[84]

Opposition to the British Parliament and Crown
Further information: American Revolution, American Revolutionary War, and George Washington in the American Revolution
Washington played a central role before and during the American Revolution. His distrust of the British military had begun when he was passed over for promotion into the Regular Army. Opposed to taxes imposed by the British Parliament on the Colonies without proper representation,[85] he and other colonists were also angered by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which banned American settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains and protected the British fur trade.[86]
Washington believed the Stamp Act of 1765 was an "Act of Oppression", and he celebrated its repeal the following year.[i] In March 1766, Parliament passed the Declaratory Act asserting that Parliamentary law superseded colonial law.[88] In the late 1760s, the interference of the British Crown in American lucrative western land speculation spurred on the American Revolution.[89] Washington himself was a prosperous land speculator, and in 1767, he encouraged "adventures" to acquire backcountry western lands.