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American revolution and their causes
American revolution and their causes
The rise of the American revolution
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The path towards independence is always long, difficult, and messy. This fact didn’t waver it came to America’s fight towards freedom from a faraway island all the way across the sea - Great Britain. The American revolution dug out the path towards independence that United States citizens have and appreciate today. Those that fought in the revolution defended us from a corrupt superpower that would have taken America for its own otherwise. Americans today have been fighting a similar superpower: Wall Street. Those in the Occupy Wall Street movement fight to destroy what they believe to be a corrupt system influencing government and in turn controlling America. The final straw and primary cause that sparked the American Revolution was taxation …show more content…
The lack of representation the American colonies had within their own government exponentially increased political turmoil between Great Britain and the Colonies. Taxing the American people without giving them a voice was immoral and unjust. Boston lawyer and legislator, James Otis Jr, the man often credited by historians for coining the phrase, “No Taxation Without Representation”. In a pamphlet he wrote in 1764, Otis highlights the illegal activities being done to the colonists through unfair taxation, saying, “...that no parts of His Majesty’s dominions can be taxed without their consent; that every part has a right to be represented in the supreme or some subordinate legislature; that the refusal of this would seem to be a contradiction in practice to the theory of the constitution”(Otis). For Great Britain to expect respect as well as cooperation from the newly independent colonies while legally and morally wronging them, lacks major political sense. The colonists broke away from their old lives for freedom and new opportunities. Stifling the growth of these colonists’ government and society through unfair taxes is more than enough to spur an uprising, making the political aspects of the taxation without representation a key factor causing the American
In chapter eleven, The Age of Democratic Revolutions: The North Atlantic World “Turn Upside Down”, Wells discusses the American and French Revolutions. Both of these revolutions shook the world and turn the world around. After the Enlightenment, there were many revolutions across Europe; however, the American and French Revolution had more power in them to change the world. Because of the books, pamphlets, and sermons, the idea of rationalism moved from philosophes to many of other people. With these new ideas, the people started to believe in change which led to stress and upheaval. In America, the revolution was not like other revolutions. There was no reigns of terror, no mass deportations, or forced labor camps. However, the American
Soame Jenyns, a member of the British Parliament from 1741 to 1780, wrote a pamphlet called “The Objections to the taxation consider’d” in 1765 in which he defended the Parliament’s right to tax the American colonies. Jenyns is clearly writing this to the colonists to read, almost seemly in a mocking way, as stated in the very first paragraph, “…who have ears but no understanding…” He then goes on to bring up three key points that the colonists have given as reasons not to be taxed by the
One such thing that American colonists united themselves upon was the misrepresentation across the Atlantic. British Parliament consisted of many members from many areas, but not one of those members was able to convey the message from the colonies because there were no such representatives. Many members of Parliament, such as Edmund Burke, led the rest of Britain and Parliament to believe that the colonists were simply tenants in their land and were to abide by the laws of the British constitution. [Doc B] This mere thought unified the colonists and presented a situation that they could not take their eyes off of.
I am for Independence. What started the whole revolution was America’s need for independence from Britain. The Americans wanted liberty and to be free from the British. They believed in being free more than probably any other country, and were willing to fight for it, too. Americans saw liberty as something everyone should be given.
Self-governance was a primary idea of the settlers in North America. Once English settlers began to come to the new world in the 1600s, they knew they needed to have their own freedom for themselves, after all that is why they left Great Britain in many cases. Self-governance is most notable in the earliest form of the Mayflower Compact in 1620 for Virginia. Great Britain began to deteriorate the self-governing nature of the colonies in the mid-1700s through various acts it deemed to be necessary. The enforcement of these acts caused the colonists to be unhappy with the actions Great Britain was taking and so the phrase “taxation without representation is tyranny” came.
The first reason for independence is the injustice Americans have faced due to Britain’s faulty government. The initial argument for Britain having a flawed government was posed in the statement “though we have been wise enough to shut and lock the door against absolute monarchy, we at the same time have been foolish enough
The American Revolution (1775-1783) was a war between England and the colonies which were settled earlier by the English. There were many factors and events that led to the American Revolution. The Revolution was mainly an economic rebellion that was fueled by taxation without representation following the French and Indian War. The English Parliament was more often than not considered cruel and unfair by the colonists. With conflicts over trade, taxes and government representation, the colonies were at a starting line of a revolution that would later transform into the basis of the United States of America.
