- Podcasts
Podcasts - Videos
Videos - Policy Issues
Policy Issues - About
About
CAUSE: In the 1680s Governor Andros became wildly unpopular for his enforcement of the restrictive and protectionist Navigation Acts. In addition, he insisted on levying taxes on liquor, merchandise and provisions, and collected an incredibly punitive property tax, an excise tax, a tonnage duty, and a poll tax that was particularly regressive. Property was taxed at a rate of 2 shillings per 100 acres in 1682, and by 1688, he'd increased taxes on wine, rum, brandy and strong waters. (Barnes, p.80-85)
RESPONSE: Incensed by the high level of taxes, and encouraged by the Glorious Revolution that had recently occurred in England, Bostonians organized an armed rebellion that successfully overthrew Governor Andros. Andros was arrested, paraded through the streets, and then deported to England.
CAUSE: In 1733 Great Britain's Molasses Act took effect and exacted a tariff of 6 pence per gallon on molasses imported from non-British territories. Failure to pay the tax would result in confiscation of the molasses and imprisonment. In effect, the tariff aimed to outright prevent molasses imports that didn't come from Britain or her colonies. The Americans complained because they distilled huge quantities of molasses into rum; a staple export that enabled them to purchase British manufactures.
RESPONSE: New England was so dependent on foreign molasses that Americans evaded the tax by smuggling molasses from their longtime trade partners. At the same time, Great Britain's Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, did not enforce collection of the tax: "The Walpoles were willing to appease the powerful [British] West Indies planters by passing the Molasses Act. But they were not willing to wreck the colonial economy by enforcing it..." (Rothbard, p.712). In short, Americans avoided the tax via an act of de facto nullification: "Thus the New England merchants survived—but only by nullifying an act of Parliament" (Miller, p.99). The Act was eventually repealed and replaced by the Sugar Act of 1764 which cut the tariff rate in half. However, this Act would be enforced.
CAUSE: In 1765 England enacted the Stamp Act requiring papers of all sorts to have a stamp embossed on them. Of course, acquiring this official, stamped paper came at a premium price. But the stamp was also a deliberate means to demoralize and suppress rowdy, disobedient New Englanders, and to pit them against the loyal Tories. As Michael Boldin writes, "[The stamp] was also framed by a well-known French phrase of the time, which translated to 'Shame to him who thinks evil of it,'" a not-so-subtle way of telling Americans that they were bad royal subjects who ought to show more gratitude toward their King. The papers requiring embossing were, of course, legal documents and commercial papers, but also newspapers, pamphlets, almanacs, and even playing cards. Newspapers and pamphleteers were particularly affected by this tax since they produced papers in such high quantities. Naturally, they became the most vociferous opponents of the Act.
RESPONSE: Protests erupted all throughout New England. Masses of people took to the streets in Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and Virginia. John Dickinson identified the Act for what it really was: "...an EXPERIMENT OF YOUR DISPOSITION. If you quietly bend your Necks to that Yoke, you prove yourselves ready to receive and Bondage to which your Lords and Masters shall please to subject you." The Loyal Nine of Boston burned effigies of Stamp Act commissioner Andrew Oliver, burned down his office, raided his home, and ultimately forced his resignation (Irvin, p.202). In the Virginia House of Burgesses, Patrick Henry introduced The Virginia Resolves to nullify the Stamp Act. The House passed five of these, later revoking one, and successfully nullified the Act. This was also the occassion upon which Henry is alleged to have said "If this be treason, make the most of it!" All throughout the colony tax collectors were forced to resign through intimidation or violence, and soon enough, the Act was null. After considerable and prolonged resistance, England repealed the Act in March of 1766 (Morgan, Ch.10).
CAUSE: Governor Tryon and Colonel Fanning ruled with an iron fist. Together, the two exacted some of the harshest punishment in all of New England. According to contemporary George Sims of Granville County, taxes and fees were so excessive that residents were often forced to become the slaves of state and county officials. For example, failure to pay a 5 pound fee also meant serving 21 days in the labor of the county clerk, 19 days of service to pay for legal fees, and 19 days in service of the county Sheriff for the inconvenience of booking these tax delinquents. In addition to high fees, punitive taxes—particularly a poll tax—were collected and embezzled by the authorities, especially Colonel Fanning. As Rothbard explains, the county sheriffs would arrive at a farmer's house unannounced, demanding he pay the poll tax on the spot. When farmers did not have the money on hand, but asked to be given time to borrow or sell their produce, the Sheriffs refused, arrested the farmer, seized his farm, then sold it to a friend. The Sheriff would embezzle some of the revenue, put some in the treasury, and give the remainder to Colonel Fanning who the used it to build a mansion on a large estate.
