American Rev LO 1

Between the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the middle of the eighteenth century, Britain had largely failed to define the colonies’ relationship to the empire and institute a coherent program of imperial reform. Two factors contributed to these failures.

First, Britain was at war from the War of the Spanish Succession at the start of the century through the Seven Years’ War in 1763. Constant war was politically consuming and economically expensive.
Second, competing visions of empire divided British officials. Old Whigs and their Tory supporters envisioned an authoritarian empire, based on conquering territory and extracting resources. They sought to eliminate Britain’s growing national debt by raising taxes and cutting spending on the colonies. The radical (or patriot) Whigs based their imperial vision on trade and manufacturing instead of land and resources. They argued that economic growth, not raising taxes, would solve the national debt. Instead of an authoritarian empire, “patriot Whigs” argued that the colonies should have equal status with the mother country. There were occasional attempts to reform the administration of the colonies, but debate between the two sides prevented coherent reform.

Colonists developed their own understanding of how they fit into the empire. They saw themselves as British subjects “entitled to all the natural, essential, inherent, and inseparable rights of our fellow subjects in Great-Britain.” The eighteenth century brought significant economic and demographic growth in the colonies. This success, they believed, resulted partly from Britain’s hands-off approach to the colonies, an approach that has been called salutary neglect. By midcentury, colonists believed that they held a special place in the empire, which justified Britain’s hands-off policy. In 1764, James Otis Jr. wrote, “The colonists are entitled to as ample rights, liberties, and privileges as the subjects of the mother country are, and in some respects to more.”

The American Revolution had both long-term origins and short-term causes. In this section, we will look broadly at some of the long-term political, intellectual, cultural, and economic developments in the eighteenth century that set the context for the crisis of the 1760s and 1770s.

In this same period, the colonies developed their own local political institutions. Samuel Adams, in the Boston Gazette, described the colonies as each being a “separate body politic” from Britain. Almost immediately upon each colony’s settlement, they created a colonial assembly. These assemblies assumed many of the same duties as the Commons exercised in Britain, including taxing residents, managing the spending of the colonies’ revenue, and granting salaries to royal officials. In the early 1700s, colonial leaders unsuccessfully lobbied the British government to define their assemblies’ legal prerogatives, but Britain was too occupied with European wars. In the first half of the eighteenth century, royal governors tasked by the Board of Trade attempted to limit the power of the assemblies, but the assemblies’ power only grew. Many colonists came to see their assemblies as having the same jurisdiction over them that Parliament exercised over those in England. They interpreted British inaction as justifying their tradition of local governance. The Crown and Parliament, however, disagreed.4

Political culture in the colonies also developed differently than that of the mother country. In both Britain and the colonies, land was the key to political participation, but because land was more easily obtained in the colonies, a higher proportion of male colonists participated in politics. Colonial political culture drew inspiration from the “country” party in Britain. These ideas—generally referred to as the ideology of republicanism—stressed the corrupting nature of power and the need for those involved in self-governing to be virtuous (i.e., putting the “public good” over their own self-interest). Patriots would need to be ever vigilant against the rise of conspiracies, centralized control, and tyranny. Only a small fringe in Britain held these ideas, but in the colonies, they were widely accepted.

There seems to be a growing agreement among historians that the American Revolution was not so much brought about by a single "cause" as by a set of "conditions." While admitting that the new taxes were ill-timed, many historians deny that British Imperial policy discriminated heavily against the colonists.

Although England's taxation measures came before the rebellion that began after 1763, it would be a mistake to interpret the American Revolution as resulting solely from economic causes.

As stated before by John Adams:

Thus the American Revolution was a process, that started with the Virginia House of Burgesses of 1619 and the Mayflower Compact of 1620 and continued through the intercolonial committees of correspondence and eventually led to the First and Second Continental Congress.

It is important to keep in mind that the American Revolutionary War was fought to preserve what the American Revolution as a process begun in the early 1600s and completed by 1776. In 1787, Dr. Benjamin Rush a member for both the Second Continental Congress from Massachusetts, expanded on John Adams' interpretation of the American Revolution.

As John Adams also stated, what was significant about the American Revolution was not that the colonists invented new principles; but, "they realized the theories of the wisest writers" (is referring to The Enlightenment) They actualized them and they legalized them, by institutionalizing them.

