The American Revolution

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For each you are required to write a paper that consists of five components:  1. Background information- Summarize the issue  2. Case for the issue- Summarize the case for the issue using examples from the reading.  Identify specific individuals for the issue. 3. Case against the issue- Summarize the case against the issue using examples from the reading.  Identify specific individuals against the issue. 4. Your opinion/conclusion- Establish a conclusion grounded in historical reasoning.  Support your position with specific information from the reading. 5. Analysis of a primary document- Select one primary source (click on “Primary Sources” in the top/middle of the screen).  Describe the source and state which side of the argument this document supports.  Does it support your opinion/conclusion? Explain The Issue Victory over the French in the Seven Years’ War changed the harmonious relationship between Britain’s North American colonies and the mother country. New taxes and regulations imposed on the Americans produced a series of protests and crises between 1763 and 1775. These confrontations spurred Britain to suppress disobedience to Parliamentary policy with military force. Beginning with the Battle of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the colonists mounted armed resistance to British “coercion.” After a year of military conflict, American patriots issued a Declaration of Independence that withdrew the United States from the British Empire. Did the Americans make the right decision? Arguments for separation from Great Britain: Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense, and most members of the Continental Congress, which assigned the task of drafting a Declaration of Independence to Thomas Jefferson, favored separation. They argued that a hereditary king living far away in England should not govern “a free people.” They criticized the Crown for maintaining standing armies in the colonies, waging war against Americans, and promoting “tyranny.” Separation would reopen trade with foreign nations and prevent Americans from becoming involved in European wars. Arguments against separation from Great Britain: A large number of colonists, many of them learned and respected figures in North America, rejected separation. They argued that the benefits of remaining within the British Empire outweighed the disadvantages, even with Parliament’s newly imposed taxes. They feared that separation from England and defiance of Parliament would lead to a British blockade that would impoverish the colonies. Separation would also deprive colonial commerce of British protection and lead to division in the colonies. Many “loyalists” expressed resentment of the Massachusetts “radicals” who turned a family dispute into a movement for independence. Thousands of loyalists voluntarily departed their homeland or were driven out. The American Revolution was also a civil war. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division (reproduction number LC-DIG-ppmsca-08314) A facsimile of the Declaration of Independence. Background Early in the morning of April 19, 1775, six companies of Redcoats from Boston marched from Lexington to Concord, Massachusetts. They were the advance units of a British force instructed to commandeer storehouses of weapons and ammunition and to arrest leaders of the provincial resistance to military government in the colony. Concord had a welcoming party for the king’s men. Waiting in town were 400 minutemen and other militiamen—local citizens who performed military service—from Concord and surrounding towns. The minutemen were specially selected to be ready for action at a minute’s notice. Word that “the regulars are coming out” had reached Concord in time to assembly a sizeable force. The provincials knew that the Redcoats had already visited Lexington, looking for leaders of the resistance to British military rule. They did not know that American blood had been spilled there. When British soldiers entered Concord, the provincials withdrew to the heights overlooking the North Bridge over the Concord River. There they waited impatiently until smoke from the center of town spurred them to action. As militiamen approached the North Bridge, British soldiers unleashed a fusillade of shots, killing two Americans. The minutemen returned fire, killing three Redcoats and wounding others. These were the shots “heard round the world,” as the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson later commemorated the start of the American Revolution. And the Americans fired many more times during April 19. Thousands of provincial militiamen gathered from far and wide in Middlesex County to harass the British column as it returned to Charlestown, just outside of Boston. Brutal hand-to-hand combat took place in Menotomy (now Arlington). Fighting in unorthodox, guerrilla style, the Americans killed 73 British soldiers and wounded 174. Still Picture Branch of the National Archives and Records Administration Engraving by H. S. Gold of Gilbert Stuart’s full-length portrait of George Washington. Few Americans who took part in the fight on April 19 were revolutionaries. They had not taken the field to win independence for a new nation or to replace the parliamentary monarchy with a republic. Rather, the New Englanders saw their action as a defense of their homes and their rights as Englishmen against a regime that had turned oppressive. However, the patriot stand at the old North Bridge set the wheels of change in motion. Less than two months after Lexington and Concord, an assembly of delegates from the colonies appointed George Washington commander in chief of “all the continental forces,” and New Englanders fought a pitched battle against British regulars at Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts. A little over a year later, the colonists declared their independence from Great Britain. Today, most Americans probably assume that Americans who fought British Redcoats at Concord struck a blow for independence. The assumption is inaccurate, at least in a literal sense. Most residents of British North America, and particularly those of English background, considered themselves British subjects of King George III. These Britishers by sentiment and tradition severed their political ties with the “mother country” only with great reluctance. They argued that they did so by necessity, as the Crown and his ministers left them no alternative. The king had cavalierly turned aside colonial petitions for reconciliation of grievances and launched a plan to crush resistance and instill obedience to Parliament with brute force. King George, many said, was stripping citizens of their liberties and reducing them to “slavery.” Many colonists urged reconciliation with Britain until the vote for independence was cast. Yet even then, a substantial number of people in the American colonies remained loyal to the king of England. These Tories, as loyalists were called, argued that membership in the British Empire brought important benefits. British subjects possessed unsurpassed political rights. The English army and navy offered military security and protection for trade. Resistance to this military force promised destruction of their homes and commerce, and perhaps a trip to the gallows. They were right. Until Washington’s victory over the British army at Yorktown in 1781, the British considered Americans traitors, for whom the penalty was death. The events at Lexington and Concord occurred more than a century and a half after the initial settlement of Virginia (1607) and Massachusetts (1620), the oldest of the 13 colonies that became the United States of America. The British Colonies in North America Emigration and expanding settlements had brought the white population of these 13 colonies to 2.5 million by 1775. Colonists were spread out along the Atlantic seaboard from southern Maine (then part of Massachusetts Bay Colony) to Georgia. These inhabitants, mainly British in background, with some Europeans and half a million Africans (most of whom were slaves), lived within the authority of the British Empire. The British Parliament imposed a variety of commercial regulations on the Americans, which most deemed acceptable, and occasionally disallowed laws passed in colonial assemblies. While formidable in theory, British rule of the North American colonies through 1763 was benign. The Americans elected their own legislatures, which enacted laws in each colony. Most day-to-day governance proceeded in the towns of New England and New York and at the county level. The Seven Years’ War changed this cooperative relationship. Between 1689 and 1763, Britain fought four wars against France and its various European allies in a struggle for world power and empire. The last of these conflicts, known in the colonies as the French and Indian War, began in North America in 1754. Between 1756 and 1763, the war spread to the Indian subcontinent, the Caribbean, and Africa. British victories over the French in Canada in 1760 hastened the signing of a peace treaty in 1763, which ceded Canada and the Mississippi Valley to Great Britain. The fruits of victory over France and Spain, however, planted seeds of discontent in the colonies. Americans had taken part in the campaigns against the French and their Native American allies, but the British shouldered the bulk of the cost of war, which doubled the country’s national debt. A sharp depression at the end of the war made it politically difficult to raise taxes, which many people in England protested. Besides its war debt, Britain now administered a huge new region in the Americas, which added to its financial obligations. To help manage its new territories and to pacify Native Americans, the British ministry announced a proclamation in 1763 that barred further American settlement into the region west of the Appalachian Mountains. Aware that Americans paid far less in taxes than British residents, the king’s ministers resolved to have Americans help pay the costs of defense in North America. Agreeable to this goal, Parliament enacted a Revenue Act of 1764, which increased import duties on sugar into the colonies and legislated new trade regulations. The Crown administration tightened the enforcement of customs collections by stationing the British navy in the colonies and establishing British-run “Vice Admiralty” courts that functioned without juries. Americans cried foul, protesting the new regulations. James Otis, a Boston lawyer, wrote that no part of “his majesty’s dominions” could be taxed “without their consent.” His pamphlet began 12 years of protest over new British taxation of Americans. The colonial legislature in Massachusetts urged a boycott of certain items imported from Britain. The Seven Years’ War had set in motion events that undermined the more or less harmonious political accord between colony and mother country. Three Crises, 1765–1774 Protests over the Revenue Act and Proclamation of 1763 were under way when Britain issued an additional shock by enactment of the Stamp Act in 1765. This measure placed taxes on items such as legal documents, newspapers, and playing cards that circulated in the colonies. Compounding this insult was a new Quartering Act, which obligated colonials to house British troops, now stationed in North America. At the urging of Patrick Henry, the Virginia House of Burgesses issued a resolve that condemned the Stamp Act. Other colonial legislatures followed suit. Delegates from 11 colonies met at a Stamp Act Congress in New York, which