RESPONSE: The multi-year conflict oscilated between violent uprising and negotiation with Governor Tryon. On several occassions the Governor agreed to redress the Regulators' concerns, but each time a deal was struck would continue to extort high taxes, sieze property and jail protestors. The penultimate conflict occurred in September 1770 when 150 Regulators stormed the county courthouse, forcing Judge Richard Henderson to flee for his life. The Regulators then captured courthouse lawyer John Williams and a number of county bureaucrats and beat them half to death. Colonel Fanning was also captured. But unlike his counterparts, he recieved special treatment. The Regulators took him from the courthouse, stripped him of his clothing and whipped him in public before burning down his house. Less than a year later the Regulators faced off against the Governor's militia in an armed conflict. The militia had trouble calling up men into service and only managed to accumulate a force of approximately 1,100 men. The Regulators, on the other hand, had more than 2,000. Despite their superior numbers, however, the Regulators lost the battle within two hours in a resounding defeat. Meanwhile, back in England, the king had heard of the unrelenting conflict in North Carolina. In 1771 he reassigned Tryon to become Governor of New York. Colonel Fanning went with him to become his secretary. When the new Governor of North Carolina arrived, among his first acts was to pardon the Regulators.
CAUSE: Inflation of the Continental Dollar made Americans cash poor. Hardly anyone was willing to accept it so the Continental fell out of use. Yet, the people of Massachusetts were forced to pay their taxes in this defunct currency, and Revolutionary war veterans had not been paid for their service. Still, their tax bills came due at regular intervals in order to facilitate the State's repayment of its debt to creditors who enjoyed the most favorable terms in the Union. In Massachusetts, taxes were incredibly high: the poll tax was four times higher than New Hampshire's and accounted for 1/3 of the State's revenue. On top of that there were levied high import taxes, excise taxes, and property taxes. In total, "10% of State taxes came from import and excise taxes, 90% came from property and poll taxes," and the total tax burden on individuals consumed 1/3 of their income. Rufus King had even written to John Adams that he feared the tax burden in Massachusetts was "heavier than the people could bear."
RESPONSE: Having served in the War but received no compensation for his patriotism, Daniel Shays of Massachuseets helped raise a rebel army of 4,000 men who would later face off against the State militia. The men in Shays's army did not view themselves as rebels or insurrectionists, though. They believed that the State had devolved to tyranny, and so required "regulation." One recruitment form read: "We do Each one of us acknowledge our Selves to be Inlisted...in Colo Hazeltons Regiment of Regulators...for the suppressing of tyrannical government in the Massachuseets state." The Regulation army had planned an attack on the Springfield Armory for January 25th, but one Regulation leader, Luke Day, changed the plan. Day had sent a letter to Shay and Parson's forces but it was intercepted. So, on the 25th of January, two Regulation regiments marched on the Armory instead of three. The militia guarding the armory peppered the Regulation with cannon fire and grapeshot, and the Regulation forces were immediately routed. Thus, Shays's Rebellion was defeated. But in the aftermath of the conflict, the State of Massachusetts actually cut taxes to only a tenth of what they were by 1790. They also passed a moratorium on debts and restructured their own, killing the cash cow that creditors had so enjoyed. Hundreds of Regulators were charged with treason but soon after pardoned. A handful were actually imprisoned and hung. But most, if not all, of the Regulators' leaders were pardoned.
CAUSE: In 1791 the U.S. Congress passed an excise tax on whiskey. The tax was fairly modest, ranging from an excise of 6 cents to 18 cents per gallon. However, the higher end of the tax applied to smaller distilleries and had regressive effects that disproportionately harmed small time farmers distilling excess corn into whiskey.
RESPONSE: Since the bulk of the tax incidence fell on smaller distilleries, farmers simply didn't pay the tax and collectors didn't bother collecting it. All throughout the backcountry tax collectors resigned, and offices remained vacant. Then and now, Americans love their liquor, and almost no one in the frontier or backcountry of any state paid the tax. In fact, in Kentucky, there is no evidence that anyone in the State ever paid the tax. The Governor there had offered an extremely enticing fee payable to anyone willing to inform on non-compliers, but never acquired a single informant. Neither did any jury ever convict anyone in the State of Kentucky. Just one year after the Whiskey Tax took effect, Congress attempted to modify and lower the tax to increase compliance. But that didn't work either. People still refused to pay the tax. In 1794, Congress tried again and lowered the tax, but that failed too. Finally, in 1802, Congress gave up and repealed the Whiskey Tax entirely.
