(WORLD HISTORY)AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND CONSTITUTION

       AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND CONSTITUTION

ORIGINAL 13 COLONIES

• The American Revolution was a political upheaval that took place between 1765 and 1783 during which colonists in the Thirteen American Colonies rejected the British monarchy and aristocracy, overthrew the authority of Great Britain, and founded the United States of America. The American Revolution was the result of a series of social, political, and intellectual transformations in American society, government and ways of thinking.

Background to 1763

• The colonies that were established along the coast were governed by charters granted by the King, each permitting a substantial amount of self-governance.
• Crown colonies (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York,New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia) imitated the "mixed monarchy" constitutional structure of Great Britain. Each had an elected assembly which constituted the lower house of the legislature, a council appointed (except in Massachusetts) by the crown constituting the upper house, and an appointed governor with executive powers representing the King. 
• All laws had to be submitted to the home government for approval, but otherwise there was little interference.
• Proprietary colonies (Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland) also had elected legislatures but the proprietors, not the crown, appointed the governors.
• Charter colonies (Connecticut and Rhode island) elected both legislatures and governors and did not have to submit their laws for approval.
• In practice, Parliament usually only legislated regarding matters of an imperial concern. 
• The Navigation Acts of the late 17th century restricted colonial trade in accordance with mercantilist theory.
• 1763 10 February :Signing of the Treaty of Paris
  • Ending the Seven Year’s War, also known as the French and Indian War in North America.War ended in 1763 with the conquest of French Canada and the expulsion of France from mainland North America by British and American forces. France ceded all mainland North American territories, except New Orleans, in order to retain her Caribbean sugar islands. 
  • Britain gained all territory east of the Mississippi River; 
  • Spain kept territory west of the Mississippi, but exchanged East and West Florida for Cuba. 
  • British wished to maintain a standing army in the colonies, impose taxes to pay pensions to retired officers, and terminate colonial claims to the trans-Appalachian west.
  1763 7 October: Proclamation of 1763
  • Wary of the cost of defending the colonies, George III prohibited all settlement west of the Appalachian mountains without guarantees of security from local Native American nations. 
  • The intervention in colonial affairs offended the thirteen colonies' claim to the exclusive right to govern lands to their west.

1764–1766: Taxes imposed and withdrawn

• In 1764 Parliament passed the Currency Act to restrain the use of paper money that British merchants saw as a means to evade debt payments.
• 1764 5 April :Sugar Act
  • The first attempt to finance the defence of the colonies by the British Government. In order to deter smuggling and to encourage the production of British rum, taxes on molasses were dropped; a levy was placed on foreign Madeira wine Colonial exports of iron, lumber and other goods had to pass first through Britain and British customs. 
  • The Act established a Vice-Admiralty Court in,Nova Scotia to hear smuggling cases without jury. These measures led to widespread protest.
• That same year Prime Minister George Grenville proposed to impose direct taxes on the colonies to raise revenue, but delayed action to see if the colonies would propose some way to raise the revenue themselves. 
• 1765 22 March :Stamp Act
  • Parliament passed the Stamp Act which imposed direct taxes on the colonies for the first time. All official documents, newspapers, almanacs and pamphlets—even decks of playing cards—were required to have 'stamped' paper on which a levy was placed.
• The colonists objected chiefly on the grounds not that the taxes were high (they were low),but because they had no representation in the Parliament. Benjamin Franklin testified in Parliament in 1766 that Americans already contributed heavily to the defence of the Empire. He said local governments had raised, outfitted and paid 25,000 soldiers to fight France—as many as Britain itself sent—and spent many millions from American treasuries doing so in the French and Indian War alone.
• Stationing a standing army in Great Britain during peacetime was politically unacceptable. London had to deal with 1,500 politically well-connected British officers who became redundant; it would have to discharge them or station them in North America.
• In 1765 the Sons of Liberty(an organization of dissidents that was created in the Thirteen American Colonies. The secret society was formed to protect the rights of the colonists and to fight the abuses of taxation by the British government. They are best known for undertaking the Boston Tea Party in 1773 in reaction to new taxes) formed. They used public demonstrations, violence and threats of violence to ensure that the British tax laws were unenforceable. While openly hostile to what they considered an oppressive Parliament acting illegally, colonists persisted in sending numerous petitions and pleas for intervention from a monarch to whom they still claimed loyalty. 
• In Boston, the Sons of Liberty burned the records of the vice-admiralty court and looted the home of the chief justice, Thomas Hutchinson. 
• 1765 15 May :Quartering Act
  • Colonial assemblies required to pay for supplies to British garrisons. The New York assembly argued that it could not be forced to comply.
  1765 30 May :Virginian Resolution
  • The Virginian assembly refused to comply with the Stamp Act.
  1765 7-25 October: Stamp Act Congress
  • Representatives from nine of the thirteen colonies declare the Stamp Act unconstitutional as it was a tax levied without their consent.Several legislatures called for united action, and nine colonies sent delegates to the Stamp Act Congress in New York City. Moderates led by John Dickinson drew up a "Declaration of Rights and Grievances" stating that taxes passed without representation violated their rights as Englishmen. At the same time, however, they rejected the idea of being provided with representation in Parliament, declaring it impossible due to the distance involved. Colonists emphasized their determination by boycotting imports of British merchandise.
• The Parliament at Westminster saw itself as the supreme lawmaking authority throughout all British possessions and thus entitled to levy any tax without colonial approval.
• 1766 18 March: Declaratory Act
  • In London, the Rockingham government came to power (July 1765) and Parliament debated whether to repeal the stamp tax or to send an army to enforce it. Benjamin Franklin made the case for repeal. Parliament agreed and repealed the tax (February 21, 1766), but in the Declaratory Act of March 1766 insisted that parliament retained full power to make laws for the colonies "in all cases whatsoever".The repeal nonetheless caused widespread celebrations in the colonies.

