I'll be lingering in this era for a bit, mostly to explore the people of the age - the Founding Fathers and the Framers of the Constitution. However, it did behoove me to glance at the War of Independence and the steps leading up to it before starting on the people.

American War of Independence

This is just a brief look at why the War happened. It would take books upon books to cover the War, and that is beyond the scope of this blog.

It was not a revolution, not like the French Revolution, so using the term "American Revolution" is a bit of a misnomer. A revolution seeks the radical restructuring of society. The Americans who protested against Britain and ended up fighting a war for independence were actually conservatives seeking to preserve their traditional rights. In their appeals, they did not turn to inflammatory documents, but rather to historical British documents including the Magna Carta (1215), the Petition of Right (1628) and the Bill of Rights (1689).

(The British constitution was "unwritten" - it was a collection of documents and traditions, often flexible in application. By an American's conservative reading, the British government had acted unconstitutionally in its restrictive acts and taxation. The modern call for a "flexible, breathing" Constitution actually recommends the very system the colonists sought to escape.)

It wasn't that the colonists wanted to be free from Britain (at least not at the beginning). It was that they wanted to retain the rights they felt were theirs as British subjects. Some ripples appeared before 1755, but they were small, usually overcome easily, or accepted as a small price to pay for being part of the British Empire. Then things began to change.

The British government was seeking to recoup some of the money it spent during the Seven Years War (1756-1763). This is a war that involved the majority of the powers of Europe. Britain and France were on opposite sides, leading to fighting not only in Europe, but also in the colonies. The North American front has come to be known as the French and Indian War.

When students are taught about the French and Indian War, they are rarely reminded about the greater context of the war. This was not an "American" war - it was a larger war that started with Prussia and Austria before spilling over to all of Europe. (Of course, skirmishes had been going on between Britain and France in the colonies since 1754 - officially however, the war did not start until 1756 as part of this greater war.) By the end of the war, Britain was nearly bankrupt and had new territories to pacify, including the Indians who had sided with France and the French-Canadians who were now under British rule. The British government ended up making decisions and passing laws that favored their new subjects/allies over the loyal colonists who had supported them (with BOTH men AND money). When these decisions combined with new taxes, tempers flared. Among these decisions and taxes included George III's Proclamation of 1763, the Stamp Act of 1765, and the Townshend Acts of 1767.

Violence did erupt in isolated areas (such as the Boston Massacre), but for the most part people restrained themselves to petition and protest. As long as this worked, most colonists were willing to keep the peace and were happy to remain British. There were some men, such as Samuel Adams, who warned that the British government would continue to pursue unconstitutional measures.

In 1773, Parliament enacted the Tea Act. This act was to help relieve the overloaded warehouses of the East India Company, as well as undercutting the price of tea smuggled into the colonies. However, buying this tea (even though it would be cheaper) included paying for the taxes (Townshend Act) on it - thus implicitly agreeing to accept the British government's right to tax as it saw fit. The colonists saw through this ploy - tea parties in Boston (the most famous), Annapolis, and Charleston highlighted the protest.

Parliament reacted by passing the Coercive Acts (known as the Intolerable Acts) which focused on Boston and Massachusetts - thought to be the main focal point of protest to Parliamentary authority. Colonial leaders throughout the colonies saw this as a violation of common law. They rose in even greater opposition - after all, if the government does this in Massachusetts, what is to prevent them from doing the same thing everywhere?

During the 1760s & 1770s - New York's legislature was sent home, Massachusetts's government reorganized, the port of Boston closed, access to trial by jury restricted, and so on and so forth. More and more the British crown and parliament attempted to restrict the colonies and find a way to tax them.

Governor Thomas Gage was ordered to enforce the Coercive Acts and to suppress 'open rebellion' among the colonists by all necessary force. This erupts into violence at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. The war had begun.

At least one attempt was made to find a peaceful resolution during the first year, but it failed and the Continental Congress felt it had no choice. In 1776, Thomas Jefferson led a committee in drafting the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson later told Henry Lee that the Declaration was "intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.”

Side note - Virginia declared independence a month before the Declaration of Independence was ratified. It did not need "approval" from other States to assert its right to resist tyranny and chart its own path.

Another note - using the word "state" during this time in history did not put each state (such as Massachusetts or Virginia) on par with Yorkshire in England or Brittany in France - it put them on par with England and France themselves.

Parliament was determined to maintain its sovereignty over the king's subjects, no matter what cost. Independence was justified because it was the only way left for the colonists to preserve their inherited rights.

To get an idea of why some of the colonists fought, see this interesting tidbit of history:

"In 1842, Judge Mellen Chamberlain interviewed ninety-one-year-old Captain Preston, a veteran of the Battle of Concord in 1775, to understand why Preston fought against the British.

Judge Chamberlain: Did you take up arms against intolerable oppressions? Captain Preston replied that he had never felt any oppressions.

Judge Chamberlain: Was it the Stamp Act? Captain Preston: No, I never saw one of those stamps.

Judge Chamberlain: Was it the tea tax? Captain Preston said no again.

Judge Chamberlain: Were you reading John Locke and other theorists of liberty? Captain Preston: Never heard of ’em. We read only the Bible, the Catechism, Watts’ Psalms and Hymns, and the Almanac.

Judge Chamberlain: Why, then, did you fight? Captain Preston: Young man, what we meant in going for those redcoats was this: We always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn’t mean we should."

Woods, Thomas E. (2004-01-01). The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History (Kindle Locations 448-449). Perseus Distribution-A. Kindle Edition.

When the colonies met to determine how they would fight, they did not seek to merge their colonies into one, but rather to determine to cooperate as much as necessary to win the war.

Interesting note - When King George III admitted defeat, he did so to 13 sovereign and independent States (countries). Article I of the Treaty of Paris put it thus: "His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to be free, sovereign and independent States; that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the Government, propriety and territorial rights of the same, and every part thereof." He did not consider them one country, one government, but rather thirteen individual ones.

Recommended reading:

The Best of Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke edited by Peter J. Stanlis

The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History Thomas E. Woods (source)

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers Brion McClanahan (source)

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution Kevin R. C. Gutzman (source)