# Excursions Tuesday: Fingering the King on the Road to Independence **URL:** **By** Aaron Ross Powell **Published:** January 31, 2012 --- It’s Tuesday and that means [a new _​Excursions_​ from George H. Smith.](https://www.libertarianism.org/essays/excursions/fingering-king-road-independence) This week, Smith shows how the Coercive Acts led Americans to blame the king for the conspiracy to strip them of their rights and liberties. > Some nagging questions remained, however: _Who_ was behind this conspiratorial plan? Given the changing faces of various administrations, what was the _constant_ factor that accounted for the unremitting efforts to subordinate Americans to the sovereignty of the British government in “all cases whatsoever”? > > After passage of the Coercive Acts in 1774, one answer became increasingly common, namely: The _king_ himself was the culprit. It was not some power behind the throne, but George III – the despot who sat on the throne — who had been at the center of the conspiracy all along. The king was the constant in a sea of variables. [Read it here.](https://www.libertarianism.org/essays/excursions/fingering-king-road-independence)