The Secret Of The Original BostonTea Party- It Was Anti-Corporate! Down WithThe East Indies Company!

[TomCADem]

We always hear about the "anti-government" Tea Party, with Sharon Angle, Rand Paul and Sarah Palin leading the way and decrying efforts to regulate private industry. Heck, the Tea Partiers were MIA when it came to efforts to regulate Wall Street despite their alleged anger at Wall Street. What a difference a century or two makes with the modern Tea Party defending corporations, and the original Tea Party crowd attacking them!

http://www.boston-tea-party.org/economic-causes.html

In 1773 the East India Company was one of the strongholds of British economy. Suddenly it found itself at odds with the American non-importation restrictions on tea and with a huge inventory it could not move. The company was not able to meet its payment on dividends and loans and was moving towards bankruptcy. Of course the British government was reluctant to let it happen from fear that this may disrupt financial markets. As an alternative to a direct loan the Ministry decided to allow the company to send tea to America without paying an export duty.

The king and Lord North, losing sight of the principle involved, foolishly thought this measure would quiet the Americans, "for," North said, "men will always go to the cheapest markets." So another opportunity for reconciliation was lost. In May, Parliament passed an act in accordance with the king's desires, for so favoring the East India Company--a vast monopoly sitting heavily on the commercial enterprise of England--while respectful petitions and remonstrances from his loyal subjects in America, touching the highest interests of the nation, were treated with scorn.

The king, in answer to such papers, announced that he considered his "authority to make laws in Parliament of sufficient force and validity to bind his subjects in America in all cases whatsoever, as essential to the dignity of the crown, and a right appertaining to the state, which it was his duty to preserve entire and inviolate;" and he expressed his displeasure because, in their petitions and remonstrances, that right was brought into question.

The East India Company, hoping, yet doubting, accepted the proposed arrangement. In August they received a proper license, and filled ships with cargoes of tea for American ports. Agents were appointed at all the sea-ports to receive the tea, and relief for the embarrassed company seemed to be nigh. They were warned by Franklin and other Americans that they would suffer loss by the operation, for their countrymen would not accept the new arrangement. But Lord North quieted the fears of the Company by saying: "It is no purpose making objections, for the king will have it so. He means to try the question with the Americans."

As explained in Wikipedia:

"Because the Tea Act made legally imported tea cheaper, it threatened to put smugglers of Dutch tea out of business.<42> Legitimate tea importers who had not been named as consignees by the East India Company were also threatened with financial ruin by the Tea Act.<43> Another major concern for merchants was that the Tea Act gave the East India Company a monopoly on the tea trade, and it was feared that this government-created monopoly might be extended in the future to include other goods.<44>"

The original Tea Party activists sound more like anti-corporate liberals, rather than the corporate funded, Freedom Works crowd.

[bluestateguy]

1. Nor did the original Tea Party people care about government spending

These clowns today seem to suggest that their ancestors were just enraged, I tell you, by rampant government spending. Please.

[TomCADem]

2. The Corporate Media Has Taken The Boston Tea Party and Utterly Placed It On Its Head

Look at the Citizens United decision. How can one seriously argue that the framers of the Constitution intended to accord free speech rights to an entity like the East India Company? Can you seriously imagine the framers allowing the East India Company to use its resources to actively campaign on its own behalf?

Remember, the Revolutionary War was precipitated by the efforts of the British Government to force the colonists to

This was radical doctrine in England, though not in America, where Thomas Jefferson had made a similar argument in his Summary View of the Rights of British America. Priestley, however, was not all radicalism and seemed to concede that compensate the East India Company, which had been "injured" when the colonists threw the tea overboard. Fast forward, and the modern day Tea Party is fighting to protect the rights of corporations.

Go figure.