usertron2020
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Meaning that for over half of that time their situation was in wartime, i.e. the tail end of the Seven Years War, the ARW, and the French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars? (37 out of 62 years)
Was the American Revolution a Reflection of British Hubris?
- Thread starter Faeelin
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Meaning that for over half of that time their situation was in wartime, i.e. the tail end of the Seven Years War, the ARW, and the French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars? (37 out of 62 years)
Rather than insist that the Americans should have acquiesced to the nonrepresentation that most Britons suffered under, I would ask instead why the Britons did not revolt as well. The world would have been much better off if there had been an Anglo-American revolution that had established a Repbulic.
Because as the French Revolution would show, radical revolution is a good thing. If by good you mean bloody.
The revolution in America was rather bloodless as revolutions go outside the actual battles. Why would it be different in England?
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Ask the Loyalists and Southerners of that time in general how bloodless it was.
I am perfectly aware of the atrocities that occurred in the south, and I maintain my position. The American Revolution had less violence against civilians than almost any revolution in history. The only one that I can think of that had less is The Glorious Revolution.
Even if that's true, terms like "virtually bloodless" are rather misleading.
And it would be worth asking whether you're counting total casualties or percentages.
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Essentially it boils down to the fact that the colonists had the right to rebel and so did the British. As has been said, 97% of the population didn't have the right to vote for parliament. 100% of the colonists lacked this, too. A government's legitimacy comes from a mandate from the masses*. Thus the only fully legitimate form of government is a full democracy. The colonists had every right to rebel, and so did the British. The fact that nobody in Britain did so is no skin off the colonist' nose. The slaves in the antebellum south also had every right to rebel. So did blacks in the segregated south. Any group which is denied franchise has every right to use violence to gain the franchise if need be.
*Not cause some watery tart threw a sword at you
*Not cause some watery tart threw a sword at you
Essentially it boils down to the fact that the colonists had the right to rebel and so did the British. As has been said, 97% of the population didn't have the right to vote for parliament. 100% of the colonists lacked this, too. A government's legitimacy comes from a mandate from the masses*. Thus the only fully legitimate form of government is a full democracy. The colonists had every right to rebel, and so did the British. The fact that nobofy in Britain did is no skin off the colonist' nose. The slaves in the antebellum south also had every right to rebel. So did blacks in the segregated south. Any group which is denied franchise has every right to use violence to gain the franchise if need be.
*Not cause some watery tart threw a sword at you
And the basis for this oh-so-lofty rhetoric is what?
Why is it inherently more legitimate for 'the masses" to approve of you than for a watery tart to throw a sword at you?
Not to mention that there's a huge difference between the lot of slaves in the antebellum south or blacks in the segregated south and the lot of the Americans or the British in the 18th century.
Because governments compel people to follow their orders. If that compulsion is not based upon the people's consent, what is it based on?
I agree that rebellion should not be sought lightly, and that people's democratic rights should be attempted via nonviolent ways first and foremost. But the American colonists sought their democratic rights for more than a decade through peaceful means, to which the government response was to roll back existing representative instutitions.
But I think we have finally got to the fundamental disagreement here. Some of us, like the founding fathers, believe legitimate government must be based on the consent of the governed, and some of us, like the Westminster Tories and King's friends, don't. Those views aren't really reconcilable.
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"Look, strange women, lying in ponds, distributing swords does not make for a system of government. Supreme executive power comes from a mandate from the masses, not some farcical aquatic ceremony! You can't claim to wield supreme executive power, just cause some watery tart threw a sword at you! I mean, If I went 'round, saying I was an emperor, just cause some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, theyd put me away!"
The promise to provide just governance in exchange for obedience to legitimate demands.
And "democratic rights"?
The American colonists sought to defend their self-interest for more than a decade, and Parliament attempted to deal with them engaging in violent and unlawful behavior by attempting tighter control so as to deal with said insurrectionary activity.
When the Stamp Act Congress declares direct representation "impractical", this becomes less about representation and more about "We don't want to pay/we don't want to obey".
Frankly, if we want to look at the situation Parliament was trying to grapple with, we have to look at the activities of the Sons of Liberty and the taring and feathering and so on. Presenting the British government's attempts to maintain control while presenting the American resistance as boycotting and speech-making is horribly misleading.
Lost the Game: Monty Python is awesome. That is all that I can think to say there.
But I'm sure I could find them skewering democracy if I tried.
Parliament destroyed the representative nature of a colony largely because that colony's legislature had embargoed British commerce as a weapon against Parliament's acts in the past, and in response to rioting. As to the latter, only a fool would believe representative government leads to rioting, and for the former, why couldn't Massachusetts' House of Assembly vote to cease trade with Britain if they so chose? Why was that illegal? It wasn't illegal at the time, that's why Parliament had to resort to things like altering Massachusetts' charter, which Massachusetts had no defense against. Under the doctrine of Parliamentary Supremacy, the British Parliament held an absolute tyranny over all other parts of the empire. It's only legitimacy came from its own laws. If people (in any country) just shrugged and said "well, they're the legitimate authority, guess we have to do whatever they say" god knows where we'd be today.
Representative Union between Great Britain and the American colonies was impractical. Most people could see that. In 1770 the American colonies might have well been on the moon. An American representative from New York would be just as bad at writing laws for Liverpool as the other way around. I'm not saying separation was the only possible solution, but just pouring American representatives into the general British Parliament would have been a bad idea.
Anyway, come on, think about it. Would it have made sense for Parliament to hold supreme lawmaking authority over the colonies in another 50 years when their population level would be approaching equality with the British population? How about when there were more Americans than Britons? Would that make any sense at all?
Just a question here, was there ever a strong case made by the Colonist to Parliament and the King for self-governance within the Empire? That is to say, did the Colonist ever attempt to present a reasonable argument to Parliament for them becoming essentially a self-sustaining Dominion/Dominions - which is clearly what they wanted - yet deferring to Parliament on matters of international politics? Or did they just declare the existing system impractical and offer no alternative?
In 1775, the Continental Congress voted on if they should apply to Parliament for a separate American Congress in exchange for ceding taxation power to Parliament, which was the major sticking point. It failed by one vote. I can hazard a guess that the North administration would have reacted negatively to it, since they believed very strongly in the principle of Parliamentary Supremacy, as opposed to the Whigs, but of course I don't know for sure.
The colonists did not really declare the existing system impractical; before independence they demanded that Parliament restore the laws to the way they had been before 1763 (Year the Stamp Act was enacted), and romanticized about how great things had been before before then. (Even if they weren't really that great) This is where the "American Revolution was really a conservative revolution" argument comes from, if you've ever heard that one.
If people treated every government adding a tax to something as tyranny, god knows where we'd be today.
Also, riots are not always justified, to say the least.
There is a huge gap between "Parliament was the legitimate authority and not doing anything oppressive with that authority in regards to measures like the Stamp Act." and "Government should be obeyed all the time without question."
So Parliament is damned either way, eh?
Also, if the American colonies "might as well have been on the moon", the frequent exchanges (trade and information) between Old World and New World kind of debunks that.
American population in 1800: 4 million.
British Isles: 16 million.
For comparison, 1750 is 2 million to 10.5.
I'm not sure when the US population surpassed Great Britain's, but it wasn't any time soon.
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