Alright, so it's not making history now, but you've got to admit it was pretty darn important.

It just so happens in History class we are learning about the American Revolution. I'm beginning to not see much justification in the AR. According to my History teacher, a man would have to drink a gallon of tea a day, for one year to pay one dollar of tax on tea. The Americans were paying far less taxes than their London counterparts and England was going bankrupt.

I guess I could see the apprehension about things like the Quartering Act. That would be the one that would bother me. And the Townshend Act; that's is just a little uppity.

Any one have any feelings on the American Revolution?

The reason's the American's did not like the taxes was because they had no representative in Parliament to vote for or against the taxes, while supposedly their London counterparts were represented "No taxation without representation." Americans had set up precedents with their local legislatures, and did not like this authority being shifted overseas.

Of course, the British thought, "We just fought a costly war to protect these colonies. We are broke, and heavily taxing our own population. I got it, why don't we tax the colonies that we just protected in the latest war and are benifitting from our victory." :king:

The irony of the matter is that the Americans (including George Washington) ALSO fought in that war, against France from 1756-1763 and it brought an epiphany to many Americans that they really didn't NEED the British anymore, that they could stand on their own - the tax rebellion were just the fuse on a powderkeg that had been simmering for a decade.

PinkyGen is right, American were upset about taxes but the main thing was taxation without representation. King George refused to have the colonies have a represenative in Parliament and so we revolted.

Note that at the time only 1/3 of americans supported the war, 1/3 were loyal to england, and 1/3 were indifferent.

Washington, even though he lost more battles than he won, was a ingenius commander, its amazing we won the war.

"Washington, even though he lost more battles than he won, was a ingenius commander, its amazing we won the war."

Washington did well enough to eventually secure the aid of the fence-sitting French and Spanish powers. The French were thirsting to avenge their defeats in the Seven Years War. The foreign aid helped turn the tide in the Americans' favour. Also the French and Spanish fleets began battling with the Royal Navy, at times cutting off vital naval support to the British garrisons.
Also plus the British generals seemed to be competing with each other rather than coorperating. There wasn't really any overall grand strategy.
Too bad this war exhausted the French so much the kingdom eventually succumbed to the Revolution and turned Europe into chaos. The liberal/democratic ideals picked up by the French from the Americans helped foment discontent with kingly rule in France.

Becka, take everything you learn is civics class with a grain of salt. Most of what is taught is colored with generations of hindsight and newly inserted patriotic ideas. It sounds admirable to say the colonists were throwing off the yoke, etc - but that is only part of the story. The drive to govern themselves was the base upon which many of the "reasons" to justify independence rest. The tea tax was more of a final straw than a big deal.

You are on the right track to notice other, more important factors that built up the move to independence.

And that is why Saratoga was the most important battle of the war.

Saratoga is the name for a campaign, not a battle. All that actually occured at Saratoga was the formal surrender of the Burgonyne's army. The separate battles occured over a period of 15 weeks and dozens of miles apart. The biggest factor in the American victory was played outside the campaign, by George Washington drawing off the main Brit army of howe, which was supposed to be in the New York campaign advancing up the Hudson River. Separate battles include: A naval battle on lake Champlain; a small action at fort Ticonderoga, a small action at Skenesbourough; Battle of Oriskany; Battle of Bennington; Battle of Freeman's Farm; and Battle of Bemis Heights. After the last one, the Brtis retreated to Saratoga and surrendered there a week later.

The greatest significance of the the Amercian revolution was that it was one of the very few, and by far the most important, revolutions that succeded in setting up a fuctional democratic republic that did not, within a few years, devolve into miltary coups and levels of despotism. Federal administration and goverment changes in the USA have never been by force.

Right on Lefty - they even survived that crappy first 'government' the Articles of Confederaton'!

American "democracy" quickly took the form of mass slavery, both in the North (factories) and South (plantations) and the virtual political nullification of the USA until World War I because of the break-off from Europe.

The Revolution was definitely important, though, even if not justified. It just shows to prove that Revolutions don't happen as a result of oppression but as a result of weak government (the British Government in the Colonies was weak, and both Louis XVI and Nicholas II were weak rulers). If the British had been MORE oppressive and ruthless, then in my opinion there would never have been a revolution because it would have been crushed. People naturally rebel against governments whenever they see the opportunity, in order to survive a government has to use some form of coercion or force - be it direct or indirect, physical or psychological.