issued “Resolutions” that rejected the premises of the new tax. The statement asserted that colonists were entitled to the “rights and liberties” afforded to “subjects within the kingdom of Great Britain.” These freedoms included the principle that “no taxation be imposed on them but with their own consent.” As the colonists were not actually represented in Parliament, they were unable to participate directly in the legislative process. The resolution added a protest against the Vice Admiralty courts, arguing that trial by jury was an inherent right of “every British subject.” Some colonists protested the Stamp Act through a group called the Sons of Liberty. Rioting occurred in colonial cities, and the homes of Stamp Act collectors were looted. Faced with physical danger, tax collectors resigned their commissions. Parliament conceded its inability to collect stamp taxes by repealing the act in 1766, yet the British ministry was not impressed with the colonial legal complaint. Parliament made this point emphatic in the Declaratory Act (1766), which stated that Parliament had authority to make laws for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” The Stamp Act imbroglio was the first of three crises that raised tensions between Parliament and colonist to a dangerous level between 1765 and 1774. Each set of confrontations prompted the formation of local organizations to counter new British policy. These protest groups stimulated intercolonial cooperation among colonists, who previously had acted largely in isolation from each other. The resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress set forth arguments that would be repeated and enhanced in the coming years, thus laying an ideological foundation for resistance to British administration. The second crisis occurred over the Townshend duties, levied in 1767. Making use of a presumed distinction between internal and external taxes, this measure imposed duties only on imported goods, such as glass, paper, and tea. Colonists balked again. John Dickinson, a Pennsylvania lawyer, wrote that the imports taxed were tantamount to internal taxation because Britain prohibited the manufacture of certain items in the colonies, thus making them available only through imports. Because of the physical inability for colonists to send representatives to Parliament, taxing them without their consent threatened to reduce them to “abject slaves.” Merchants in Boston and New York spearheaded nonimportation agreements that applied economic pressure on Britain, which repealed the Townshend duties, except on tea. In the meantime, General Thomas Gage, commander of British forces in North America, had moved his headquarters and warships to Boston, a center of resistance to the new British policy. The presence of “lobster-backs” on the city streets sparked confrontations with locals, culminating in the Boston Massacre in 1770, when British soldiers fatally shot five colonials in an unruly and threatening crowd. Paul Revere’s etching of the incident, widely distributed in the colonies, dramatized the armed assault on American civilians. Tension was elevated another notch with the publication of the Boston Pamphlet (1772–1773), in which the Boston Town Meeting charged that a plot was afoot to deprive Americans of their rights and “enslave” them. The immediate provocation had been the British decision to pay the salaries of royal officials from revenue duties rather than from monies voted by colonial legislatures, a step that would undermine the authority of Massachusetts lawmakers. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division (reproduction number LC-DIG-ppmsca-19159) Engraving by Paul Revere showing the British firing on colonists in the Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770. The Tea Act of 1773 ignited a third crisis. This measure granted a special tax dispensation to the British East India Company, a step that gave its tea business an advantage over rival colonial importers of this popular drink. Bay Colony residents signified their distaste for the act by holding the Boston Tea Party, in which revelers disguised as Indians boarded three merchant vessels and threw several hundred chests of tea into the harbor. Protesters used committees of correspondence to communicate with citizens in Massachusetts and other colonies, urging a boycott of British tea. In the eyes of the king’s ministers and Parliament, Bostonians had crossed a critical line. British officials saw these acts of defiance as the breakdown of civil order in the colonies and deliberate challenges to the sovereignty of Parliament. The British response took the form of four punitive laws, collectively known as the Coercive Acts—Americans called them the Intolerable Acts—of 1774. These measures shut down the port of Boston to outside commerce (until the destroyed tea was paid for), revoked the right to elect representatives to the Massachusetts legislature, limited town meetings to one a year, and protected soldiers and judges from trials by the Sons of Liberty. In addition to these actions, which revised Massachusetts’ royal charter, Parliament enacted a broader quartering policy for the housing of soldiers. General Gage assumed the dual role as head of the British military and governor of Massachusetts. Clearly, the Crown had responded to events in its most unruly American colony with a heavy hand. Adding insult to injury, a separate law (the Quebec Act) recognized the Catholic Church as a legal entity in Canada. The law was an affront to Protestants in the colonies. The residents of Massachusetts did not sheepishly acquiesce to these punitive measures. An extra-legal session of the Boston Town Meeting called for an intercolonial meeting to address the latest British oppression. Other colonies heeded the call. In September 