Episode # 11 – The Intolerable Acts and the Constitution

The Intolerable Acts were a series of five acts passed by Parliament in 1774 that were designed to punish the Massachusetts colonists who dumped tea into Boston Harbor to protest the Tea Act. They were a key development leading to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in April 1775. Many colonists saw the Intolerable Acts as a violation of their constitutional rights, their natural rights, and their colonial charters. They, therefore, viewed the acts as a threat to the liberties of all British American colonists.