Robespierre, I think you take too harsh a position on government retaining power. Not only coersion and force, but popularity can be enough to maintain the status quo. This can very well be because people rightly believe that things are grand. They can be deluded into thinking this, too, but not necessarily. If all is well, people are not likely to overturn the cart.

The colonies would have eventually broken away, regardless of how strong the British gov't in the colonies was. Sooner or later, they would be considered unwanted foreign rulers. That is enough to start the drive for independence. It may have been in 1788 or 1931, but it would happen regardless.

Lefty, one aside - Other democracies in the americas were working fine until a certain country aided the toppling of their not-deemed-cooperative-enough governments. Lord knows if that would have continued, of course...

Originally posted by Sodak
Lefty, one aside - Other democracies in the americas were working fine until a certain country aided the toppling of their not-deemed-cooperative-enough governments. Lord knows if that would have continued, of course...

Check ther early history, shortly after their revolutions in the 1800s, befor the US could effectively reach them. Coup after coup, despot after despot.

PinkyGen wrote:The reason's the American's did not like the taxes was because they had no representative in Parliament to vote for or against the taxes, while supposedly their London counterparts were represented "No taxation without representation." Americans had set up precedents with their local legislatures, and did not like this authority being shifted overseas. Of course, the British thought, "We just fought a costly war to protect these colonies. We are broke, and heavily taxing our own population. I got it, why don't we tax the colonies that we just protected in the latest war and are benifitting from our victory."

Right, but more than that. Unlike all the other European colonies in the Americas, the English/British goverment did little to support its colonies in the 17th century until much later in the Seven Years War. It didn't have to. What this meant was that except for granting the actual license to create a colony, the running of the colony was a private affair. Each British colony in America had its own charter, its own elected assembly, and virtually complete control over taxation, the militia, trade, local laws, etc. They were like little independent countries, nominally tied to the Crown in London. After the Seven Years War ended, the British Parliament - desperate for cash after a costly victory over France - decided that (as you say) the colonies should pay for the war that one of them started, after all.

However, while the motivation for the British Parliament was fairly reasonable, they went about it completely the wrong way. By the time the Stamp Act was written in 1764, North America (south of Quebec) had been receiving immigrants from all over Britain for 150 years. When Parliament voted the taxes into being without consulting the Americans, it betrayed the belief that all the Englishmen who had crossed the Atlantic had held; that they were still English subjects with full rights. It didn't occur to them that by crossing the Atlantic they'd lost those rights - because if they'd remained in Britain they would have had a chance to vote on the taxes. THAT was the initial American argument. The British had just won an empire, in India, Canada and scattered all over the world. Americans were either immigrants from Britain or direct descendants of immigrants from Britain, and suddenly with the imposition of taxes from a Parliament they had no vote or representation in, they were being told that the British Parliament considered them on the same level as the other conquered colonies. When had they lost their rights as Englishmen?

Then Parliament just fumbled on. Parliament, truly bewildered by the American response, repealed the taxes in 1765 - hurray! - but then did something amazing idiotic, proving they didn't understand the Americans' point: they created a law that said essentially, "We can do as we damned well please in America, and they must listen and do as we say - representation or no representation." This Act was very, very similar to the Irish Act of the early 18th century in which the British Parliament rejected all forms of native Irish legal, social and political order in Ireland in favor of direct British rule. It looked to the Americans as if Parliament was already saying in 1765 "You have no rights, and we will subdue you with force if necessary." (One of the provisions of this Act was that American families had to give up space in their homes to house new British soldiers who were being sent to the Colonies by a nervous Parliament.) Parliament just kept on fumbling, cancelling the Massachusetts colonial charter and imposing direct rule, and threatening worse. The American Colonies, who had ruled themselves as part of the English/British Empire for 150 years, were very suddenly being treated (in their eyes) like a conquered people.

The question is why did the British behave as they did? Most historians - foremost the modern British historians - agree that it comes down to incompetent leadership. King George III was the first of the Georges who spoke English as a native language, and there were many whisperings about his "Englishness" and rumors about a possible scandalous parentage. In short, he had a chip on his shoulder. His chief minister, the pathetic Lord North, was about as gutless and brainless as a politician can be. At least he was loyal and honest, though that didn't help him much in the end. His minister for the Americas, Lord Germaine, did indeed seem to believe that the moment an Englishmen set foot on a ship heading to America, he turned into a wild animal of sorts. Germaine constantly preached war against the Americans, even after Yorktown in 1781 when it became clear to most others that there was no point in carrying on. The British military historian John Keegan laments that had only Britain been blessed with better leaders in the 1760s, America today might still have Queen Elisabeth II on its money.