1767–1773: Townshend Acts and the Tea Act

• 1767 29 June: Townshend Acts
• • which placed duties on a number of essential goods including paper, glass, and tea to help pay for the administration of the colonies, named after Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
  • John Dickinson publishes Letter from a Philadelphian Farmer in protest. Colonial assemblies condemn taxation without representation.
• Colonists organized boycotts of British goods. In February 1768 the Assembly of Massachusetts Bay issued a circular letter to the other colonies urging them to coordinate resistance. The governor dissolved the assembly when it refused to rescind the letter. 
• London deployed British troops to Boston. 
• In January 1769 Parliament reactivated a statute which permitted subjects outside the realm to face trials in England for treason. The governor of Massachusetts was instructed to collect evidence of said treason, and although this threat was not carried out it caused widespread outrage.
• 1770 5 March :Boston Massacre
  • Angered by the presence of troops and Britain's colonial policy, a crowd began harassing a group of soldiers guarding the customs house; a soldier was knocked down by a snowball and discharged his musket.There was no order to fire but the soldiers fired which kills five civilians.The event quickly came to be called the Boston Massacre. Although the soldiers were tried and acquitted , the widespread descriptions soon became propaganda to turn colonial sentiment against the British. 
• 1770 12 April 
  • Repeal of the Townshend Revenue Act.
  • Responding to protests, in 1770 Parliament withdrew all taxes except the tax on tea, giving up its efforts to raise revenue. This temporarily resolved the crisis and the boycott of British goods largely ceased, with only the more radical patriots such as Samuel Adams continuing to agitate.
  
  
• 1772 10 June :Burning of the Gaspee: In June 1772, American patriots including John Brown burned a British warship that had been vigorously enforcing unpopular trade regulations. The affair was investigated for possible treason, but no action was taken.
• Samuel Adams in Boston set about creating new Committees of Correspondence, which linked Patriots in all 13 colonies and eventually provided the framework for a rebel government. In early 1773 Virginia, the largest colony, set up its Committee of Correspondence, on which Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson served.A total of about 7000 to 8000 Patriots served on "Committees of Correspondence" at the colonial and local levels— Loyalists of Britain were excluded. The committees became the leaders of the American resistance to British actions, and largely determined the war effort at the state and local level. When the First Continental Congress decided to boycott British products, the colonial and local Committees took charge, examining merchant records.
• 1773 July: Publication of Thomas Hutchinson letters
  
  

  • In these letters, Hutchinson, the Massachusetts governor, advocated a 'great restraint of natural liberty', convincing many colonists of a planned British clamp-down on their freedoms.The letters, whose contents were used as evidence of a systematic plot against American rights, discredited Hutchinson and the Assembly petitioned for his recall. Benjamin Franklin, post-master general for the colonies, acknowledged that he leaked the letters which led to him fired from his job
• .1773 10 May: Tea Act
  • In an effort to support the ailing East India Company, Parliament exempted its tea from import duties and allowed the Company to sell its tea directly to the colonies. 
  • Parliament decided to lower the price of taxed tea exported to the colonies in order to undersell smuggled Dutch tea. Special consignees were appointed to sell the tea in order to bypass colonial merchants. In most instances the consignees were forced to resign and the tea was turned back, but Massachusetts governor Hutchinson refused allow Boston merchants to give into pressure. 

