Parliament was often trying to assert its "right" to tax the Americans. But Parliament had not the right to tax the Americans. Legislatures only have the POWER to tax, not the RIGHT. These are separate concepts. The RIGHT to tax resides in the individual citizen because the money ultimately belongs to him or her.
The POWER of the legislature to tax depends exclusively on the RIGHT of the People who are to be taxed to be represented within it. In a real sense, when these conditions exist, the tax is voluntary. The People agree to pay the tax freely through their representatives. Taxation and legislation are fundamentally different; the one being a POWER vested in the legislature by the People, the other being a RIGHT and DUTY of the legislature if it is to call itself by that name. Our Founders understood this. We tend to confuse the two issues. However the residual of the ideas of our Founders is still manifested today in the fact that legislative bills and taxation bills must be passed separately in Congress. This was, on a philosophical level as stated above, to insure the difference between POWERS and RIGHTS and on a practical level to insure at least a semblance of adherence to fiscal discipline in that the amount of revenue available would be calculated and then laws within that amount would be passed. Obviously, it hasn't worked out that way.
Legislation and taxation are different because legislation is a manifestation of the People's will to protect their Rights and Liberty. All legitimate legislation is a protection of individual rights. Laws against unlawful killing, the murder laws, are a protection of the individual's right to life for instance. Acts to generate revenue, generally taxation of various kinds, are the necessary precursors to fund the enforcement of the law in general. They are not to be attached to specific acts of legislation as a part of them. This would lead to absurd situations where each dollar would have to be tracked to make sure it was funding the specific action of government stipulated at the risk of violating the law. Any semblance of government accounting would be impossible, even more so than the current disastrous situation in government accounting.
The power of a legislature to pass laws is inherent in the nature of law and a legislature. The power exists organically stemming from the existing rights of the People as individuals. The Right and DUTY of a legislature is to pass legitimate laws to the end of protecting individual rights. Legislatures do NOT have a duty or inherent right to tax. The POWER to tax onlt stems from the individual's right to voluntarily give his or her money to the government for the protection of his or her liberty.
The voluntary nature of taxation is expressed through the representative of the individual to be taxed. This does not mean that all taxes must be UPON individuals to be legal. The individual gives his consent to various types of taxation through his or her representative. As long as representation exists, taxation cannot be called a violation of Liberty. (however, it may be a violation of common sense, or economics or whatever but that is different) Legislation in the form of penal laws, for instance, violates the liberty of the lawbreaker but even here only as a consequence of protecting the individual liberty of the citizen.
A convicted murderer cannot withhold his consent to be punished and escape the law. The citizens, acting in their political capacity, can withhold their consent to be taxed precisely because the legislature has NO organic, inherent right or power to enforce taxation without consent.
We see then the difference between legislation and taxation. The power for the former exists organically in the form of the inherent rights and duties of a legislature. The power for the latter exists only THROUGH the inherent self-evident right of the individual to consent to the taxation of his or her money.
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