CAUSE: In 1798 the U.S. was on the verge of war with France. As a preparatory measure, the Congress and President Adams began to raise an army financed by a new tax called the House Tax. The House Tax amounted to a property tax that taxed land, slaves, and houses according to the number of windows and doors. At the same time, Congress had passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which further stoked discontent.
RESPONSE: Feeling that the tax was unconstitutional, an armed rebellion consisting of Pennsylvania Dutch (Germans), and “led” by one John Fries, sprung up in three Pennsylvania counties to nullify the tax. Pennsylvanians in these counties had already been refusing to pay the new tax, and used violence to dissuade tax collectors by beating them, threatening them, or in some cases, scalding them with hot water. Many tax collectors resigned and their offices remained vacant. When the Pennsylvania Germans learned that their pacifist brethren who refused to fight in the Revolution—Mennonites and Quakers—were becoming tax collectors, they felt wildly betrayed: “All these people who were Tories in the last war mean to be leaders…they mean to make us slaves” said John Fries. The rebellion came to a head when Fries and his militia got word that 20 tax resistors had been arrested by U.S. Marshall William Nichols and were being held in a tavern in Bethlehem. Fries arrived with a considerable force and secured their release, but President Adams later sent a militia to quash the rebellion. Fries and others turned themselves in and were charged with insurrection and sentenced to death. But, in keeping with American tradition, President Adams later pardoned them for their offenses.
CAUSE: In 1816 the U.S. passed its first ever tariff bill. The effect of this modest tariff was to raise revenue to support the Federal government, but it suffered pushback from the Southern states–the Union's principal importer and exporter. Tariffs were increased again in 1824 when Henry Clay of Kentucky helped pass a tariff on manufactures that almost doubled the average tariff rate. Southerners immediately labeled the bill unconstitutional, claiming it violated the Constitution's requirement that taxes be "uniform," and remarked that the South had little in the way of manufacturing and so depended on cheap manufactures from Great Britain. The same protests arose once more in 1828 with the passage of yet another tariff bill, known in the South as The Tariff of Abominations. This time, the average tariff rate would be 50% on manufactured imports.
RESPONSE: In response to the Abominable Tariff, John Quincy Adams's Vice President, John C. Calhoun, annonymously wrote the South Carolina Exposition and Protest. He argued that the tariff was unconstitutional on the grounds that it was a protectionist act meant to benefit Northern industry at the expense of the Southern economy: "the protection of one branch of industry, at the expense of others, is unconstitutional, unequal and oppresive." In the election of 1828, Adams lost re-election to Andrew Jackson, and Calhoun, again, was Vice President. South Carolina had threatened nullification of the tariff, and a compromise tariff was signed by Jackson in the early part of 1832, but the drafters did little to address South Carolina's grievances. Partly in response to this, Calhoun resigned as Vice President and became a U.S. Senator for the State of South Carolina. Then, in November of 1832 South Carolina adopted its Ordinance of Nullification, stating that the tariff was "unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States, and violated the true meaning and intent thereof." And, that the tariff was "null, void, and no law..." The State refused to enforce or collect the tariff until an earnest attempt at compromise had been made, and even set aside money for the State militia to enforce their decision, stating that if the Federal government attempted to force collection of the duty, that they would secceed from the Union: "[South Carolina] will forthwith proceed to organize a separate government, and do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of right do." Thus began the Nullification Crisis. With haste, Congress wrote and passed a new tariff bill that lowered rates enough to satisfy South Carolina, and the Crisis was over. But, not willing to let South Carolina have the final say, Congress and President Jackson also passed the Force Bill–a bill authorizing the use of military force against any State which attempted to prevent collection of tax revenues. In a final act of defiance, Calhoun gave a speech in the Senate called "Against the Force Bill" while the South Carolina legislature nullified the Force Bill. In the end, South Carolina and Calhoun's protests resulted in a compromise tariff bill that cut rates in half over the next ten years and avoided disunion...for the time being.
