It is rather interesting to read the responses on here. The subject of taxation comes up regularly, but it was low down on the list of around a score of grievances listed by those 56 men as the reasons for separation.
I happen to have a facsimile of the original here with me and feel it appropriate to list the reasons for the separation that they gave. That governments should not be changed for light and transient causes, but when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them (the people) under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to alter or abolish it.
Here are the grievances committed by the tyrant:
He impeded the passage of necessary laws
He demanded the surrender of rights before he would pass laws for the people
He called together the legislature at inconvenient locations so as to render it impossible for them to do business
He repeatedly dissolved the legislatures for opposing his tyranny with manly firmness, thus exposing the State to dangers
He hindered immigration and the expansion of the colonies
He refused assent to laws establishing judiciary powers, thus impeding justice
He made judges dependent on his good pleasure for their tenure and pay
He increased the number and sent swarms of bureaucrats to America to bleed the people dry with regulation
He quartered armies in the states in time of peace without legislative consent
He endeavored to render the military superior to the civil power
He joined with Parliament to subject the colonists to a system of laws contrary to those guaranteed to them as Englishmen
He quartered large amounts of troops among the populace
He protected said troops from punishment for injustices committed against the populace
He cut off their trade with the world
He imposed taxes without their consent
He deprived them of the right of trial by jury
He transported them back to England to answer for made up charges
He abolished English law in an neighboring colony and instituted his arbitrary rule, to make an example as well as to effect a like result
in the American colonies
He removed their charters and fundamentally altered their forms of government
He suspended their legislatures, and declared that they should be ruled instead by him and Parliament
He abdicated his government of the colonies by declaring them out of his protection and waging war against them
He plundered their seas, ravaged their coasts, burnt their towns, and destroyed the lives of the people
He is importing large groups of mercenary armies
He has captured colonists on the seas and forced them to bear arms against their home
He has incited domestic insurrections and encouraged Indian ones
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It seems like quite a lot to reduce to just a sentence or two, doesn't it?
And taxation is not given much thought compared to other grievances.