(A, B, D, E, F)
Upon the edge of revolution, a country tottered, waiting for the final push. England had pressed upon a tired and loose colonial aggregate, and though these pressures were sometimes justified, they brought together a quite recently bickering populace with contempt for taxation and other misgivings. From the northmost colony of Maine to the buffer colony Georgia, all knew that contentions were stewing. However, though insurrection was on the mind of each colonist, this concept lie slanted in many different ways. Squarely within one extreme were the Loyalists, for never did they once wish to break with the king of England, who had admittedly protected them well enough. When looking upon the opposite end of the spectrum, there
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The elite and the upper-class were not unaffected though, with certain men within their ranks even participating in the issue. Benjamin Franklin, a brilliant statesman, created a piece of famous propaganda which depicted a snake severed in many places, reading “Join, or Die” (Document A). Each segment of the serpent’s body has a caption, each representing a colony: “N.E.” being New England in general, “P.” standing for Pennsylvania, and so forth. He suggested that each colony must come together and support the fight against England; moreover, failing to do so, as Franklin puts forth, would result in nothing less than disaster, as no organism can live in so many pieces. Then, still, many acted derisively. Mather Byles, the grandson of influential Puritan minister Cotton Mathers, remarked to a Nathaniel Emmons, “They call me a brainless Tory; but tell me, my young friend, which is better, to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away, or by three thousand tyrants not a mile away” (Document D). Logically, both arguments seemed rational. These mixed reactions were not because of class differences. Rich and poor alike took up arms against the governing of such an expanse of land by an island already many hundreds of times smaller than it and many miles across the atlantic …show more content…
This view was accepted by many, and yet, the entirety of the Second Continental Congress agreed to a radically differing approach towards this issue. Having convened, even after the battles of Lexington and Concord, the Congress put forth a Declaration which seemed to renege on the aggressions which had already occurred. This statement, the “Declaration for the Causes of Taking up Arms” read, “Lest this declaration should disquiet the minds of our friends and fellow-subjects in any part of the empire, we assure them that we mean not to dissolve that union which has so long and so happily subsisted between us, and which we sincerely wish to see restored” (Document E). Even after this measure to step away from violence, the paper speaks of the falsehoods spun by the crown about blanketing all Americans as traitors. However flimsy and ineffective this Declaration may have been, many truths lay within. Not all Americans were for total severance, of course, but to delve further within, these delegates understood the
As the Reconstruction Era ended, the United States became the up and coming world power. The Spanish-American war was in full swing, and the First World War was well on its way. As a result of the open-door policy, England, Germany, France, Russia, and eventually Japan experienced rapid industrial growth; the United States decided to pursue a foreign policy because of both self- interest and idealism. According to the documents, Economic self- interest, rather than idealism was more significant in driving American foreign policy from 1895 to 1920 because the United States wanted to protect their foreign trade, property and their access to recourses. While the documents also show that Nationalistic thought (idealism) was also crucial in driving American foreign policy, economic Self- interest prevailed.
Gary B. Nash argues that the American Revolution portrayed “radicalism” in the sense on how the American colonies and its protesters wanted to accommodate their own government. Generally what Gary B. Nash is trying to inform the reader is to discuss the different conditions made by the real people who were actually fighting for their freedom. In his argument he makes it clear that throughout the revolution people showed “radicalism” in the result of extreme riots against the Stamp Act merchants, but as well against the British policies that were implemented. He discusses the urgency of the Americans when it came to declaring their issues against the British on how many slaves became militants and went up against their masters in the fight for a proclamation to free themselves from slavery. But he slowly emerges into the argument on how colonists felt under the
Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers to the United States, was not a patriot but a mere loyalist to England before the dissolution between England and the colonies occurred. Sheila L. Skemp's The Making of a Patriot explores how Benjamin Franklin tried to stay loyal to the crown while taking interest in the colonies perception and their own representation in Parliament. While Ms. Skemp alludes to Franklin's loyalty, her main illustration is how the attack by Alexander Wedderburn during the Privy Council led to Franklin's disillusionment with the British crown and the greater interest in making the Thirteen Colonies their own nation. Her analysis of Franklin's history in Parliament and what occurred on the night that the council convened proves the change behind Franklin's beliefs and what lead to his involvement in the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution.
There were many different types of groups in Colonial America, not to mention sub groups as well as opposing groups. One of the opposing groups were those who were ready to break away from the mother country such as Thomas Paine or there were those who claimed like John Dickason that the colonies were not ready to cut off ties just yet. Although both groups had similar issues they both had different approaches on how to deal with them.
On the brink of revolution, the colonies were divided amongst themselves. Two factions with different ideologies “The Patriots” & and the “The Loyalist”, to know these factions we must first know another. Because both parties played a pivotal role in the “American Revolution”.
It had seemed that ambiguity was arise in the forming nation, and was still establishing a central ideal for political issues to which it had no precedent. Would the strategy be to declare to the public a message of brutal warfare against a savage nation? Or the protection of the United States and its freedoms by a self-defensive action of declaring war against its former ally? Both would be approached vigorously by Ames to attempt to inform the public and gather a central and nationalized view in order to succeed against these heinous a...
