Colonial Campaigns Club (CCC)

Revolution was in the air on this day in 1769, as George Washington launched a legislative salvo at Great Britain's fiscal and judicial attempts to maintain its control over the American colonies. With his sights set on the British policy of "taxation without representation," Washington brought a package of non-importation resolutions before the Virginia House of Burgesses. The resolutions, drafted by George Madison largely in response to England's passage of the Townshend Act in 1767, also decried parliament's plan to send American criminals to England for trial. Though Virginia's Royal Governor promptly fired back by disbanding the House of Burgesses, the revolutionaries were undeterred: during a makeshift meeting held at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia's delegates gave their support the non-importation resolutions. As a result, Virginia sealed off a good chunk of its trade with England pending the repeal of the Townshend Acts. This proved to be a contagious maneuver, as the other American colonies spent the summer adopting their own non-importation resolutions.[8D]