1774, delegates from 12 colonies met in Philadelphia to review the situation. The next month, this (first) Continental Congress adopted a Declaration of Rights and Resolves that reviewed the complaints of the colonists, such as levying taxes without the consent of citizens and transporting colonists to England for trial. These transgressions, the delegates stated, violated the laws of nature and the rights of British subjects, which the declaration enumerated. The tradition of self-governance in the colonies was manifestly apparent in the declaration of rights. The fourth right set forth reminded the king that “the foundation of English liberty is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council.” The congress approved a Continental Association to boycott British products, passed resolutions urging colonies to prepare their militaries, and planned to meet again the following spring. [See Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress (primary document)] 1775: From Protest to Confrontation Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division (reproduction number LC-USZ62-7407) Paul Revere The conflict between the colonies and Great Britain evolved from protest to military confrontation as 1775 unfolded. Boston was placed under martial law, and General Thomas Gage acted as the military governor of Massachusetts. Towns throughout New England and elsewhere stockpiled guns and ammunition, some of which were smuggled into America, and drilled their militias. Committees of safety monitored British troop movements in the Boston region and watched for Tory spies in their communities. Neither the king nor his ministers nor Parliament showed any willingness to compromise. King George III brushed aside colonial petitions for negotiated reconciliation. The British view was that Parliamentary jurisdiction included all dominions of the Crown and that the American colonies now veered toward rebellion. The British demanded full obedience to the laws of Parliament. In April 1775, General Gage received instructions from the ministry: Arrest the rebel leaders, and act quickly to crush the insurrection with force. Gage doubted that he had sufficient manpower to do the job, but he followed orders. On the evening of April 18, 1775, Gage dispatched a detachment of Redcoat regular troops in Boston to make a nighttime march to Lexington and Concord. The next morning, Redcoats opened fire on militia “minutemen” (citizen soldiers) who had gathered on Lexington Common, killing several. Patriot leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams escaped the clutches of the British search party, having been warned by Paul Revere that “the regulars are coming.” British troops then marched on to Concord, where Redcoats and minutemen exchanged fire with fatal results at the old North Bridge. Protests had given way to armed confrontation. [See The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (sidebar)] Thousands of militiamen from Massachusetts and surrounding colonies gathered around Boston, where Gage had withdrawn his force. Penned up in a city under siege, General Gage, under pressure from the ministry, decided to occupy the heights on the Charlestown peninsula, which overlooked Boston and the harbor. Word of Gage’s plan slipped out, allowing the patriots to fortify several hills, including Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill, near the village of Charlestown. On June 17, 1775, Redcoats crossed the narrow strip of water from Boston to Charlestown and stormed up Breed’s Hill into the withering fire of colonial militiamen. Although the British eventually routed the colonials from their hilltop bunkers, the Redcoats suffered tremendous casualties in the fight, known as the Battle of Bunker Hill. The Patriots had demonstrated that they could stand up to the strongest military in the world. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division (reproduction number LC-USZ62-8624) View of the attack on Bunker Hill, 1775. A Second Continental Congress had assembled in Philadelphia in May. Two days prior to the Battle of Bunker Hill, the delegates appointed George Washington, a resident of Virginia and a colonial in its militia, commander in chief of the continental defense forces. Washington did not reach Massachusetts in time for the Battle of Bunker Hill, but once in Cambridge, he got right to work trying to mold a ragtag collection of New Englanders into an army. [See George Washington Takes Command (sidebar)] In the meantime, the congress acted decisively to meet the crisis. First, the delegates drafted a petition seeking reconciliation of their differences with the Crown and Parliament. The document stated explicitly that colonists remained proudly loyal British subjects. Second, the congress set forth why colonists had taken up arms in the Declaration of Causes and Necessity (July 6, 1775). Denouncing Gage’s “warlike” foray into Lexington and Concord, where his troops “murdered eight of the inhabitants,” the congress stated boldly that “We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers or resistance by force. The latter is our choice.” The congress advised the colonies to form temporary governments, free of royal control, to manage affairs in their regions. Then, delegates got to work assembling items required for the military confrontation with the British in Boston, where General William Howe, who had replaced Gage, wintered his garrison. The king responded by declaring that colonists who supported armed resistance were “rebels.” Despite these setbacks, however, resistance leaders in America clung to the hope of reconciliation with Great Britain through 1775. Resistance to Britain’s iron-fisted policy had not yet become revolution. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division (reproduction number LC-DIG-ppmsca-05483) A Minuteman firing at the Battle of Lexington. Engraving by Cornelius Tieboud, 1790s. 1776: From Confrontation to Separation The Second Continental Congress worked feverishly in the early months of 1776. It functioned as a de facto national government, giving first priority to supporting an army that could resist the British incursion. “Independency,” however, as the question of separation was called, had not been the primary reason that colonial leaders called a second meeting. But events rapidly altered its purpose—and perhaps loyalty to the king and Britain. In the eyes of most delegates assembled in Philadelphia, Parliament had displayed its intention of crushing the colonial “rebellion.” Furthermore, delegates understood the seriousness of their military situation, even its desperateness, notwithstanding Washington’s success in forcing the Redcoats out of Boston in March 1776. In a daring maneuver during the dead of winter, Washington’s men had transported cannon from Fort Ticonderoga in New York to Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston. Seeing the vulnerability of his position, General Howe and the British invasion force departed for Halifax, Nova Scotia. The retreat was Washington’s first major triumph, but he knew that the British would be back, most likely headed to New York. During the siege of Boston (fall 1775–winter 1776), the Royal Navy had leveled the town of Falmouth, Maine’s, leading seaport (now named Portland). Lord John Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, burned Norfolk. More menacing to southern planters, Dunmore had offered freedom to slaves who fought Virginia rebels. Early in 1776, the congress learned that the king was sending reinforcements, including “foreign mercenaries,” to the colonies. These acts of royal “brutality” strained hopes for reconciliation. That an amicable resolution of differences was even a desirable goal was directly challenged by Thomas Paine in January 1776. A recent emigrant from Britain, Paine authored a pamphlet entitled Common Sense, which argued that rule by a monarchy was burdened by contradictions. Americans would be much better off, in Paine’s opinion, by declaring independence and establishing a republic. Written in a popular style and weaving together arguments already in circulation, Common Sense was an immediate hit and best-seller. Most historians have credited Paine’s treatise with immense influence in persuading the colonists that separation from England was logical and desirable—and possible. Paine’s ideas helped to frame the debate in the congress and among colonists over how to respond to British military coercion. Some delegates to the congress, such as John Adams of Massachusetts, urged independence. Moderates, such as John Dickinson, held on to hopes for reconciliation, even as fighting raged. By spring 1776, few in Congress thought reconciliation possible, but delegates from New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland hung back from lending their support to independence. Other states, such as New Hampshire and South Carolina, forged ahead of the congress by writing their own constitutions, which were, in effect, declarations of independence. In May, the congress recommended that all colonies form new governments. On June 7, Richard Henry Lee moved a resolution for independence in the congress, which appointed a committee to draft a declaration of independence. By then, it was known that the British fleet had departed Halifax and soon would land an army, including German mercenaries, to fight Americans. The advance flotilla of this fleet arrived in New York on June 29. Three days later, delegates at the Continental Congress approved a Declaration of Independence, despite some lingering negative votes. The congress made the declaration public on July 4, 1776. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division (reproduction number LC-USZ62-112159) Drawing, published in 1876, of the reading of the Declaration of Independence from the steps of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, July 8, 1776. The Case for Separation from Britain Thomas Paine’s Common Sense put the proposition of separation from the mother country before American colonists in plain and compelling language. He attacked the idea that monarchs were best suited to maintain liberty. In the first place, monarchs received their authority through heredity, which opened up the possibilities that weak candidates could come to the throne. Second, a monarch’s broad power nurtured ambition, which was difficult to restrain. Staying with the empire would surely thrust Americans frequently into wars among Europe’s many kingdoms. Liberty was more secure in a government based on the people themselves, thus, in a “republic.” Other factors, including geography, pointed to the folly of staying within the empire. “There is something very absurd,” Paine wrote, “in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.” The historian Pauline Maier has observed (in American Scripture) that Paine did more than devise a powerful constitutional argument. He spoke to the pride most Americans had in being British, challenging their assumption that Britain had the most perfect form of government. Recent events, Paine argued, demonstrated the folly of that notion. [See Thomas Paine, Common Sense (primary document)] The delegates to the Second Continental Congress and Americans in the colonies had five months to reflect on Paine’s treatise prior to the debate on Richard Henry Lee’s resolution for independence on June 8, 1776. John Adams, Lee, and other delegates pointed out that no delegate now believed it was possible to restore traditional relations with Britain; the commencement of hostilities had dissolved the accords and sentiments