After the French and Indian war, the Britain saw a need for the “more centralized control” (Outline of U.S. History, 2011, p.52). They felt as necessary to eliminate any interference from the colonialists. The colonies on the other hand, expected more freedom and independence. Hence there was a forthcoming conflict. When the organization of Canada and Ohio valley would not adopt the policies to “alienate the French and Indian inhabitants, and British needed more money and land for settlement” (54) and fear of more war erupting, the restricting and taxation laws were passed. For example the Proclamation Act of 1763, Stamp Act of 1764 and others. Although some of these were passed to counter the other, it was still evident that there was a conflict between the colonialists and the British. General Thomas Gage commanded the garrison in Boston, and his main duty was to enforce the Coercive Act (57). His forces were raided the “minutemen and eight killed in the attack “(59), and pushed on to Concord. Soldiers were lost during the fight. The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia and voted to go to war; Colonel Washington of Virginia was the Commander in Chief (59). Despite the break of war many people seen it has impossible to break the ties with England. At the end of that year, December 23, Thomas Paine, who had previously
During the years of 1675 and 1676 the North American colonies experienced conflicts that shaped the dynamics of their colonial life. King Phillip's War would effectively end relations between the New England colonists and the Indians. Also, the rebellion in Virginia led by Nathaniel Bacon stressed the growing discontent of poor frontier farmers for British rule. The consequences of these two events clearly had an impact on different levels that would extend well beyond their time. Therefore, the years 1675 and 1676 played a very significant role in the Northern American colonies.
...iduals plotting conspiracy and selling out their promises for a considerable length of time before 1860, and that they were not going to stop short of their objectives. The main thing that might have avoided war might be the acknowledgement of bondage by the United States or the surrender of the United States of every last one of states and regions it held that called itself the Confederacy. Since that might not have finished subjugation, then the response is that there was no elective however to have a clash, a war. Subjugation was the issue, it was the reason. It was an ascertained arrangement by the individuals who decided to ensure servitude by selling out their kinsmen and turning rebellious--to secure subjugation, and not a legendary thought of "state's rights" on the grounds that the main right they thought about was the right to subjugate an alternate race.
By the time the colonists had settled into their new land they had established some order such as small governments to keep the colonies in line. The ocean separating England and the colonies made it difficult though for England to guide the colonists successfully the way they had wanted. The main thing the British tried was implementing taxes, but they also went so far as letting the colonies on their own for awhile and using military to keep them in place. On the other hand, the colonists saw that the British were stalling their attempts at self-governing so they worked together to disregard any British policies. By the eve of the Revolution, colonists had developed a sense of their identity and unity as Americans that was brought about by the British parliament. Exasperated by British efforts to hinder their growing self-reliance, colonists began pushing them away by doing various things such as rioting, boycotting, or voicing their opinions on paper.
In conclusion, the changes in the colonies were so significant that they seemed to create a completely different country. This was especially true with the ideas of an economic system, a common lifestyle, and religious diversity. The changes they made and became accustomed to, also began to change their political beliefs. This is what ultimately led to the war that people today are so accustomed to calling “the American Revolution”. According to John Addams, however, “The war? That was no part of the Revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The Revolution was in the minds of the people… years before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington.”
As a result of the French and Indian War, England’s attention became focused on the areas that required tending by the government other than North America, which provided the colonies with the one thing that ensured the downfall of Britain’s monarchial reign over America: salutary neglect. The unmonitored inhabitants of the colonies accustomed themselves to a level of independence that they had never possessed before, and when these rights were jeopardized by the enforcement of the Stamp Act after the Seven Year’s War, the colonists would not take it lying down. The colonies bound together in rebellion against the taxation without representation through boycotting the use of English goods, as embodied by Benjamin Franklin’s famous drawing of a snake; the “Join or Die” snake, as a whole representing the functionality and “life” of the colonies if they would work together, also forewarns the uselessness and “death” of the individual regions, suggesting that the colonies as a whole would have to fight the revolution against the Mother Country or else fail miserably...
However, the author 's interpretations of Jefferson 's decisions and their connection to modern politics are intriguing, to say the least. In 1774, Jefferson penned A Summary View of the Rights of British America and, later, in 1775, drafted the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (Ellis 32-44). According to Ellis, the documents act as proof that Jefferson was insensitive to the constitutional complexities a Revolution held as his interpretation of otherwise important matters revolved around his “pattern of juvenile romanticism” (38). Evidently, the American colonies’ desire for independence from the mother country was a momentous decision that affected all thirteen colonies. However, in Ellis’ arguments, Thomas Jefferson’s writing at the time showed either his failure to acknowledge the severity of the situation or his disregard of the same. Accordingly, as written in the American Sphinx, Jefferson’s mannerisms in the first Continental Congress and Virginia evokes the picture of an adolescent instead of the thirty-year-old man he was at the time (Ellis 38). It is no wonder Ellis observes Thomas Jefferson as a founding father who was not only “wildly idealistic” but also possessed “extraordinary naivete” while advocating the notions of a Jeffersonian utopia that unrestrained
Many American 's were not innocent of causing conflict as their rivaling interests lie in separating from England and becoming an independent nation. One such activist for independence was Paul Revere. An editorial article by Varsity Tutors quotes that “Revere 's historic engraving is long on political propaganda and short on accuracy or aesthetics.” This quote is a summation of Paul Revere 's engraving detailing the facts of the Boston Massacre, or how he wished to portray it. Brinkley shares similar sentiments in his book as he shares case after case, including this one, where forward thinking Americans bent the truth in order to cause more division between the Colonies and the
In conclusion, without struggle and without sacrifice this country would not have gained the independence and prove that united we stand and divide we fall. Thomas Paine quite elegantly put it “however strange it may appear to some, or however unwilling they may be to think so, matters not, but many strong and striking reasons may be given to shew, that nothing can settle our affairs so expeditiously as an open and determined declaration of independence” (Paine 111).