purpose of driving the British out. As strange as it might sound, the Revolution was very nearly lost because the Continental Congress did not have the authority to levy and collect taxes from the individual colonies—it had no funds other than what the colonies could be persuaded to contribute voluntarily. It is, therefore, perhaps not terribly surprising that the money the colonies promised to contribute fell massively short of the money they actually gave. As a result of Congress’s inability to collect the needed funds from the colonies, George Washington was forced to spend more time
...more