That was, and remains , the supreme achievement of the American Revolution; indeed, that was and is the American Revolution. Thus it was not new revolutionary ideas that brought about the American Revolution or changed American complacency; but it was the revolutionary conditions of American's social, economic and political systems that forced American thinkers to come up with new ideas to understand and explain their position. The nature of the revolution comprised of five factors that included the silent pressure of the environment, the influence of Enlightenment philosophers, the long-held practice of self-government, economic independence, the eventual development of colonial unity. As you read the following conditions for the American Revolution, please take notes on each of them to develop your response to the prompt:

The Environment
The Enlightenment
Salutary Neglect (self government)
Economic Independence
Colonial Unity

I. THE ENVIRONMENT:

The first condition is what has been called the "silent" pressure of the "environment" which helped create an American character in an atmosphere freer than that in Europe .

As discussed under the essay question of the colony of Georgia, the American environmental experience re-enforced the idea of the worth of the individual and his self-reliance. The environment, in the early years of colonial development (early 1600s), gave physical proof that all men should share certain basic political rights of "Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness." The opportunity derived from two sources:

the land, rich in resources
and absence of stringent, preexisting institutionalized, established hierarchies.

This phenomenon, derived from the abundance, availability, and the resources of the land -- in conjunction in an emerging society without preexisting institutionalized, established hierarchies --created both ---HOPE and ANXIETY for those at the economic bottom and top.

During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth (1660s-1720s) centuries an important internal transition was taking place within each of the colonies. This metamorphosis was a change from colonies to provinces. This virtual shift from colonial to province was motivated by the need of the political and economic colonial elites to create stability in society that would later be based on class and race. This transition did not move at the same pace in every colony and was influenced by the common denominator of social instability. With the absence of English imposed hierarchy, (power vacuum) the silent pressure of the environment facilitated the historical trend of self government or "salutary neglect"

In the early years of colonization , the unstable environment provided for a great deal of social mobility. But even more important, it also provided for a tremendous amount of anxiety in all colonists regardless of their social and economic position These anxieties were caused because the colonists faced an unsettled present and a thoroughly unpredictable future. This anxiety plus the opportunity for social mobility led to a tremendous amount of class conflict as men competed for nature's resources--as was seen in the 1670s in Virginia's Bacon's Rebellion. The result of Bacon's Rebellion created an opportunity for the governing elite of Virginia to establish hierarchy based on class, yet masked by race.

For a prominent historical example that explains this phenomenon of economic hope infused with anxiety see the video below of Antony Johnson story as a man who rose from the very bottom of the economic strata to the top before hierarchy based on race was imposed in the Virginia colony.

The common assumption during the formative or colonial period (again, due to the abudunce of resources and lack of established hierachy) was that anyone with talent, regardless of background and origin, could attain a position of influence and power. However, as the relatively fluid social structure of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries became immobile, the tensions mounted even more between the different classes as they were striving to protect what they had or to advance their economic and political power against a continually and increasingly stingy environment. For example, indentured servants aspiring to become yeomen farmers characterized the 1670's; slaves confined to perpetual bondage characterized the 1720's. Small planters held a reasonable hope of becoming large planters in the 1670's, but by the 1720's this hope was diminishing rapidly in many colonies. Thus, the relatively fluid social structure of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries became largely immobile by the mid eighteenth century .

For example during this period, colonial instability in Virginia was transformed into political stability. The desire for colonial political power was transformed into a triumph of provincial political power . With the stabilization of political power, the social structure became clearly defined: frozen at the bottom by the influx of slaves and frozen at the top by the final emergence of a provincial elite who were not easily persuaded to accept new members into their exclusive circle. By 1763, in all the colonies, the pattern of provincial society had been set as the social structure transplanted from England was replaced by an indigenous provincial one that was relatively self-governing in nature.

II. The Enlightenment

"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity...No thing is required for this enlightenment.. .except freedom; and the freedom in question is the least harmful of all, namely, the freedom to use reason publicly in all matters."

Immanuel Kant

The second condition that helped foster the American Revolution was the Enlightenment and its impact upon the American mind. The Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason, was a product of the writings of the liberal political philosophers like John Locke of Europe and had a great impact on the minds of America's intellectual leaders.

Background: The Age of Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century. It included a range of ideas centered on reason, focused on the WORTH of the INDIVIDUAL, and the primary source of legitimate authority (government) only happens when advanced ideals, such as

liberty,
progress,
tolerance,
fraternity,
constitutional government,
and separation of church and state.

The Enlightenment has also been hailed as the foundation of modern western political and intellectual culture. It brought political modernization to the west by introducing democratic values and institutions and the creation of modern, liberal democracies.

Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan: Social Contract
Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher and scientist, was one of the key figures in the political debates of the period. He marked a key contrast (difference) Despite advocating the idea of absolutism of the sovereign, Hobbes developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between civil society and the state); the view that all legitimate political power must be “representative” and based on the consent of the people; and a liberal interpretation of law that leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid

Hobbes was the first modern philosopher to articulate a detailed social contract theory that appeared in his 1651 work Leviathan.

In it, Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation of states and legitimate governments and creating an objective science of morality. As Leviathan was written during the English Civil War, much of the book is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war.

Beginning from a mechanistic understanding of human beings and the passions, Hobbes postulates what life would be like without government, a condition which he calls the state of nature. In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This, Hobbes argues, would lead to a “war of all against all.” In such a state, people fear death and lack both the things necessary to commodious living and the hope of being able to toil to obtain them. So, in order to avoid it, people accede to a social contract and establish a civil society. According to Hobbes, society is a population beneath a sovereign authority, to whom all individuals in that society cede some rights for the sake of protection. Any power exercised by this authority cannot be resisted because the protector’s sovereign power derives from individuals’ surrendering their own sovereign power for protection. The individuals are thereby the authors of all decisions made by the sovereign. There is no doctrine of separation of powers in Hobbes’s discussion. According to Hobbes, the sovereign must control civil, military, judicial, and ecclesiastical powers.

Hobbes was one of the founders of modern political philosophy and political science. He also contributed to a diverse array of other fields, including history, geometry, the physics of gases, theology, ethics, and general philosophy.

Hobbes' Natural Rights

Hobbes also included a discussion of natural rights in his moral and political philosophy. His’ conception of natural rights extended from his conception of man in a “state of nature.” He argued that the essential natural (human) right was “to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own Nature; that is to say, of his own Life (…).” Hobbes sharply distinguished this natural “liberty” from natural “laws.” In his natural state, man’s life consisted entirely of liberties and not at all of laws, which leads to the world of chaos created by unlimited rights. Consequently, if humans wish to live peacefully, they must give up most of their natural rights and create moral obligations in order to establish political and civil society.

Hobbes objected to the attempt to derive rights from ” natural law,” arguing that law (“lex”) and right (“jus”) though often confused, signify opposites, with law referring to obligations, while rights refer to the absence of obligations. Since by our (human) nature, we seek to maximize our well being, rights are prior to law, natural or institutional, and people will not follow the laws of nature without first being subjected to a sovereign power, without which all ideas of right and wrong are meaningless. This marked an important departure from medieval natural law theories which gave precedence to obligations over rights.

John Locke

John Locke, an English philosopher and physician, is regarded as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers, whose work greatly contributed to the development of the notions of social contract and natural rights.

As discussed with the Declaration of Independence, as a result of the Enlightenment, humanity began to envision a universe based on impersonal, scientific laws that governed the behavior of all matter. They lived in a universe which was controlled, in all its manifestations, by "the laws of Nature and of Nature's God."

They believed that the same laws which governed the movement of the stars in the heavens and of the tides in the oceans also governed the tides of human history by directing the economic, political, social and moral functions of life. They did not distinguish sharply between natural philosophy and moral philosophy.

The men of the Enlightenment had almost unlimited confidence in Reason and in the ability of man to penetrate the laws of Nature (with this reason) and in man's ability to apply them to the affairs of life.

John Locke: Introduction

John Locke was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the “Father of Liberalism.” Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence.

Locke was born in 1632 in Wrington, Somerset, about 12 miles from Bristol, and grew up in the nearby town of Pensford. In 1647, he was sent to the prestigious Westminster School in London, and after completing studies there, he was admitted to Christ Church, Oxford in 1652. Although a capable student, Locke was irritated by the undergraduate curriculum of the time. He found the works of modern philosophers, such as René Descartes, more interesting than the classical material taught at the university. Through a friend, Locke was introduced to medicine and the experimental philosophy being pursued at other universities and in the Royal Society, of which he eventually became a member. In 1667, he moved to London to serve as a personal physician, and to resume his medical studies. He also served as Secretary of the Board of Trade and Plantations and Secretary to the Lords Proprietor of Carolina, which helped to shape his ideas on international trade and economics. Locke fled to the Netherlands in 1683, under strong suspicion of involvement in the Rye House Plot, although there is little evidence to suggest that he was directly involved in the scheme. In the Netherlands, he had time to return to his writing, although the bulk of Locke’s publishing took place upon his return from exile in 1688. He died in 1704. Locke never married nor had children.

