Commentary Twice over the course of their history, Americans have faced the tribulations of life under imperial management. In the first case, it was the mercantilist empire of Great Britain. In the 1760s, to recoup the costs of several decades of imperial wars, Britain began taking extraordinary measures to consolidate control over its subjects in the 13 North American colonies. Inheriting the Crown in 1760, a mentally derelict King George III represented an increasingly despotic vision of empire in which colonial legislatures and individual colonists became entirely subordinate to the dictates of an arbitrary central authority. The Perils of Imperial Rule Prior to 1764, Britain had largely left Americans alone to govern themselves. But soon after that year, imperial authorities began imposing new laws, regulations, and taxes. Colonists objected to imperial measures such as the Sugar Act, Currency Act, Quartering Act, and Stamp Act because they were passed by a …