit Parliament’s authority.
“But now the wise scheme is to take off so much duty here as will make tea cheaper in America than foreigners can supply us, and confine the duty there, to keep up the exercise of the right.”
George Washington saw it just as clearly. It was never about money. It was about the Right, the unlimited power of the Declaratory Act.
“For Sir what is it we are contending against? Is it against paying the duty of 3d. pr lb. on Tea because burthensome? No, it is the Right only, we have all along disputed.”
This wasn’t a commercial policy. It was political subjugation – disguised as a discount. And Franklin knew how deeply they underestimated the American people.
“They have no idea that any people can act from any other principle but that of interest; and they believe that three pence in a pound of tea, of which one does perhaps drink ten pounds in a year, is sufficient to overcome all the patriotism of an American.”
THE CONTINENT RESPONDS
Britain’s defenders kept repeating the same excuse – it was just a small tax. Alexander Hamilton ripped that argument to pieces by showing exactly what it concealed.
“Our contest with Britain is founded entirely upon the petty duty of 3 pence per pound on East India tea;”
That was the claim. And then came the truth – This wasn’t about revenue. It was about sovereignty.
“Whereas the whole world knows, it is built upon this interesting question, whether the inhabitants of Great-Britain have a right to dispose of the lives and properties of the inhabitants of America, or not?”
A threepenny tax was just the tip of the spear. The real fight was over who ruled who – and whether Americans would accept their chains just because they came cheap.
NO COMPROMISE
The British believed the colonies could be worn down – that with enough pressure, the would accept the tax. But when word spread that East India tea ships were on the way, the response was swift and absolute.
Across the continent, committees, towns, and assemblies took a stand. They didn’t plead for reconsideration. They declared total opposition – and drew a clear line in the sand.
One of the strongest examples came from Boston:
“Whoever shall directly or indirectly countenance this attempt, or in any wise aid or abet in unloading receiving or vending the Tea sent or to be sent out by the East India Company while it remains subject to the payment of a duty here is an Enemy to America.”
That was no metaphor. It was policy. Anyone who helped land the tea wasn’t just aiding the enemy – they were the enemy, and should be treated accordingly.
In Pennsylvania, Benjamin Rush made the cost of obedience explicit. Let the tea come ashore, and the cause of liberty was lost.
“Should it be landed, it is to be feared it will find its way amongst us. Then farewell American liberty. We are undone forever.”
Then he stripped away every excuse – and named the true content of every crate.
“The baneful chests contain in them a slow poison in a political as well as a physical sense. They contain something worse than death – the seeds of slavery.”
The fight wasn’t over tea.
It was over whether Americans would accept chains – simply because they were offered at a discount.
A FINAL WARNING
The colonies had been mocked, dismissed, and baited into obedience. Hamilton responded with calm resolve and clarity.
“We neither desire, nor endeavour to threaten, bully, or frighten any persons into a compliance with our demands. We have no peevish and petulant humours to be submitted to.”
Hamilton didn’t reach for polite objections or cautious appeals. He took the gloves off and went straight for the knockout.
“All we aim at, is to convince your high and mighty masters, the ministry, that we are not such asses as to let them ride us as they please.”
That was no petition.
It was a warning.
“We are determined to shew them, that we know the value of freedom; nor shall their rapacity extort, that inestimable jewel from us, without a manly and virtuous struggle.”
The American colonists were given a choice: surrender for a cheap cup of tea, or stand on principle.
They tossed the tea and lit the fuse.