Locke’s theory of mind has been as influential as his political theory, and is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to Cartesian philosophy based on pre-existing concepts, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perceptions.

Two Treatises of Government

Two Treatises of Government, Locke’s most important and influential work on political theory, was first published anonymously in 1689. It is divided into the First Treatise and the Second Treatise. The First Treatise is focused on the refutation of Sir Robert Filmer, in particular his Patriarcha, which argued that civil society was founded on a divinely sanctioned patriarchalism. Locke proceeds through Filmer’s arguments, contesting his proofs from Scripture and ridiculing them as senseless, until concluding that no government can be justified by an appeal to the divine right of kings. The Second Treatise outlines a theory of civil society. Locke begins by describing the state of nature, a picture much more stable than Thomas Hobbes’ state of “war of every man against every man,” and argues that all men are created equal in the state of nature by God. He goes on to explain the hypothetical rise of property and civilization, in the process explaining that the only legitimate governments are those that have the consent of the people. Therefore, any government that rules without the consent of the people can, in theory, be overthrown.

Locke’s political theory was founded on social contract theory. Unlike Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature is characterized by reason and tolerance. Similarly to Hobbes, he assumed that the sole right to defend in the state of nature was not enough, so people established a civil society to resolve conflicts in a civil way with help from government in a state of society. However, Locke never refers to Hobbes by name and may instead have been responding to other writers of the day. He also advocated governmental separation of powers, and believed that revolution is not only a right but an obligation in some circumstances. These ideas would come to have profound influence on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. However, Locke did not demand a republic. Rather, he believed a legitimate contract could easily exist between citizens and a monarchy, an oligarchy, or in some mixed form.

Natural Rights

Locke’s conception of natural rights is captured in his best known statement that individuals have a right to protect their “life, health, liberty, or possessions” and in his belief that the natural right to property is derived from labor. He defines the state of nature as a condition, in which humans are rational and follow natural law, and in which all men are born equal with the right to life, liberty and property. However, when one citizen breaks the Law of Nature, both the transgressor and the victim enter into a state of war, from which it is virtually impossible to break free. Therefore, Locke argued that individuals enter into civil society to protect their natural rights via an “unbiased judge” or common authority, such as courts.

Constitution of Carolina and Views on Slavery

Locke’s writings have often been tied to liberalism, democracy, and the foundation of the United States as the first modern democratic republic. However, historians also note that Locke was a major investor in the English slave-trade through the Royal African Company. In addition, he participated in drafting the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, which established a feudal aristocracy and gave a master absolute power over his slaves. Because of his opposition to aristocracy and slavery in his major writings, some historians accuse Locke of hypocrisy and racism, and point out that his idea of liberty is reserved to Europeans or even the European capitalist class only. The debate continues among scholars over the disparities between Locke’s philosophical arguments and his personal involvement in the slave trade and slavery in North American colonies, and over whether his writings provide, in fact, justification of slavery.

John Locke (1632-1704) was an English philosopher who would later have a major influence upon the Founding Fathers. A founder of British empiricism with an unabashed faith in the natural sciences and the rising middle class, Locke embodied the principles of the Enlightenment.

In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Locke rejected the notion of innate ideas and instead argued that everyone begins with a tabula rasa, or blank slate, and is shaped by his or her environment. This was a concept with radically equalizing implications. Locke therefore rejected Thomas Hobbes's theory that kings rule by divine right; how could they, if everyone was born equal?

Locke also diverged from Hobbes in that he believed that the original state of nature was characterized by reason, equality and independence, rather than chaos, avarice, and savagery. People voluntarily left nature to enter into a society for the sake of mutual protection. Still, in any society, Locke contended, people are endowed with certain natural rights (to "life, liberty, and property").

In his enormously renowned political theory, Locke presented the idea of governmental checks and balances, which became a foundation for the U.S. Constitutio n. He also argued that revolution in some circumstances is not only a right but an obligation, which also clearly influenced the Founding Fathers. He most eloquently expounded his arguments concerning the natural rights of man in his 1680 work, Second Treatise on Government (or Two Treatises on Government), a book that Thomas Jefferson read at least three times.

