Declaration of Independence (Grievance 13): The King Imposes Parliament’s Illegitimate Laws on the Colonies

This is the eleventh episode in a podcast series celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by exploring the colonies’ grievances against King George III. Thomas Jefferson attributes seventeen of the grievances in the Declaration of Independence to King George III exclusively, and ten to King George and Parliament. The first of these ten, Grievance 13, charges that Parliament, which Jefferson refers to as the “others,” has no authority over the colonies. Consequently, the King’s implementation of Parliament’s laws in the colonies is an act of tyranny. The Framers of the Constitution debated the extent to which the British Parliament should serve as a model for the new Congress and avoided Parliament’s problems of virtual representation and rotten boroughs by providing under the Constitution for a census and redistricting every ten years.