C'est la vie...

Magnus wrote:Right on Lefty - they even survived that crappy first 'government' the Articles of Confederaton'!

Sadly, the ultimate lesson behind the failure of the Articles of Confederation was lost on the Southern Confederates 80 years later, as they attempted to re-create them in their 1861-65 rebellion. The results were painfully similar, with some states refusing to send troops to defend other states, the Confederate Congress being unable to build a skeletal east-west railroad system in the Confederacy (desperately needed for troop transport between the Virginia and Mississippi River fronts) because some states refused to fund anything outside their borders, and even the inability of Davis to create a single, credible Confederate currency because the central Confederate government had such weak power over monetary policy.

It amazes me some, including the current American Secretary of the Interior (Gale Norton) and Attorney General (John Ashcroft) have made public statements in recent years praising the anarchy that was the Confederate goverment as a model of good governance.

Robespierre wrote:American "democracy" quickly took the form of mass slavery, both in the North (factories) and South (plantations) and the virtual political nullification of the USA until World War I because of the break-off from Europe.

???

I suppose your definition of "quickly" is important here, but in reality the Industrial Revolution struck the U.S. - North included - in full steam only after the Civil War ended (1865). The post-Civil War period is a time of phenominal economic and industrial growth. But before that time, with the exception of a few small "islands" of industrial development like New York City, Scranton, PA, etc., most of America was still very rural and very far behind Britain, France, etc. in industrialization. It may be hard to imagine now, after teh 20th century, but for most of the 19th century the United States was pretty much a backwater; an interesting backwater, but a backwater. Historians today look back and quote the people who lived in those times who talked about how great the U.S. would be someday - we think they could see the future - but of course we skip over those, the majority, who thought that America would always be behind Europe in all categories.

You certainly are right about the slavery of the South, though. This is a contradiction that haunted Americans literally from their earliest years. During the great debates in the Congress in 1775-76 over whether the American colonies should separate from Britain, there were furious arguments between those who thought the slaves should be freed or kept as "property". Every major political decision in American politics from 1776 until the explosion in 1861 was only made after long arguments about how slavery was impacted.

I'm not sure what you mean about the "virtual nullification of the USA until WW I because it was cut off from Europe"; there was life elsewhere, you know...

The Revolution was definitely important, though, even if not justified. It just shows to prove that Revolutions don't happen as a result of oppression but as a result of weak government (the British Government in the Colonies was weak, and both Louis XVI and Nicholas II were weak rulers). If the British had been MORE oppressive and ruthless, then in my opinion there would never have been a revolution because it would have been crushed. People naturally rebel against governments whenever they see the opportunity, in order to survive a government has to use some form of coercion or force - be it direct or indirect, physical or psychological.

You can't lump "revolutions" together in one big pile. They're not all the same. In the American case, British government in the Colonies wasn't weak; it was lax. It could flex its muscle when it wanted to. By mid-Revolution (c. 1780), the British were fielding the largest array of armies and naval squadrons then seen in the world: in North America, in the Caribbean, in the Mediterranean (Gibralter, Malta) India, and the North Atlantic. The problem for the British was that for all their efforts, America just wasn't conquerable then. When they seized Philadelphia, they thought they'd conquered the American capital (which in Europe usually meant victory) - but America had no capital yet. Congress simply moved elsewhere. The Chinese Revolution, The Mexican Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the French Revolution; they're all very different phenomena. The 20th century, a very ideological century, tried to find some theory that would explain them all - but they all happened for very different reasons, involving very different peoples.

Sodak wrote:Lefty, one aside - Other democracies in the americas were working fine until a certain country aided the toppling of their not-deemed-cooperative-enough governments. Lord knows if that would have continued, of course...

Actually, Simon Bolivar was extremely popular with Americans, and still today nearly every state has a town named after him. (I lived briefly in Bolivar, N.Y., near the Pennsylvania border many years ago.)