• 1773 16 December: Boston Tea Party
• • Angered by the Tea Acts, American patriots led by Samuel Adams and dressed to evoke American Indians, boarded the ships of the British East India Company and dumped £10,000 worth of tea from their holds into Boston Harbor.

1774–1775: Intolerable Acts and the Quebec Act

• 1774 May to June :Intolerable Acts: The British government responded by passing several Acts which came to be known as the Intolerable Acts, which further darkened colonial opinion towards the British. 

• They consisted of four laws enacted by the British parliament.(1)The first, the Massachusetts Government Act, altered the Massachusetts charter and restricted town meetings. (2)The second Act, the Administration of Justice Act, ordered that all British soldiers to be tried in Britain, not in the colonies. (3)The third Act was the Boston Port Act, which closed the port of Boston until the British had been compensated for the tea lost in the Boston Tea Party. (4)The fourth Act was the Quartering Act of 1774, which allowed royal governors to house British troops in the homes of citizens without requiring permission of the owner.

• In response, Massachusetts patriots issued the Suffolk Resolves and formed an alternative shadow government known as the "Provincial Congress" which began training militia outside British-occupied Boston.
• 1774 September: Continental Congress:First Continental Congress convened, consisting of representatives from each of the colonies, to serve as a vehicle for deliberation and collective action. The Congress endorsed the proposal of John Adams that Americans would obey Parliament voluntarily but would resist all taxes in disguise. Congress called for a boycott beginning on 1 December 1774 of all British goods; it was enforced by new committees authorized by the Congress.
• The Quebec Act of 1774 extended Quebec's boundaries to the Ohio River, shutting out the claims of the 13 colonies. By then, however, the Americans had little regard for new laws from London; they were drilling militia and organizing for war.
  
• The British retaliated by confining all trade of the New England colonies to Britain and excluding them from the Newfoundland fisheries. British PM Lord North advanced a compromise proposal in which Parliament would not tax so long as the colonies made fixed contributions for defence and to support civil government. This would also be rejected. 

• 1775 16 June Continental Congress appoints George Washington commander-in-chief of Continental Army; issued $2 million bills of credit to fund the army.
• 1775 19 April Battles of Lexington and Concord , first battle between British troops and American militia.The Patriots set siege to Boston, expelled royal officials from all the colonies, and took control through the establishment of Provincial Congresses.

• 1775 17 June Battle of Bunker Hill: The first major battle of the War of Independence. Sir William Howe dislodged William Prescott's forces overlooking Boston at a cost of 1054 British casualties to the Americans' 367.
• 1775 5 July Olive-Brach Petition: Congress endorses  proposal asking for recognition of American rights, the ending of the Intolerable Acts in exchange for a cease fire.George III rejected the proposal and on 23 August 1775 declared the colonies to be in open rebellion.

Creating new state constitutions

• Following the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775, the Patriots had control of Massachusetts outside the Boston city limits; the Loyalists suddenly found themselves on the defensive with no protection from the British army. 
• In all 13 colonies, Patriots had overthrown their existing governments, closing courts and driving British officials away. They had elected conventions and "legislatures"; new constitutions were used in each state to supersede royal charters. They declared they were states now, not colonies.
• On January 5, 1776, New Hampshire ratified the first state constitution. Later  Virginia, South Carolina, New Jersey ,Rhode Island and Connecticut followed.
• In May 1776, Congress voted to suppress all forms of crown authority, to be replaced by locally created authority.
• The new states were all committed to republicanism, with no inherited offices. 
• In states where the wealthy exerted firm control over the process property qualifications for voting,Bicameral legislatures, with the upper house as a check on the lower; Strong governors, with veto power over the legislature;The continuation of state-established religion.
• In states where the less affluent had organized sufficiently to have significant power—especially Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New Hampshire—the resulting constitutions embodied universal white manhood suffrage, or minimal property requirements for voting; strong, unicameral legislatures; relatively weak governors, without veto powers; prohibition against individuals holding multiple government posts;

