biography
pronunciation:
[ohtis]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1725–83)
|
| biography:
| US politician, born in West Barnstable, Massachusetts, USA. A leader of the Boston bar, he became advocate-general in 1760, when the revenue officers demanded his assistance in obtaining from the superior court general search warrants in quest of smuggled goods. He refused, citing fundamental English constitutional law, resigned, and appeared in defence of popular rights. In 1761, elected to the Massachusetts Assembly, he was prominent in resistance to the revenue acts, but in 1769 was struck by a crown officer in a dispute, and lost his already precarious sanity. He was killed by lightning. His fame chiefly rests on The Rights of the Colonies Asserted (1764). He is reputed to have coined the phrase, ‘taxation without representation is tyranny’. |
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