John Locke's ideas re-enforced the practical experience of the American environment as it applied reason to authoritarian institutions and people.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Key Points

John Locke was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers, and commonly known as the “Father of Liberalism.” His writings were immensely influential for the development of social contract theory.
Two Treatises of Government, Locke’s most important work on political theory, is divided into the First Treatise and the Second Treatise. The First Treatise is focused on the refutation of Sir Robert Filmer, in particular his Patriarcha, which argued that civil society was founded on a divinely sanctioned patriarchalism. The Second Treatise outlines a theory of civil society.
Locke’s political theory was founded on social contract theory. He believed that human nature is characterized by reason and tolerance, but he assumed that the sole right to defend in the state of nature was not enough, so people established a civil society to resolve conflicts in a civil way with help from government in a state of society.
Locke’s conception of natural rights is captured in his best known statement that individuals have a right to protect their “life, health, liberty, or possessions” and in his belief that the natural right to property is derived from labor.
The debate continues among scholars over the disparities between Locke’s philosophical arguments and his personal involvement in the slave trade and slavery in North American colonies, and over whether his writings provide, in fact, justification of slavery.
natural rights: The rights that are not dependent on the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and are therefore universal and inalienable (i.e., rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws).
social contract theory: A theory or a model that typically posits that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights.

HOW IS THE ENLIGHTENMENT A FACTOR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION?

As the factor of the Environment indicated

the land, rich in resources
and absence of stringent, preexisting institutionalized, established hierarchies.

The ideas that fostered individualism, skepticism of state power and religion were born in an European environment where stringent, preexisting institutionalized, established hierarchies were present within the context of "Devine right of king", long-establish monarchies with standing armies and extrem wealth which all made it difficult for such Enlightened values to fundamentally challenge the establish monarchies of Europe.

In the colonies, where was an absence of stringent, preexisting institutionalized, established hierarchies, the ideas that promoted the value of the individual, religious tolerance, and consent of the governed to be governed could be and were cultivated. When in 1763 and through 1776, the English government and the King exerted illegitimate power (no taxation without representation) on the colonist, the ones who objected use philosophers' arguments, like John Lockes', to justify their revolt, rebellion, eventually their Declaration Independence, in 1776.

Again, as As John Adams also stated, what was significant about the American Revolution was not that the colonists invented new principles; but, "they realized the theories of the wisest writers" (is referring to The Enlightenment) They actualized them and they legalized them, by institutionalizing them.

III. Self-Government or "salutary neglect"

The third condition which contributed to the American Revolution was experience in self-government from 1619-1776.

The definition of "Salutary Neglect" is Great Britain's unintended policy to allow its American colonies to develop independently politically, socially, and economically.

Salutary neglect occurred in three time periods and can be broken down in three phases.

Phase One: from 1607 to 1696, England had no coherent imperial policy regarding specific overseas possessions and their governance, although mercantilist ideas were gaining force and giving general shape to trade policy.
Phase Two: from 1696 to 1763, England (and after 1707 the Kingdom of Great Britain) tried to form a coherent policy through the Navigation acts but did not enforce it.
Phase Three: lastly, from 1763 to 1775 Britain began to try to enforce stricter rules and more direct management, driven in part by the outcome of the Seven Years War in which Britain had gained large swathes of new territory in North America at the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

MOST PROMINATE EXAMPLE OF SALUTARY NEGLECT/SELF GOVERNMENT ( a brief look at the Puritans and Pilgrims_:

BACKGROUND:

To best understand how the process of Salutary Neglect it is useful to examine the Puritan Movement of the seventeenth century.

To be a Puritan in the sixteenth and seventeenth century was not a simple, clear-cut thing. There was no formal organization, no political party, not even a church called "Puritan." It was a social movement that was not clearly defined and often underground and revolutionary. In many ways it was a movement aimed at recovering a "lost" way of life-- communal values .

The leaders of the movement almost never used the term "Puritan," in fact it was a word used most often by their critics. Puritanism originated in England in the mid 1500's when a group of religious reformers sought to "purify" the Church of England (aka The Anglican Church) of bishops, church courts, and other remnants of Catholicism.

The English Crown, which under Henry VIII had renounced Catholicism, replaced it with the Anglican Church. The Anglican Church, or the Church of England as it came to be called, retained many aspects of Roman Catholic theology and ceremony.

During Queen Elizabeth's reign (1558-1603), a noticeable trend toward Protestant doctrine and ceremony developed. By the time King James I (1603-1625) came to the throne, some Englishmen were content with the Anglican Church as it was; others hoped to reintroduce much of the ritual and some of the tenets of Catholicism, although they had no desire to return to papal control; and still others took an extreme Protestant position.

The extreme Protestants were called Puritans because they wanted to "purify" the Anglican Church still further. With official Anglican doctrine the Puritans had no quarrel; but they wished to do away with bishops, deans, and all clergy above the rank of parish priests, to abolish set prayers, and to reorganize the Church either by a hierarchy of councils (Presbyterianism), or on the basis of a free federation of independent parishes (Congregationalism).

