The American colonist wrote the Declaration of Independence in part because the British government (APEX)

A. Believed in their concept of popular sovereignty

B. Refuse to station enough troops in the colonies

C. Did not give the colonists political representation

D. Force them to purge ticipate in a social contract

Answer: C

Over the decade following passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, a series of unpopular British laws met with stiff opposition in the colonies, fueling a bitter struggle over whether Parliament had the right to tax the colonists without the consent of the representative colonial governments. This struggle erupted into violence in 1770 when British troops killed five colonists in the Boston Massacre.

Three years later, outrage over the Tea Act of 1773 prompted colonists to board an East India Company ship in Boston Harbor and dump its cargo into the sea in the now-infamous Boston Tea Party.

In response, Britain cracked down further with the Coercive Acts, going so far as to revoke the colonial charter of Massachusetts and close the port of Boston. Resistance to the Intolerable Acts, as they became known, led to the formation of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1774, which denounced "taxation without representation" - but stopped short of demanding independence from Britain.