that once prevailed. Further delay, they argued, would jeopardize foreign assistance, especially from France. Moreover, separation would permit Americans to reopen trade with nations that currently observed Britain’s ban on commerce with its rebellious colonies. [See Debate in Congress over Independence Resolution (1) (primary document)] The debate in the congress on separation was as much about timing as it was about the merits of establishing an independent sovereignty. Moreover, separation meant the creation of a new government. The Declaration of Independence spoke to all of these issues and did so in elegant language, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, with editorial help from members of the congress. A decision for separation, Jefferson argued, should not occur for “light and transient causes” but only “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object” makes the alternative unpalatable. That “design,” the declaration charged, was to place the colonies under “absolute despotism.” Several sentences later, the congress substituted the word tyranny for despotism, repeating language the congress had used in the Declaration of Causes for Taking Up Arms and in earlier remonstrances to Britain. The Declaration and Resolves adopted by the First Continental Congress had used the term enslave to convey the same complaints about “the present King of Great Britain.” These were powerful metaphors, reflecting both the anger of colonial leaders and their hope to convince fellow Americans that their rights were in jeopardy. [See Declaration of Independence (primary document)] How did Jefferson document the king’s conspiracy to strip Americans of their liberties? His evidence consisted of a list of 27 indictments against the Crown. Some of these charges, such as suspending colonial legislatures, imposing taxes without the consent of the inhabitants, and holding trials without the benefit of juries, directly undermined liberties that colonists assumed were inviolate. Offensive, too, was the maintenance of standing armies in the colonies, waging war against Americans, and ravaging towns along their coastline. Particularly damning was the observation that George III “is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny… with… perfidy… unworthy the head of a civilized nation.” Summing up these “oppressions,” Jefferson said, made the king a tyrant and “unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” The declaration was more than a catalog of sins by the Crown against the liberties of American colonists. It also was a superbly styled version of John Locke’s political philosophy that articulated reasons for placing restraints on the power of rulers. Men have unalienable rights, including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Jefferson wrote. Governments are instituted to secure these rights; public officials get their powers from the “consent of the governed.” The Declaration of Independence was revolutionary not only because it cut the colonial bond with British rule and established an independent nation, but also because it articulated a philosophy that justified the formation of a republic (a political system based on popular consent). These were innovative and courageous steps, which required compelling arguments to overcome anxieties about venturing into uncharted territory. Jefferson is rightly remembered for hitting the right cadence and pitch in scripting this famous statement. Members of the congress amended the document, which probably helped to persuade 55 delegates to sign it. The Case Against Separation from Britain The proposal to break from Britain did not find universal agreement. Far from it. When the Second Continental Congress entertained debate on Lee’s independence resolution on June 8, 1776, only five states had authorized their delegates to vote for separation. The argument to delay approval of the motion was led by James Wilson (PA), Robert R. Livingston (NY), Edward Rutledge (SC), and John Dickinson (PA). According to Jefferson’s notes on the proceedings, naysayers claimed that the “voice of the people” had not yet demanded that the congress agree to separation. Better to wait for a clear public signal, especially in the middle colonies, where opinions “were not yet ripe for bidding adieu to the British connection”. Doubts were expressed that delegates from several colonies lacked authorization from their colonies to approve independence. Hence, a premature declaration of separation could lead some colonies to break the unified front currently opposing British oppression, a development that could prove disastrous for recruiting foreign assistance. Disunity, the moderates warned, invited partitioning by European powers. [See Debate in Congress over Independence Resolution (2) (primary document)] The opponents of independence in Congress on June 8 were probably much more concerned about the timing of a decision than with its underlying logic and, perhaps, even its inevitability. Wilson, Rutledge and Livingston went on to sign the declaration; the latter was a member of the committee that drafted the document, along with Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. Dickinson did not sign but remained a Patriot during the Revolution. A substantial number of American colonists turned in the other direction, however. Most of these “loyalists” took their oaths of allegiance to the king as solemn and irrevocable commitments and took pride in the British Empire. They were well represented among royal officials in the colonies, Anglican clergymen, and successful merchants, especially in the coastal cities. The colonies of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania were strongholds of Loyalist sentiment, as were some communities of Germans and Irish, who questioned how far