The Puritans were mostly members of the urban middle class. Engaged in trade and commerce, they resented James' arbitrary and illegal taxation and wanted to secure laws for the protection and expansion of English commercial interests. Puritans all agreed on what was wrong with the Anglican Church, but they disagreed on how to make it right. They all relied on the Bible for guidance and they all extracted different opinions from it about how God wanted his Churches to be run. Consequently by the late 1500s early 1600s Puritanism was divided into three main groups:

Presbyterians wanted a central authority or a hierarchy of councils and accepted all comers into the faith. They made no distinction between 'visible saints' and inhabitants as the Congregationalists did.
The Congregationalists were organized into independent parishes with each congregation governing itself (but with a state supported religion) and was made up of only true believers--'visible saints' versus inhabitants. The Congregationalists wanted to purify the Church from within, but later established the colony of Massachusetts Bay, for religious reasons, as internal improvements were found to be impossible in the Old World.
The Separatists, the most radical group, felt the Church could not be purified from within and to support such a corrupt institution was like shaking hands with the devil; thus, they wanted to separate and form their own church. The Separatists also felt that each congregation had the right to completely govern itself and thus rejected the idea of a state imposed religion--separation of church and state.

The two leading religious sects in England were Presbyterian and Congregationalist, and the Separatists both took much of their theological beliefs from John Calvin. Although the Separatists were the smallest group within the Puritan movement, they were considered the most dangerous by the Crown because they were the most radical.

THE COLONY OF PLYMOUTH:

While the Colony of New Plymouth was struggling along in the 1620s, a dozen fishing and trading posts were founded along the New England coast from southern Maine to Massachusetts Bay, and in some cases without permission. One of these trading posts established in 1626 was developed at present day Salem and was taken over by a group of leading Congregationalists in 1628.

After obtaining a charter for the Massachusetts Bay Company from King Charles I in 1629, when Anglo-Catholic pressure began to be severely felt, the Congregationalists voted to transfer charter, government, and members to New England. The colony got off to a fast start with a well-equipped expedition in 1630, with 11 ships carrying 900 to 1,000 men and women who founded Boston and seven other towns nearby.

The transfer of the Massachusetts Bay charter and the results of the transfer represent an important element in the development of American institutions. With both the charter and company in America, the colony became practically independent of England. The "freemen," as stockholders were then called, became voters and elected the governor, deputy-governor and assistants who made up the upper branch of the legislative assembly. Thus, neither the King nor Parliament had any say in the Massachusetts government. The franchise or right to vote was restricted to church members, which prevented non-Congregationalists from participating in the government.

In 1635, the English government tried to revoke the Massachusetts Bay Company charter, but the colony refused to return it. After numerous delays and pleas from Massachusetts, plus internal political and religious problems within England, England finally was in a position to revoke the charter in June of 1684 after allowing almost 50 years of self-government to develop. "Salutary neglect" again became the unofficial policy of the English government which allowed for truly American institutions, such as "geographical representation" versus "virtual representation ," to be developed within the American environment out of the European model.

Between 1686-1689 England attempted to end "salutary neglect" with the creation of the Dominion of New England . The Dominion was a vast new colony which included all of New England plus New York and New Jersey .

Dominion of New England

1686-1689

The Dominion was to serve several purposes.

Most important , the Dominion was designed to promote urgently needed efficiency in the administration of the English Navigation Acts. The Navigation Acts sought to stitch the colonies more tightly to the mother country and to cut off American trade with countries not ruled by the English Crown.
The Dominion was also an attempt to lighten the cost of Administration and generally tighten the overall control of the colonies.
Finally the Dominion was aimed at bolstering colonial defense in the event of war with the Native Americans and the French in Canada.

The headquarters for the Dominion was in Boston and Sir Edmund Andros was made the governor of the new colony. Andros, who had been a professional soldier, had shown earlier as governor of New York that he could be a skilled colonial administrator.

At the demand of King James II all colonial legislatures were dissolved , and Andros and the local councils appointed by the King assumed all of the judicial and legislative power . Andros charged quite rents and laid heavy restrictions on the press and schools. The results of Andros' actions forced the liberty-loving colonists, accustomed to unusual privileges during long decades of neglect, to the edge of revolt.

