KEN SHUMATE is an independent researcher specializing in the early years of the American Revolution, with a particular emphasis on parliamentary taxation. He has written about science, engineering, and software development issues, in technical papers, a magazine column on software design techniques, and five popular books.

How the American Response to British Plans for Parliamentary Taxation Set in Motion the Movement for Independence
In 1764: The First Year of the American Revolution, Ken Shumate presents the American arguments against the new British policy. The most prominent protests against direct parliamentary taxation were made by New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Supporting the petitions were thoughtful essays by James Otis, Oxenbridge Thacher, Richard Bland, Thomas Fitch, and Stephen Hopkins. Shumate demonstrates the importance of these petitions and essays, written before the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, as establishing the constitutional basis for the heated protests of that year and the following decade. The British interpretation of these writings as rejecting the supremacy of Parliament--even the sovereignty of Great Britain--further motivated the need for the Stamp Act as a demonstration of the fundamental right of Parliament to levy such taxes.