THE SEARCH FOR A JUST SOCIETY
JOHN HUDDLESTON
GEORGE RONALD 1989
PART 12
The American Revolution
The issues which had sparked the English revolution – taxation to be approved by representatives of the people, and freedom from oppression – were to reappear in North America in the following century and prompt the second of our three revolutions. The North American colonies in their early years had, for a series of reasons, acquired a culture of personal independence and a critical attitude towards government. First, many of those who came to North America were in effect fleeing from religious oppression in Europe and were determined never again to allow any government to unnecessarily impose on them. Second, the pioneer setting inevitably made people self-reliant and independent in their outlook. Third, a great distance from their homeland made direct every-day rule by the central government impractical and as a result the colonists were given, if only by default, quite a lot of freedom to manage their own affairs.
- A turning point came in the aftermath of the Seven Years War (1756-1763) which had as one result the removal of French power from North America.
- The British government believed that the American colonialists should pay for a standing army in North America.
- In 1764 Parliament passed the Stamp Act which placed a tax on all legal documents, licences and newspapers and the government made an effort for the first time to seriously enforce the Molasses Act.
- They seemed to miss the point that they were denying to the colonialists the right of ‘no taxation without representation’ which they themselves had achieved in the Glorious Revolution.
- A second attempt at the end of the decade to impose taxes, including one on tea imports (partly to protect British traders against Dutch rivals) also ended in defeat for the British, but not before the colonialists had established a network of Committees of Correspondence to coordinate opposition to the taxes – an ominous precedent for the next round.
- That occurred three years later when North’s government had Parliament pass a new Tea Bill. The result was the famous Boston Tea Party of 1774 when a group of colonialists, thinly disguised as Indians, boarded a British merchantman and threw overboard its cargo of tea.
- A military government was approved for Massachusetts, and troops were sent to occupy Boston and to close the port.
- The colonialists reacted by calling their own assembly outside Boston (in effect an embryo revolutionary government), demanding repeal of the coercive measures that had been imposed and questioned the authority of Parliament to tax the colonies.
- It declared that the British government was violating not only the charters of the colonies but also the natural rights of the American citizen to be consulted on his governance.
- A decision was taken to boycott all British goods until the situation was remedied.
- The situation rapidly deteriorated; there were armed skirmishes between British troops and civilians, and in August 1775 the colonies were declared to be in a state of rebellion. Three months later a Prohibitory Act withdrew the King’s protection – virtually a declaration of war.
- Even such moderates as George Washington (1732-1799) saw that there was no alternative but to break the tie with England.
- On 4 July Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, which owed a great deal to the drafting skills of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), and which presented the American case in terms of natural rights and the theory of contract – the arguments of John Locke and the English Revolution of 1688:
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
– That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
– That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
- The statement went on to list the specific grievances which had made the Declaration necessary, including the suspension of state legislatures, the imposition of taxes without consent, and military occupation.
- With the help of the French, the American people were able to defeat the British armies and their independence was formally recognized in 1783 in the Treaty of Paris.
- Slavery was a crucial issue, pitting morality against the apparent economic interests of the owner.
- In the northern states where slavery was less important economically it was essentially abolished as an institution by 1800, after early examples in 1780 by Pennsylvania with its liberal Quaker tradition, and in 1783 by Massachusetts with an equally strong religious feeling.
- The horrors of the Atlantic slave trade affected even the southern states, and by 1800 virtually all the states of the union had passed laws against the importation of slaves from abroad. (The abolition of slavery is discussed in Chapter 12.)
- At first the states were linked together by the Articles of Confederation, but the next few years showed that this arrangement was totally inadequate.
- A new constitution came into effect in 1789 with seven articles. The first three dealt with the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the new federal government.
- The fourth article dealt with the states and included clauses which declared that each would recognize the laws of the other, that citizens of one were citizens of all, that all would be republics, that new states could be formed in territories outside the existing states and that the federal government would guarantee the safety of all the states equally.
- The remaining three articles covered such issues as amendments to the Constitution which could only be accepted if ratified by at least two-thirds of the states in the union.
- Some 210 amendments were proposed by the states, consolidated into 12, of which 10, to be known collectively as the Bill of Rights, were eventually approved by Congress and the states in 1791.
- These articles covered the right to free speech, peaceful assembly and petition; specified that trials must be in front of a jury; and banned state religion, quartering of soldiers, search without warrant, excessive bail or fines, and cruel and unnatural punishments.
Of course the revolution did not solve all the problems of the American people – far from it. Nevertheless, in the perspective of history the American Revolution can be seen as one of the most significant events in the development of the idea of the just society. What is important is not only the emphasis on democracy and government accountability to the people – as Abraham Lincoln was later to put it:
… government of the people, by the people, and for the people …
but also the magnificent precedent whereby a group of independent states voluntarily banded together to give up, for the common interest, large portions of their sovereignty.