Existing comment:
King George III:
The king and his government reversed a long-standing hands-off approach to administering the colonies in America.
For years the colonies had flourished in a state of "salutary neglect." Britain had been content to leave the day-to-day administration of local government to its royal governors and to the colonies' own English-style representative legislatures, common-law jury courts, and local militias. Colonists bristled when the British government began to enact and execute taxes and other binding laws without deference to colonial governments or popular consent. |