• 1776 9 January Thomas Paine's Common Sense published .It was widely distributed and contributing significantly to spreading the ideas of republicanism and liberalism together, bolstering enthusiasm for separation from Britain, and encouraging recruitment for the Continental Army.
• 1776 2 May France provides covert aid to the Americans

Independence And Union:

• In April 1776 the North Carolina Provincial Congress issued the Halifax Resolves, explicitly authorizing its delegates to vote for independence.
• In May Congress called on all the states to write own constitutions.
• 1776 4 July Continental Congress issues the Declaration of Independence which drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson was adopted by the entire Congress on July 4, marking the formation of a new sovereign nation, which called itself the United States of America.
• The Second Continental Congress approved a new constitution, the "Articles of Confederation," for ratification by the states on November 15, 1777. The Articles were formally ratified on March 1, 1781. At that point, the Continental Congress was dissolved and on the following day a new government of the United States in Congress Assembled took its place, with Samuel Huntington as presiding officer
• Events Timeline:

1775-1776 Winter  Invasion of Canada by Benedict Arnold
1776 August - December  Battles of Long Island and White Plains
British forces occupy New York after American defeats.
1776  26 December Battle of Trenton, New Jersey, providing a boast to American morale.
1777 2-3 January Battle of Princeton, New Jersey.

• Battle of Saratoga in October 1777: The capture of a British army at Saratoga encouraged the French to formally enter the war in support of Congress, as Benjamin Franklin negotiated a permanent military alliance in early 1778, significantly becoming the first country to officially recognize the Declaration of Independence.
• On February 6, 1778, a Treaty of Amity and Commerce and a Treaty of Alliance were signed between the United States and France.
• William Pitt spoke out in parliament urging Britain to make peace in America, and unite with America against France, while other British politicians who had previously sympathised with colonial grievances now turned against the American rebels for allying with Britain's international rival and enemy.

• Later Spain (in 1779) and the Dutch (1780) became allies of the French, leaving the British Empire to fight a global war alone without major allies, and requiring it to slip through a combined blockade of the Atlantic.
• Battle of Monmouth Court House, the last major battle fought in the north.British successfully retreated to New York City.

• The British strategy in America now concentrated on a campaign in the southern colonies.British commanders saw the "southern strategy" as a more viable plan, as the south was perceived as being more strongly Loyalist, with a large population of recent immigrants as well as large numbers of slaves who might be captured or run away to join the British. Not enough Loyalists turned out. 

Yorktown 1781

• The British army under Cornwallis marched to Yorktown, Virginia.Cornwallis was trapped. In October 1781 under a combined siege by the French and Continental armies under Washington, the British surrendered their second invading army of the war.

The end of the war

• Strategic and tactical decisions of the British were fatally flawed because they underestimated the challenges posed by the Patriots. 
• Support for the conflict had never been strong in Britain, where many sympathized with the rebels, but now it reached a new low.Although King George III personally wanted to fight on, his supporters lost control of Parliament, and no further major land offensives were launched.

Peace treaty(Treaty of Paris,1783)

• The peace treaty with Britain, known as the Treaty of Paris, gave the U.S. all land east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes, though not including Florida(On September 3, 1783, Britain entered into a separate agreement with Spain under which Britain ceded Florida back to Spain.)
• The British abandoned the Indian allies living in this region; they were not a party to this treaty and did not recognize it until they were defeated militarily by the United States.
• Since the blockade was lifted and the old imperial restrictions were gone, American merchants were free to trade with any nation anywhere in the world, and their businesses flourished.

Impact on Britain

• Losing the war and the 13 colonies was a shock to Britain. The war revealed the limitations of Britain's fiscal-military state when it discovered it suddenly faced powerful enemies, with no allies, and dependent on extended and vulnerable transatlantic lines of communication. 
• The defeat heightened dissension and escalated political antagonism to the King's ministers. 
• Inside parliament, the primary concern changed from fears of an over-mighty monarch to the issues of representation, parliamentary reform, and government retrenchment.
• Reformers sought to destroy what they saw as widespread institutional corruption.
• The peace in 1783 left France financially prostrate, while the British economy boomed thanks to the return of American business. 
• The crisis ended after 1784 thanks to renewed confidence in the system engendered by the leadership of the new Prime Minister, William Pitt.
• Loss of the American colonies enabled Britain to deal with the French Revolution with more unity and better organization than would otherwise have been the case.
• Britain turned towards Asia, the Pacific and later Africa with subsequent exploration leading to the rise of the Second British Empire.