The American Revolution has too often been dominated by the narrative of the founding fathers and has since been remembered as a “glorified cause.” However, the American Revolution was not a unified war but a civil war with many internal disputes that wreaked havoc and chaos throughout America. In his book, The Unknown American Resvolution, Gary B. Nash attempts to unveil the chaos that the American Revolution really was through the eyes of the people not in power, including women, African American slaves, and Native Americans. In his book, Gary B. Nash emphasizes their significance in history to recount the tale of the American Revolution not through the eyes of the privileged elite but through the eyes of the people who sacrificed and struggled the most, but were left forgotten, in their endeavors to reinvent America.
“Is there a single trait of resemblance between those few towns and a great and growing people spread over a vast quarter of the globe, separated by a mighty ocean?” This question posed by Edmund Burke was in the hearts of nearly every colonist before the colonies gained their independence from Britain. The colonists’ heritage was largely British, as was their outlook on a great array of subjects; however, the position and prejudices they held concerning their independence were comprised entirely from American ingenuity. This identity crisis of these “British Americans” played an enormous role in the colonists’ battle for independence, and paved the road to revolution.
The demand for no taxation without representation was the primary force motivating the American revolutionary movement, and for many it became a symbol for democracy. Throughout the late 18th century, the British colony of America was oppressed by Parliament from "across the pond". This oppression included unequal rights compared to English citizens that lived on the mainland, unneeded taxation, and no representation in Parliament, which resulted in many laws that were unfavorable to the American colonists. It was this "taxation without representation" that was a powerful catalyst in firing up the American revolutionary movement. America was "all grown up", and no longer needed to be monitored on by Britain.
Before the American Revolution, the trends of colonial history remained rather consistent. The European superpowers continued to expand, reaping exponential benefits from the nations in which they colonized. Thomas Bender argues that the American Revolution was not just a revolution for the people of the continental United States, but was rather the starting point of a continuous global revolution that inspired social change and governmental autonomy for the colonized people. Bender examines global trends in Central and South America, as well as Europe before America’s Declaration of Independence to demonstrate that prior to the American Revolution, the great powers of Europe ruled with minimal backlash, exploiting weaker nations for increased
As Great Britain had accumulated a huge amount of war debt throughout the French and Indian War, they started to impose taxes on commonly used items in the colonies. One of the most famous of these is the Stamp Act. As we can see in Document D, Benjamin Franklin is saying that they are going to propose to repeal the Stamp Act (Document D). The Stamp Act would be repealed, but it would soon lead to the Declaratory Acts which stated that Parliament had the same authority in the colonies as they had in Great Britain. The colonists would not be happy with this act and this would soon lead to the statement “No taxation without representation” become a common term throughout the
Lawyer James Otis and other colonist rebels referred to King George as a tyrant. As stated by James Otis in The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (1763), . . . “The very act of taxing exercised over those who are not represented appears to me to be depriving them of one of their most essential rights as freemen, and if continued seems to be in effect and entire disfranchisement of every civil right.” James Otis’s point of view seemed to express concerns for the civil and constitutional rights and liberties of the colonists.
On June 4, 1776 America finally got its independence, but it was truly a struggle for all the colonists to get this far in order to have a structured government and to win freedom. The success that the colonists gained was not only the strategies that George Washington created, nor was it the help from the French. Taking those examples into consideration, they were very important actions to win the revolution, but not as important as the joined efforts of the states to rebel against the King. The main reason why we won the American Revolution was because of proper protest, choices made, and connection during the revolution. This caused many great ideas to appear for a future, and a more reasonable government in which law was king and the people ran the government. Once the patriots got through all the British, a new country began which is now America. From the past we can gather a great amount of information of how the colonists used these methods of protest to bypass and become independent from the government.
The American Revolution began as a conflict over political and social change, but soon developed into a dispute over personal rights and political liberty. A decade of conflicts between the British government and the Americans, starting with the Stamp Act in 1765 that eventually led to war in 1775, along with The Declaration of Independence in 1776. Americans united as one and knew that they wanted to be an independent country, have their own laws, rights, and not be a colony of the Great Britain. They fought hard for their independence and people lost their lives in the process of it, but in the end they succeeded. Never give up, keep fighting till the mission is accomplished, just like the Americans did when they were fighting for their independence.