Meanwhile in Europe, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 disposed of James and created an opportunity for the colonists to rid themselves of the Dominion. When word reached Massachusetts that William and Mary had been offered the crown in England, the Congregationalists wasted little time in jailing Andros and his council in what resulted in a bloodless revolution by over 1,000 armed colonists.

The justification for the overthrow was that the Dominion was part of James' tyrannical policies and was no longer a legal or valid institution. Massachusetts, though rid of Andros, did not gain as much from the upheaval as she had hoped. In 1691 the colony was ·made a royal colony, with a new charter and a new royal governor. Worst of all, the privilege of voting, once a monopoly of church members, was to be enjoyed by all qualified male property owners.

The rise and fall of the Dominion marks a turning point in American history. Success would have led to the unification of the colonies under two separate governors; if successful, the rest of the colonies would have been combined into a Southern Dominion and the reduction of colonial self-government would have taken place. Also, if successful, there would have been no colonies to become states after the American Revolutionary War and, possibly, no American Revolution .

Salutary neglect was a large contributing factor that led to the American Revolutionary War. Since the imperial authority did not assert the power that it had, the colonists were left to govern themselves. These essentially sovereign colonies soon became accustomed to the idea of self-control. They also realized that they were powerful enough to defeat the British (with help from France), and decided to revolt. The effects of such prolonged isolation eventually resulted in the emergence of a collective identity that considered itself separate from Great Britain.

Self-government was not an American creation; (1) it was an outgrowth of "salutary neglect" as discussed earlier and (2) an invaluable legacy from England herself.

As already mentioned, in 1619 Jamestown received instructions from the Virginia Co. to establish the first representative assembly in English America, the House of Burgesses. This example of self-government in the first English colony in America is an outstanding representation of the impact of the political developments within England during the sixteenth century and their direct relationship to the English colonies.

It would have been unthinkable for the Spanish Kings in the 1500s to have permitted this degree of self-government within the Spanish settlements. When the Spanish colonials moved tentatively in the direction of limited self-government in the 1530s, the Spanish sovereign, Charles I, banned representative bodies in the New World. In contrast, the concept of the limited power of the monarch was widely accepted in England starting with the Magna Carta in 1215. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, this idea of basic rights and limited government was a product of the English mind and experience which was transmitted to the English colonies in the form of self-government.

The Magna Carta became a blue print for social and legal justice and established such ideas that no man could be judged without a trial by his peers and that his life or his property could not be taken without such a trial. It also established that no man, not even the King, was above the law. These rights and beliefs were transported to the colonies by way of colonial charters which were contracts that protected the rights and liberties of the colonists established under the Magna Carta. It was the combination of England's neglect and these basic rights, which were developed on English soil and transplanted to American where they were allowed to germinate in a much freer environment, that led to the provincial governments which developed under the leadership of popular leaders like Sam Adams and Patrick Henry in the 1770s.

The following table demonstrates a history and tradition from England of self-government that the colonists would adopt and practice as the colonies are being established.

This factor of "self government" most prominent in Plymouth and later Massachusetts would be challenged after the END OF THE FRENCH INDIAN WAR in 1763, when Great Britain, after defeating both long time rivals, the French and the Spanish would then have the TIME and the NEED to govern its colonies effectively.

The TIME was due to the fact, prior to 1763 Great Britain spent much its time defending itself from other nation-states like France and Spain. Given they won the French Indian War, this was not much of issue any more.

The NEED, came from needing to address both the COST of the war and the rising administrative COST of its now expanding empire. This issue is further discussed in the fifth factor: Colonial Unity.

The British Empire before and After its victory in the French Indian War.

IV. Economic Independence

The·fourth condition of economic independence was discussed when we covered mercantilism .

As was the case with political independence, economic independence was also an evolutionary process. This was demonstrated when England was forced to shift her emphasis from the regulation of trade (navigation acts), the primary concern in the seventeenth century , to the regulation of manufacturing by use of the trade acts (the wooland hat act, etc.) in the eighteenth century .

Before a country can be politically independent, it has to be economically independent. By 1763, the colonists were basically economically independent but were tied to the British Empire by economic benefits, customs, and habit.

V. Colonial Unity

The last condition and the spark that ignited the American war for independence and led to the climax of the Revolution was the new British Imperial .policy which was implemented after 1763 and represented by the process of colonial unity.

Colonial unity was the beginning of the development of national unity and the creation of a common identity in America . The years preceding the American war for independence concluded a giant cycle in which Old World ideas became New World institutions as European ideas were absorbed in the American experience and transformed into new institutions to meet American needs. Thus ideas and practices transplanted from the Old World to the New were modified by the colonists by their experience in the America environment and emerged as American principles.

