representation by classes and interests rather than by locality.
Most British officials held that Parliament was an imperial body representing and exercising the same authority over the colonies as over the homeland: It could pass laws for Massachusetts as it could for Berkshire in England.
The American leaders argued that no “imperial” Parliament existed; their only legal relations were with the Crown. It was the King who had agreed to establish colonies beyond the sea and the King who provided them with governments. That the King was equally a King of England and a King of Massachusetts they agreed, but they also insisted that the English Parliament had no more right to pass laws for Massachusetts than the Massachusetts legislature had to pass laws for England.
The British Parliament was unwilling to accept the colonial contentions. British merchants,