American liberty would go on their behalf. Some individuals, such as Joseph Galloway, who had been speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and William Franklin, Benjamin’s son and governor of New Jersey, were articulate and influential. But the Loyalists never developed the network of communication that the colonial committees of correspondence created, or matched the organizational zeal of a Samuel Adams of Boston. Loyalists and others who opposed separation saw the colonists headed toward disaster. William Eddis, the secretary to the governor of Maryland, argued as much. Writing in the Maryland Gazette in February 1775, Eddis thought that American defiance of Great Britain was unnecessary and unwise. He expressed the opinion, as did others, that Britain did not intend to reduce the provinces “to a state of abject servility, by force of arms.” But American defiance of Parliamentary authority would lead to a British blockade, which would produce impoverishment and promote divisions within the colonies. In large measure, he was right, although we know that the Patriots prevailed over wartime hardships and hounded many Loyalists out of the new country. [See William Eddis in Maryland Gazette (primary document)] Charles Inglis, an Anglican clergymen attached to Trinity Church in New York when the Revolution erupted, also saw separation as a mistake. In 1776, he published a pamphlet that rebutted Paine’s Common Sense point by point. He argued that a break with Britain would deprive colonial commerce of the protection of “the greatest naval power in the world.” Waging war, he argued, would cost the colonists more than if they helped to pay for British naval security. He warned that the king and Parliament might parcel out parts of the American continent to European powers as a way of forestalling further rebellions once the rebellion was crushed. He further opined that a “limited monarchy is the form of government that was most favorable to liberty.” Other Loyalists thought that Britain offered wide protection for rights, more than any other nation-state. They were no doubt correct in this observation. Inglis went further, alleging that America was too large to contain a successful republic. Reservations about the ability of a republic to survive over an extensive area resurfaced during the debate over approval of the Constitution of the United States in 1788. Inglis had articulated a broadly held view in the Western world during the late 18th century about the fragility of a citizen-based polity. [See Charles Inglis, “The True Interest of America Impartially Stated,” 1776 (primary document)] Inglis remained in America until 1783, when he was banished from the new nation. Many Loyalists suffered a similar fate. Some had argued during the debate over the conflict with Britain that separation was led by hotheads from New England, who brandished their own version of moral certitude. Independence, this argument warned, might diminish American religious and cultural tolerance. Other doubters worried that separation from Britain opened up the possibilities of a revolution from below—wherein the poor and propertyless would seize the opportunity to even the score with their wealthy betters. The fear of anarchy and mob disorder haunted both Patriots and Loyalists. In the end, Patriots clamped down on overt opposition to their cause and stripped many Loyalists of their property. Outcome and Impact The Loyalists remained royalists, meaning that they continued to pledge allegiance to the king of England during his conflict with the colonists. American patriots, by contrast, formed republican governments that dispensed with a monarch. Of the 13 colonies, 11 wrote state constitutions as legal foundations for their governments between 1776 and 1780. Connecticut and Rhode Island continued to use their colonial charters, although with references to the Crown deleted. In 1777, the Continental Congress adopted Articles of Confederation that sought to bind the states into a loose national federation; requiring approval from all the states, the agreement did not go into effect until 1781. The Continental Congress functioned as a national government for most of the war. Colonial triumph on the battlefield entailed both immense effort and luck. One bit of good fortune was the selection of Washington to lead the Patriots. What Washington lacked in military knowledge he made up for in leadership ability and tenacity in the face of adversity. He never gave up. Washington’s great achievement as commander in chief of the continental forces was to keep an army in the field until the most powerful military nation in the world saw the futility of further action against the Americans. Geography was an ally of the Patriot cause. Besides separation from its North American colonies by 3,000 miles of ocean in an era of sailing craft, the British had to conquer and hold locations along 1,300 miles of coastline that stretched from southern Maine to northern Georgia. Adding to British difficulties was the intervention of foreign rivals, a goal that the congress sought when it pondered the Declaration of Independence. France allied with the United States in 1778 and provided critical assistance to the Patriots. Spain declared war on Britain in 1779, and Holland followed suit in 1780. The French landed 7,000 troops to join Washington’s siege of the British on the peninsula at Yorktown in October 1781. The French navy prevented the British from being reinforced or escaping by sea. The British surrender at Yorktown persuaded the British ministry that further effort to subdue the rebellious colonies was futile. Articles of peace were signed a year later, and the formal Treaty of Paris, which recognized American independence, was completed in September 1783. During this period, Washington once again proved adept at keeping an army intact until nationhood was officially secured. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division (reproduction number LC-DIG-pga-02468) Lithograph made in 1879 by Edmund R. Restein showing George Washington’s triumphant entry into New York City, November 25, 1783. These events constitute one of the most impressive achievements in modern history. The Americans not only held off the army of a superpower but also began a “republican” form of government that was based on the consent of the governed rather than on a hereditary monarchy. These dual outcomes sent shock waves through subsequent history. The next 150 years witnessed a host of revolutions against royal government and colonial status throughout the world. Not all of these developments were violent, and not all were successful. Anticolonialism swept through South America in the early 19th century, although Latin nations did not duplicate the democratic arrangement adopted in the United States. All of the English-speaking “settler” colonies of Great Britain (the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand) eventually became self-governing nations based on republican principles and parliamentary-style democracies. France underwent a revolution beginning in 1789 that toppled its monarchy and unleashed a new form of popular nationalism, although the new regime ended in a dictatorship under Napoleon. The revolutions of 1848 in Europe against conservative rule rekindled aspirations for constitutional rule. Citizens of the United States had won stunning victories against colonialism and monarchy, yet not all Americans rejoiced at these achievements. Perhaps half a million residents of the thirteen colonies remained loyal to the king. Some 20,000 fought with his armies in America. States enacted laws during the war that forced residents to declare publicly their support of the Patriot cause or face banishment and loss of property. Up to 100,000 Loyalists emigrated from the United States during and after the war, with 30,000 relocating in Canada. Despite the provisions of the Treaty of Paris, few exiles recovered their property. What if the colonies had not chosen to separate from Great Britain? Of course, American history might have turned out differently. Had Parliament and the Crown not taken such a rigidly hard line toward accommodation with the colonists and recognized the strength of American attachments to Great Britain and the Crown, an alternate scenario is plausible. If British officials had shown more interest in reconciliation, the Continental Congress might have delayed or tabled its decision to separate from Britain. Then the history of the United States would have been written differently. Canada serves as a case in point. Canada remained a set of separate colonies within the British Empire until the Act of Confederation in 1867. And even at this stage of Canadian history, opposition in the maritime provinces to inclusion in a greater Canada was strong, yet Canada developed a parliamentary style of democracy that afforded broadly based individual rights to its citizens. In many essential respects, its history was similar to that of its southern neighbor. Like the United States, Canada developed a sense of national identity, which helped to explain its resistance to incorporation with its larger southern neighbor. In many respects, the liberties identified by Loyalist writers during the Revolution found a home north of the border, especially in the Canadian maritime provinces. Unlike the United States, Canada eradicated slavery early in its history, sparing its provinces a sectional dispute over bondage. This counterfactual speculation faces some challenges, of course. The War of 1812 between Britain and the United States poses one of them. Even if the colonies had remained within the British Empire, stresses in the relationship might have provoked armed conflict. The Americans were a sea-faring people, and the renewed war in Europe after 1803 placed American ships and merchants in jeopardy. British efforts to keep peace between pioneers who had migrated west and indigenous Americans in the Mississippi Valley region and the garrisoning of Redcoats on frontier forts remained contentious issues after 1783 and could have flared into serious confrontation between the two nations. In 1812, Britain would face a group of prideful Americans who were more numerous and economically stronger than they had been in 1775. The upshot of these conjectures is that one way or another, the Americans probably would have created a self-governing nation eventually. It is hard to escape the logic of Thomas Paine’s conclusion that it was absurd to think that an island could rule a continent forever. Bibliography Borden, Morton, and Penn Borden. The American Tory. New York: Prentice Hall, 1972. Fowler, William M., Jr. Samuel Adams: Radical Puritan. New York: Longman, 1997. Gross, Robert A. The Minutemen and Their World. New York: Hill and Wang, 1976. Maier, Pauline. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New York: Knopf, 1997. ———. From Resistance to Revolution. New York: Random House, 1972; Vintage, 1974. McCullough, David. 1776. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005. Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. Nelson, William H. The American Tory. New York: Oxford University Press, 1961. Rakove, Jack N. The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979. Wood, Gordon. The Creation of the American Republic. New York: Norton, 1969. TABLE OF CONTENTS Full Article The Issue Background Case For Case Against Conclusion What if… Bibliography Discussion Questions BACK TO TOP © Infobase. All Rights Reserved. HELP CONTACT US PRIVACY POLICY TERMS OF USE TRANSLATE   Access Provided by Tulsa Community College