CAUSE: Leading up to the Depression years, Chicago had become the poster child for tax corruption and local tyranny. Multiple government sources at the time reported that Cook County alone had “446 separate units of government, each possessing autonomous power to levy taxes” (p.36). Collapsing real estate values, in conjunction with inflexible and unequal property tax assessments, fanned the flames of the subsequent tax revolt. The Chicago Board addressed the issue of high and unfair tax assessments by reassessing property values and lowering tax rates. During this same period from May 1928 thru April 1930, taxpayers did not have to pay any taxes–they were deferred to a later date. However, to fund its operations in the meantime, the City had to borrow money at a 6% interest rate––almost double the U.S. average. By December 1929, the City was in a fiscal crisis and chose to suspend “salaries for police, teachers, and other key employees” (p.41). After, the City formalized a plan to collect those deferred taxes and boost its revenue: “In effect, the plan left taxpayers with only sixteen months to pay three years’ worth of tax bills.” Then, the Tax Strike began.
RESPONSE: Very much led by the Association of Real Estate Taxpayers, Chicagoans went on a tax strike. In May 1931, the Chicago treasurer reported “that only 55% of total tax levies…had been collected prior to 15 May” (p.66), and ARET had gained more than 30,000 members by the end of 1932. People regularly took to the streets to protest and picket: blue collar workers, teachers’ unions, and many other organizations. ARET and its members were soon slandered as “anarchists” promoting lawlessness and the collapse of government, and the mayor even threatened to shut off the city water. In the end, the Tax Strike was a mixed success. As Bieto writes, “Between 1933 and 1940, the general property tax declined by a marginal .9%... [but] the total local tax load for Chicago increased 15.4%...” (p.96).
CAUSE: The Great Depression caused the market for farmers’ crops to vanish. Price controls, the Smoot-Hawley tariff, increased income tax rates on low income earners, and mandatory crop destruction imposed by FDR meant that most of them had no money at all, despite tens of thousands of people suffering from starvation in the cities. The Great Depression was one of the worst times to be an American, especially a farmer. To complicate matters, many of these farmers had large mortgages on their farms and were still required to make regular payments in the usual amount. Farmers in Plymouth County, Iowa and Primghar, Iowa tried in earnest to seek tax forgiveness and more favorable mortgage terms but to no avail. Indebted farmers were routinely having their farms foreclosed on and forced into homelessness. But the local Judges and Sheriffs did not just let this happen–they authorized and partook in seizing farmers' land.
RESPONSE: After significant farmer protests in January threatened to lynch lawyers bidding on foreclosed farms, the Iowa legislature passed a moratorium on mortgages, and Plymouth County officially suspended farm foreclosures. Despite these measures, farm foreclosures continued in Plymouth, all authorized by Judge Charles Bradley. In April, Plymouth farmers stormed Bradley's courthouse and kidnapped him. These farmers drove him to the edge of town where they found a tree and fixed a noose around his neck, ready to hang him. Apparently they thought better of stringing him up, and left him there to walk back to town on his own. More than 125 farmers were arrested after martial law was declared, but only 7 served any jail time. Around the same time in Primghar, a lawyer—escorted by the sheriff and his deputies—came to a group of farmers with a court order to pay their debts. Outraged at their disregard for the Legislature's suspension of mortgage payments, the farmers beat the lawyer, the sheriff, and the sheriff's deputies until they begged for their lives. The farmers decided to let them go, but with some conditions: “The lawyer was asked to accept token payments on the mortgages with a promise of more money when times improved.” He agreed, and the farmers made their second demand: “...that the sheriff and his deputies and even the lawyer should fall on their knees in front of the courthouse and kiss the American flag...They did that too.”
CAUSE: Stagflation, an oil crisis, high taxes and a plethora of regulatory red tape ushered in a period of serious economic decline in the 1970s. The oil crises of 1973 and 1979 led to serious rationing of oil and gasoline that disrupted entire supply chains. At the same time, the Federal Reserve was attempting to "help" the economy by breaking the link between the Dollar and gold, and injecting cheap credit into the economy. From 1970 to 1980 the Fed printed huge quantities of money, increasing the money supply two-and-a-half fold. Federal income tax rates were among the highest rates there had ever been, and State tax collections were not much better.