And I'm afraid the reality is that South America has done a wonderful job of manufacturing their own problems. This is not to condone the meddling that the United States has done in Central and South America over the past two centuries, but the democracies that were initially founded all faltered on their own. Paul Johnson (Brit historian) says the problem was the failure to develop centralized banks (a la Alexander Hamilton) with the authority to lay out economic policy in the first years, to get the countries out of the massive debt that all new countries are in. Johnson claims that the U.S. could have gone down that same path and equally ended up in a dictatorship of sorts, as indeed Jefferson and others feared the authority of a central bank. The basic issue for South America was that while the English colonies had largely been peopled with Middle Class and upper-level former tenant peasants, South America had been peopled with the dirt poor and a thin layer of Spanish and Portuguese aristocracy. When freedom from the Old World came, these aristocrats held on to all power and money that they could, undermining democracy and causing the impoverished masses to constantly revolt. Some countries were worse than others - the Peruvians had a habit of going ballistic with some wacko ideologue and sparking wars involving all their neighbors - and other constant rivalries like Argentina-Chile, Uruguay-Bolivia-Brazil, etc. also made the 19th century very exciting in South America.

The United States is guilty of supporting corrupt regimes when it suited the Americans' interests (Battista comes to mind) and indeed overthrowing others when they crossed American interests (Allende); but to blame the whole breadth of the cycle of revolution, corruption and dictatorship in Central and South America on the U.S. is living in denial. These are native phenomena, and it seems to me actually a bit insulting to South Americans to assume they've had no input whatsoever in their 150 year history. Even President Fox of Mexico, a traditional American-allergic country, has publically admitted Mexicans need to put the propaganda aside and start focussing on the reality of corruption, poverty and authoritarianism that permeate Mexican history.

Maybe my post was too short to be clear! I don't mean to imply that the US is responsible for all of latin americas political instability - that would be untrue. They certainly have created their own circumstances, even given the historical base upon which this is built. The idea is just that, yes, there has been instability and violence, but the system continued to reestablish itself for a while. That is, it certainly falls short of the violence free transitions the US has enjoyed, but still remained (usually) of an elective nature. The US intervention to which I alluded is the 20th century, during which coups tended to end any electoral process, sometimes for decades.

On top of that, I am not an expert on this topic, my familiarity is basic knowledge. Thanks for filling in details.

Originally posted by Robespierre
American "democracy" quickly took the form of mass slavery, both in the North (factories) and South (plantations) and the virtual political nullification of the USA until World War I because of the break-off from Europe

Slavery was an institution long before America was a country, much less a democracy. Slavery was imported from Europe, by Europeans.

Sorry, but no currently living "Americans" have ever owned any slaves, and people that keep bringing that up over and over are silly. :p

The founding fatheads wanted to do away with it (slavery) but were afraid of destroying the nice new country they just fought a war over. Too many wealthy people had em, and like I said, it was an institution.
Too bad 600,000 Americans had to die before it finaly ended. In hindsight, probably would have been better to have nipped it in the bud.

Its very likely that England would have won the war without direct French intervention in the colonies. Thanks Lafeyette!

"The founding fatheads wanted to do away with it (slavery) but were afraid of destroying the nice new country they just fought a war over. Too many wealthy people had em, and like I said, it was an institution."

Don't you mean the founding fathers? :lol:

No, I mistyped it once (fatheds), started to correct it, then changed it again to 'fatheads'. :lol:

Im still chuckling about it. It must be late, Im going to bed.

Vrylakas: You covered most of the essential points quite well :goodjob:; just wanted to elaborate on one of your points ...

Originally posted by Vrylakas
His chief minister, the pathetic Lord North, was about as gutless and brainless as a politician can be. ...

In fact, Lord North and his King and cohorts were actually trying to implement the policies of mercantilism; i.e., making the colonies not only pay for themselves, but also be a profit for Great Britain's treasury. Of course, since Americans were accustomed to over a century of self-governance and noninterference from the home country, it is not surprising that increased "interference" from the other side of the Atlantic should provoke a resentful response from the colonists. The War for Independence, in essense, started as a conservative revolution to preserve the status quo, rather than a radical revolution to change the nature of American colonies.

The irony is that while the English government was attempting to implement -- and rather poorly -- a mercantilist policy, a gentleman in Scotland by the name of Adam Smith was composing his Wealth of Nations that demonstrated just how absurd mercantilism can be as a government policy.