The American Revolution

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the American Revolution was an unusual type of revolution because, instead of being lead by radicals, the leaders were conservatives, meaning the colonialists sensed a concerted effort from the British to restrict their liberty, thus it was imperative for them to counter these actions. The author points out that England's defeat of its arch-rival the French left Britain the sole European imperial power in North America between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River, leaving the British Parliament to assume parliamentary sovereignty over the area. The paper relates that the colonists reacted to this parliamentary sovereignty by electing their state assemblies setting the stage for the Declaration of Independence, which declared that governments derive their powers only by consent of the governed, transforming the protest against British colonial rule into a republican revolution.

From the Paper:

"Victory in the French and Indian War gave the British an enlarged mainland empire but also brought new problems. "The Seven Years' War, which left Britain with an enormous debt and vastly enlarged overseas possessions to defend, led successive governments in London to seek ways to make the colonies share the cost of empire" . In other words the war had been so expensive that the interest alone on Britain's debt required half the government's revenues, and the overtaxed British people could not be asked to pay more, thus they had to devise a way to "share the cost of the empire". At this point it is important to examine the British view on how the colonialist administration should be consolidated and how it opposed that of the settlers."

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