170 THE DEEPER SIGNIFICANCE 
would have created a federal government, with power 
of taxation for federal purposes, with local rights fully 
guaranteed, and with a president or governor-general 
appointed by the crown. The royal governors of 
course approved the plan, the people treated it with 
indignant contempt; the difficulty was acutely felt all 
through the war, and then the British Parliament, in a 
perfectly friendly spirit, tried to mend matters. 
The necessity for a continental revenue continued, 
and always would continue. Scarcely had peace been 
made with France when Pontiac’s terrible war broke 
out and furnished fresh illustrations of the perennial 
difficulty. Since the Americans would not create a 
continental taxing power for themselves, Parliament 
must undertake to supply the place of such a power. 
The failure of Franklin’s plan of union seemed to 
force this work upon Parliament; certainly there was 
no other body that could raise money for the requisite 
continental purposes. 
But when Parliament undertook such a step it ven- 
tured upon an untrodden field. No Parliament had 
ever raised money in America by direct taxation. As 
for port duties the Americans had not actually resisted 
them. As for parliamentary legislation, in the very 
few instances in which it had been attempted, as for 
example in the case of the Massachusetts Land Bank 
of 1740, the colonists had submitted with an exceed- 
ingly ill grace, as much as to say, “ You had better not 
try it again!” According to the theory prevalent in 
the colonies and soon to be stated in print by Thomas 
Jefferson, they owed allegiance to the king but not to 
Parliament. The relation was like that of Hanover to 
Great Britain at that time, or like that of Norway 