RESPONSE: Although taxes, high inflation and high interest rates led to Jimmy Carter losing his re-election campaign, President Carter made a significant and successful effort to deregulate the economy's trucking, airline, communications, and energy sectors before leaving office. Not until California Governor Ronald Reagan became president, though, did the U.S. finally reform its federal tax code. In 1981 the U.S. passed the Economic Recovery Tax Act which lowered the income tax by "an average of 23%, lowered the capital gains rate by 29%, and reduced business taxes..." This reform was made possible because of tax resistance at the State level in the latter half of the previous decade. Notably, California passed Proposition 13 in 1978 which limited property taxes by capping revenue, rates, and prescribing a rule for when property could be reassessed. More than 40 other states followed suit by imposing property tax restrictions of their own, while "15 states lowered their income-tax rates, and 10 states indexed their state income taxes for inflation."
CAUSE: In the late 2000s several events led to the formation of a national tax protest movement. Continued high spending and taxes during the final years of President Bush's term, the election of President Obama and his loan forgiveness plan during the Great Recession, Rick Santelli's viral speech on the floor of the Chicago Exchange, and later, the passing of the Affordable Care Act.
RESPONSE: Millions of Republicans and conservatives organized at the grassroots level all across the country. Protests were held throughout the United States expressing people's distaste for a decade's worth of perpetually high taxes, bailouts, wars and subsidies. The Tea Party's most significant protest was held at the U.S. capitol on September 12th, 2009, with more than 1.8 million people in attendance according to the Capitol Police. The Tea Party was able to elect dozens of representatives to Congress. A few years later, the Individual Mandate required by the ACA was repealed, and Donald J. Trump was elected president in 2016 on the pretext of "Draining the Swamp", and re-elected in 2024 to cut out waste, fraud, and abuse.
CAUSE: Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers used his veto power to strike out individual characters in a fiscal bill providing a temporary increase in the amount of per pupil education funding. The Governor struck out individual characters to lengthen the period of the increase from 2 years to 400 years. The effect was to increase per pupil spending by an additional $325 every year, such that by the end of 2425, schools would have an additional $120,000 per student.
RESPONSE: The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Evers's veto. Will the people of Wisconsin and their elected representatives embrace the American spirit of principled resistance to tyranny and fight back against unjust taxation like their forefathers did? This history is still being written, and only time will tell.
A special thanks to Mert Cukuren for the timeline source code. Copyright permission has been granted by the license below:
Copyright (c) 2025 by Mert Cukuren (https://codepen.io/knyttneve/pen/bgvmma) Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
This project is not comprehensive of all organized, popular instances of tax resistance. If you are aware of a significant event in the history of American tax resistance that you think ought to be included, send an email to mlucas@maciverinstitute.com with the following information: the date of the event, the name of the event, the location of the event, a summary of the causes and the results of the resistance effort, and titles of or links to at least one credible source (primary or secondary).
The Boston Tea Party of 1773 and its analogues throughout New England were excluded in part because the events are so well known, but also because they do not exactly fall under the umbrella of tax resistance. The Tea Act actually lowered the duties on imported tea. The destruction of tea throughout New England was a response to the legislation being passed without representation in the colonies, and because of the monopoly privileges extended to the East India Tea Company. Many revolutionary resistance movements were an objection not to taxation per se, but to unrepresentative government. The Revolutionaries believed that taxes could only be exacted at the local level because it was at the local level that they were represented.
Abraham Lincoln's income tax, created by the Revenue Act of 1861, was excluded because there was no evidence of any popular, organized tax resistance. The income tax's failure during its first year appears to be for lack of a sufficient enforcement and collection mechanism. War time patriotism, sectional partisanship, and the heavy-handedness of Lincoln and his administration appear to have overridden any anti-tax sentiment that may have been present.
Instances of tax resistance by individuals have been excluded because they are not popular, organized tax resistance movements. Therefore, folks like Thoreau have been omitted.
Boston Revolt, William A. Crafts, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Molasses Act, John Cleveley the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Stamp Act, See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
North Carolina Regulation, See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Shays's Rebellion, C. Kendrick, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Whiskey Rebellion, Unidentified, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fries's Rebellion, F.A. Chapman, Public Domain, via Library of Congress
Nullification Crisis, Charles Bird King, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Chicago Tax Strike, National Archives at College Park, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Iowa Farmers' Revolt, US Office of War Information, Public Domain, via Library of Congress
1980s Tax Reform, Levan Ramishvili, Public Domain, via Flickr
Tea Party Movement, The MacIver Institute
Tony Evers's Tax Hike Veto, The MacIver Institute
Adams, Charles. Those Dirty Rotten Taxes: The Tax Revolts That Built America. Free Press, 1999.
