American Colonies and their relation to Britain:
By the mid 18th Century, the 13 colonists were thriving and started to lose their British identity.
A new sense of identity was emerging in the colonists’ minds. By the mid-1700s, colonists had been living in America for nearly 150 years. Each of the 13 colonies had its own government, and people were used to a great degree of independence. Colonists saw themselves less as British and more as Virginians or Pennsylvanians. However, they were still British subjects and were expected to obey British law.
In the 1660s, Parliament had passed trade laws called the Navigation Acts. These laws prevented colonists from selling their most valuable products to any country except Britain. In addition, colonists had to pay high taxes on imported French and Dutch goods. However, colonists found ways to get around these laws.
For many years, Britain felt no need to tighten its hold on the colonies. Despite the smuggling, Britain’s mercantilist policies had made colonial trade very profitable. Britain bought American raw materials for low prices and sold manufactured goods to the colonists. And despite British trade restrictions, colonial merchants also thrived. However, after the French and Indian War ended in 1763, Britain toughened its trade laws. These changes sparked growing anger in the colonies.
Independence:
In 1760, when George III took the throne, most Americans had no thoughts of either revolution or independence. They still thought of themselves as loyal subjects of the British king. Yet by 1776, many Americans were willing to risk their lives to break free of Britain.
During the French and Indian War, Great Britain had run up a huge debt in the war against France. Because American colonists benefited from Britain’s victory, Britain expected the colonists to help pay the costs of the war. In 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act. According
to this law, colonists had to pay a tax to have an official stamp put on wills, deeds, newspapers, and other printed material.
American colonists were outraged. They had never paid taxes directly to the British government before. Colonial lawyers argued that the stamp tax violated colonists’ natural rights. In Britain, citizens consented to taxes through their representatives in Parliament. Because the colonists had no such representatives, Parliament could not tax them(No Taxation without Representation). The colonists demonstrated their defiance of this tax with angry protests and a boycott of British manufactured goods. The boycott proved so effective that Parliament gave up and repealed the Stamp Act in 1766.
Growing Hostility Leads to War :
Over the next decade, further events steadily led to war. Some colonial leaders, such as Boston’s Samuel Adams, favored independence from Britain. They encouraged conflict with British authorities. At the same time, George III and his ministers made enemies of many moderate colonists by their harsh stands. In 1773, to protest an import tax on tea, Adams organized a raid against three British ships in Boston Harbor. The raiders dumped 342 chests of tea into the water. George III, infuriated by the “Boston Tea Party,” as it was called, ordered the British close the port of Boston. British troops occupied the city.
In September 1774, representatives from every colony except Georgia gathered in Philadelphia to form the First Continental Congress. This group protested the treatment of Boston. When the king paid little attention to their complaints, all 13 colonies decided to form the Second Continental Congress to debate their next move.
On April 19, 1775, British soldiers and American militiamen exchanged gunfire on the village green in Lexington, Massachusetts. The fighting spread to nearby Concord. When news of the fighting reached the Second Continental Congress, its members voted to raise an army under the command of a Virginian named George Washington. The American Revolution had begun.
Enlightenment Ideas Influence American Colonists:
Although a war had begun, the American colonists still debated their attachment to Great Britain. Many colonists wanted to remain part of Britain. A growing number, however, favored independence. They heard the persuasive arguments of colonial leaders such as Patrick Henry, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. These leaders used Enlightenment ideas to justify independence. The colonists had asked for the same political rights as people in Britain, they said, but the king had stubbornly refused. Therefore, the colonists were justified in rebelling against a tyrant who had broken the social contract.
In July 1776, the Second Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence. This document, written by Thomas Jefferson, was firmly based on the ideas of John Locke and the Enlightenment. The Declaration reflected these ideas in its eloquent argument for natural rights. Since Locke had asserted that people had the right to rebel against an unjust ruler, the Declaration of Independence included a long list of George III’s abuses. The document ended by breaking the ties between the colonies and Britain.
Reasons for the Success for the Colonists:
When the war was first declared, the odds seemed heavily weighted against the Americans. Washington’s ragtag, poorly trained army faced the well-trained forces of the most powerful country in the world. In the end, however, the Americans won their war for independence.
Several reasons explain their success.
First, The motivation of Americans was high as they were fighting for their motherland.
Second, the overconfident British generals made several mistakes.
Third, time itself was on the side of the Americans. The British Army is fighting a war away from their homeland and it is expensive.
Finally, The French Army’s entry into the war in 1778 was decisive. In 1781, combined forces of America and French trapped a British army commanded by Lord Cornwallis(later he came to India as Governor) at Yorktown, Virginia. Unable to escape, Cornwallis surrendered. The Americans were victorious.
Americans Create a Republic:
Shortly after declaring their independence, the 13 individual states recognized the need for a national government. In 1781 all 13 states ratified the constitution. This plan of government was known as the Articles of Confederation. The Articles established the United States as a republic—a government in which citizens rule through elected representatives.
The Articles Create a Weak National Government: To protect their authority, the 13 states created a loose confederation in which they held most of the power. Thus, the Articles of Confederation deliberately created a weak national government.
A New Constitution: leaders such as George Washington and James Madison felt the need for a strong national government. In February 1787, Congress approved a Constitutional Convention to revise the Articles of Confederation. The Constitutional Convention held its first session in May 1787. The 55 delegates were experienced statesmen who were familiar with the political theories of Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau.
The Federal System :Like Montesquieu, the delegates distrusted a powerful central government controlled by one person or group. They, therefore, established three separate branches—legislative, executive, and judicial. This provided a built-in system of checks and balances, with each branch checking the actions of the other two. For example, the president received the power to veto legislation passed by Congress. However, Congress could override a presidential veto with the approval of two-thirds of its members.
Although the Constitution created a strong central government, it did not eliminate local governments. Instead, the Constitution set up a federal system in which power was divided between national and state governments.The delegates agreed with Locke and Rousseau that governments draw their authority from the consent of the governed.
The Bill of Rights The delegates signed the new Constitution on September 17, 1787. In order to become law, however, the Constitution required approval by conventions in at least 9 of the 13 states. These conventions were marked by sharp debate. Supporters of the Constitution, called the Federalists, argued that the new government would provide a better balance between national and state powers. Their opponents, the Anti-Federalists, feared that the Constitution gave the central government too much power. They also wanted a bill of rights to protect the rights of individual citizens.
In order to gain support, the Federalists promised to add a bill of rights to the Constitution. This promise cleared the way for approval. Congress formally added to the Constitution the ten amendments known as the Bill of Rights. These amendments protected such basic rights as freedom of speech, press, assembly, and reli- gion. Many of these rights had been advocated by Voltaire, Rousseau, and Locke.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights marked a turning point in people’s ideas about government. Both documents put Enlightenment ideas into practice. They expressed an optimistic view that reason and reform could prevail and that progress was inevitable. Such optimism swept across the Atlantic. However, the monarchies and the privileged classes didn’t give up power and position easily.
