Fisher continues, "In New York as soon as the patriots heard of the Declaration they dragged down the gilt statue of the king on the Bowling Green and cut off its head" (Fisher 461). Americans hated the King because he allowed the injustices to continue, he condoned them, and he had called the colonists rebels. He may not have been responsible for all the problems in the colonies, but he was the figurehead that represented the country that was causing their problems, and so, they came to see him as a symbol of tyranny and repression.

             King George III began his reign in 1760, and had only a few years to help impose many new laws and tariffs on the Americans, so he was new in their minds and a handy scapegoat. It is not surprising that he was mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, because the founding fathers wrote that document to declare our independence but also to incite Americans to rise up against Great Britain. Americans needed a "villain" to blame their troubles on, and King George was handy, well known, and helpful in starting a Revolution.

             However, it really was not King George that levied tariffs and taxed the Americans. It was Parliament who really handed out the laws, and Parliament that the Americans really had a quarrel with. As historian John C. Wahlke notes, "Up to 1774 Americans had done little thinking in this vein [thinking of the tyranny of King George III]. The authority of Parliament had been the bone of contention, and the participation of the King in the exercise of that authority had been studiously or carelessly ignored" (Wahlke 65). Americans began to say that Parliament did not rule them. They might have allegiance to King George, but they chose their allegiance by free will, and they did not "owe" Parliament anything. When King George called them rebels, he became part of the problem, and part of the founding father's arguments against the tyranny of foreign rule.