Barnes, Viola Florence. The Dominion of New England: A Study in British Colonial Policy. F. Ungar Pub. Co, 1960.
Beito, David T. Taxpayers in Revolt: Tax Resistance during the Great Depression. University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
Boaz, David. “Know Your Libertarian History: The Great Tax Revolt of the 1970s.” Cato.Org, 31 Jan. 2014, www.cato.org/blog/know-libertarian-history-great-tax-revolt-1970s.
Boldin, Michael. “Tax Resistance and the Birth of the American Revolution.” Tenth Amendment Center, 15 Apr. 2025, tenthamendmentcenter.com/2025/04/15/tax-resistance-and-the-birth-of-the-american-revolution/.
Boldin, Michael. “The Stamp Act Nullified: Colonial Resistance In Action.” Tenth Amendment Center, 1 Nov. 2024, tenthamendmentcenter.com/2024/11/01/the-stamp-act-nullified-colonial-resistance-in-action/.
Boldin, Michael. “Whiskey Rebellion Truth: Noncompliance, Resistance, and Federal Retreat.” Tenth Amendment Center, 23 Feb. 2025, tenthamendmentcenter.com/2025/02/23/whiskey-rebellion-truth-noncompliance-resistance-and-federal-retreat/.
Bouton, Terry. “‘No wonder the times were troublesome:’ The Origins of Fries Rebellion, 1783-1799.” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, vol. 67, no. 1, 2000, pp. 21–42, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27774246.
Calhoun, John C. “Against the Force Bill.” Wikisource, 15 Feb. 1833, en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Against_the_Force_Bill&oldid=3740523.
Calhoun, John C. “South Carolina Exposition and Protest.” Wikisource, 19 Dec. 1828, en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=South_Carolina_Exposition_and_Protest%2FExposition&oldid=12206050.
Carolina, South. “South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification.” Avalon Project, 24 Nov. 1832, avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ordnull.asp.
Davis, William W. H. The Fries Rebellion: 1798-99. Doylestown Pub. Co. Printers, 1899.
Dickinson, John. “In Opposition to the Stamp Act.” Americainclass.Org, Nov. 1765, americainclass.org/sources/makingrevolution/index.htm.
Domitrovic, Brian. “Tax Revolt! It’s Time to Learn from Past Success.” Cato.Org, Jan. 2014, www.cato.org/policy-report/january/february-2014/tax-revolt-its-time-learn-past-success.
Fischer, David Hackett. “The Farmers of Primghar.” Liberty and Freedom: A Visual History of America’s Founding Ideas, Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 479–480.
Hayward, Steven. “The Tax Revolt Turns 20.” Hoover Institution, 1 July 1998, www.hoover.org/research/tax-revolt-turns-20.
Irvin, Benjamin H. “Tar, Feathers, and the Enemies of American Liberties, 1768-1776.” The New England Quarterly, vol. 76, no. 2, 2003, pp. 197–238, https://doi.org/10.2307/1559903.
Mason, Kevin. “Iowa History Daily: April 27 - Le Mars Farmers’ Revolt.” Notes on Iowa, Notes on Iowa, 27 Apr. 2023, www.notesoniowa.com/post/iowa-history-daily-april-27-le-mars-farmers-revolt.
Mather, Cotton. “Boston Declaration of Grievances.” Nationalhumanitiescenter.Org, 18 Apr. 1689, nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/amerbegin/power/text5/BostonDeclaration.pdf.
Miller, John Chester. Origins of the American Revolution. Stanford University Press, 1959.
Morgan, Edmund S., and Helen M. Morgan. The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution. The University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
Reynolds, Alan. “The Economic Impact of Tax Changes, 1920–1939.” Cato.Org, winter 2021, www.cato.org/cato-journal/winter-2021/economic-impact-tax-changes-1920-1939#.
Richards, Leonard L. Shays’s Rebellion: The American Revolution’s Final Battle. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.
Rothbard, Murray N. Conceived in Liberty. Mises Institute, 2011.
Shays, Daniel. “Shays’ Rebellion Papers, 1786-1787.” Massachusetts Historical Society, balthazaar.masshist.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&BBID=21975. Accessed 1 May 2025.
Interested in the content of this Article?
Reach out to the MacIver Institute to aquire more information
