Virtual representation

For the usage in representation theory in mathematics, see representation ring.
Virtual Representative (standing, clad in brown) gives the Government (with blunderbuss) permission to rob a colonist. Catholic Quebec enjoys peace, Protestant Boston burns, and blinded Britannia approaches a pit. 1775 cartoon

The concept of virtual representation was that the members of the UK Parliament, including the Lords and the Crown-in-Parliament, reserved the right to speak for the interests of all British subjects, rather than for the interests of only the district that elected them or for the regions in which they held peerages and spiritual sway.[1] Virtual representation was the British response to the First Continental Congress in the American colonies. The Second Continental Congress asked for representation in Parliament in the Suffolk Resolves, also known as the first Olive Branch Petition. Parliament claimed that their members had the well being of the colonists in mind. The patriots in the Colonies rejected this premise.

  1. ^ Conniff, James (1994). The Useful Cobbler: Edmund Burke and the Politics of Progress. SUNY Press. p. 158. ISBN 0-7914-1843-X. Retrieved 2015-01-07 – via Google Books.