However, in 1763, few would have predicted that by 1776 a revolution would be unfolding in British America. The ingredients of discontent seemed lacking — at least on the surface. The colonies were not in a state of economic crisis; on the contrary, they were relatively prosperous. Unlike the Irish, no groups of American citizens were clamoring for freedom from England based on national identity. King George III was not particularly despotic — surely not to the degree his predecessors of the previous century had been.

Furthermore, the colonies were not unified. Benjamin Franklin discovered this quite clearly when he devised the Albany Plan of Union in 1754. This plan, under the slogan "Join, or Die," would have brought the colonial rivals together to meet the common threat of the French and Indians. Much to Franklin's chagrin, this plan was soundly defeated.

Ben Franklin sketched this cartoon to illustrate the urgency of his 1754 Albany Plan of Union.

He unsuccessfully tried to bring the colonies together to defend themselves against Indian and French threats.

How, then, in a few short years did everything change? What happened to make the American colonists, most of whom thought of themselves as English subjects, want to break the ties that bound them to their forebears? What forces led the men and women in the 13 different colonies to set aside their differences and unanimously declare their independence?

Much happened between the years of 1763 and 1776. The colonists felt unfairly taxed, watched over like children, and ignored in their attempts to address grievances. Religious issues rose to the surface, political ideals crystallized, and, as always, economics were the essence of many debates. For their part, the British found the colonists unwilling to pay their fair share for the administration of the Empire. After all, citizens residing in England paid more in taxes than was asked of any American during the entire time of crisis.

UNITIY BEGINS

In 1763, George III appointed George Grenville to be the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. 1. Grenville discovered that the American customs service was costing the English government nearly 2;€8,000 a year in salaries but was collecting less than£2,000 in duties. Consequently, the English government was losing money on the colonies, even though English businessmen were not. In order to solve this problem, Grenville began his pursuit of the American dollar in several ways:

First, he put several bills (Sugar and Stamp Acts) before Parliament. These were designed to produce revenue by enforcing duties on the American colonists. Second, in April of 1764 he also got Parliament to pass a measure to tighten up the customs service to enforce mercantilism. This was done by the use of admiralty courts and writs of assistance. The use of these administrative acts along with the Sugar Act passed on the same day (April 5, 1764) are known as the Grenville Acts. Included in the Grenville Acts was a third measure passed in April, 1764, the Currency Act, which was designed to eliminate colonial currency so it could not be used to pay debts in England. These acts passed after 1763 damaged colonial commercial interests and offended colonial sentiments. After 1763, all conditions for a rebellion were at hand except one--a sense of unity among the colonies.

Specifically, the Sugar Act

(1) imposed new or higher duties on additional imports, including non-British textiles, coffee, and on Maderia and Canary wines;

(2) doubled duties on foreign goods reshipped in England (under the Navigation Act of 1663) to the colonies;

(3) added iron, hides, whale fins, raw silk, etc., to the enumerated lists;

(4) and finally the act extended the Molasses Act of 1733 but reduced the 6 cents per gallon duty upon foreign molasses to 3 cents, the old rate on raw sugar was continued, and an increased duty was levied on foreign refined sugar.

One of the biggest causes of the American Revolution was the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765. The purpose of the Stamp Act was simple: to raise revenue from the colonies to help pay off debt from the French and Indian War.

In the French and Indian War, or the Seven Years’ War as it was known in Europe, the British and its allies defeated the French and their allies across several continents. At the end of the war, the French mostly vacated North America, with a vast majority of its land holdings transferred to the British.

The war was extremely expensive and left the British in great debt. Furthermore, British troubles were not over.

Incidents such as Pontiac’s Rebellion of 1763 showed that Native Americans still presented a threat even though the French no longer had a presence in North America. British and colonial officials wanted a permanent British military presence on the frontier to protect colonial settlers.

With war debt to pay and new permanent British forces to supply, Parliament needed additional tax revenues. Taxing British mainland citizens further was out of the question.

These citizens already faced a heavy tax burden, and new proposed taxes led to riots and protests such as those against the 1763 cider bill. The British Parliament decided that new taxes should be levied on the American colonies.

From the British standpoint, it was a logical conclusion. Since the French and Indian war was fought on behalf of the colonies and the new permanent forces on the frontier were for colonial protection, it only made sense that the colonies should pay for this protection.

The colonies did not feel the same way. Colonists greatly opposed increased taxes such as the Stamp Act and the acts went on to further divide the American colonies from Britain.

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