Finance

• Britain's war against the Americans, French and Spanish cost about £100 million and  40% of the money was borrowed.
• Heavy spending brought France to the verge of bankruptcy and revolution, while the British had relatively little difficulty financing their war, keeping their suppliers and soldiers paid, and hiring tens of thousands of German soldiers.
• Britain had a sophisticated financial system based on the wealth of thousands of landowners, who supported the government, together with banks and financiers in London and  efficient British tax collection system.
• Congress and the American states had too much difficulty financing the war.The British made the situation much worse by imposing a tight blockade on every American port. 
• One partial solution was to rely on volunteer support from militiamen, and donations from patriotic citizens.Another was to delay actual payments, pay soldiers and suppliers in depreciated currency, and promise it would be made good after the war. In 1783 the soldiers and officers were given land grants to cover the wages they had earned but had not been paid during the war. 
• Not until 1781, when Robert Morris was named Superintendent of Finance of the United States, did the national government have a strong leader in financial matters. Morris set up the private Bank of North America to finance the war, saved money by using competitive bidding for contracts, tightened accounting procedures, and demanded the national government's full share of money and supplies from the confederated states.
• The skyrocketing inflation was a hardship on the few people who had fixed incomes—but 90 percent of the people were farmers, and were not directly affected by that inflation. Debtors benefited by paying off their debts with depreciated paper.The greatest burden was borne by the soldiers of the Continental Army, whose wages—usually in arrears—declined in value every month, weakening their morale and adding to the hardships suffered by their families.
• Congress repeatedly asked the states to provide money but were little help. By 1780 Congress was making requisitions for specific supplies of corn, beef, pork and other necessities—an inefficient system that kept the army barely alive.
• Congress sought to raise money by loans from wealthy individuals but the scheme raised little money many of the rich merchants were supporters of the Crown. 
• Starting in 1776, the French secretly supplied the Americans with money, gunpowder, and munitions in order to weaken its arch enemy, Great Britain. When France officially entered the war in 1778, the subsidies continued.

Concluding the Revolution

Creating a "more perfect union" and guaranteeing rights

• After the war finally ended in 1783, there was a period of prosperity. The national government, still operating under the Articles of Confederation, was able to settle the issue of the western territories, which were ceded by the states to Congress. American settlers moved rapidly into those areas and new states came out.
• However, the national government had no money to pay either the war debts owed to European nations and the private banks, or to pay Americans promissory notes for supplies during the war.
• Nationalists, led by Washington, Alexander Hamilton and other veterans, feared that the new nation was too fragile to withstand an international war, or even internal revolts such as the Shays' Rebellion of 1786(An armed uprising led by revolution veteran Daniel Shays, that took place in Massachusetts. Fuelled by perceived economic terrorism,high taxes  and growing disaffection with State and Federal governments)
• Calling themselves "Federalists," the nationalists convinced Congress to call the Philadelphia Convention in 1787.It adopted a new Constitution that provided for a much stronger federal government, including an effective executive in a check-and-balance system with the judiciary and legislature.After a fierce debate in the states over the nature of the proposed new government, the Constitution was ratified in 1788. The new government under President George Washington took office in New York in March 1789.As assurances to those who were cautious about federal power, amendments to the Constitution guaranteeing many of the inalienable rights that formed a foundation for the revolution were spearheaded in Congress by James Madison, and later ratified by the states in 1791.

Ideology and Factions

• The population of the 13 Colonies was far from homogeneous, particularly in their political views and attitudes. Loyalties and allegiances varied widely.

(1)Ideology behind the Revolution

• The ideological movement known as the American Enlightenment was a critical precursor to the American Revolution. 
• Chief among the ideas of the American Enlightenment were the concepts of liberalism, republicanism and fear of corruption.
• The acceptance of these concepts by a growing number of American colonists began to foster an intellectual environment which would lead to a new sense of political and social identity.

(2)Natural rights and republicanism

• John Locke's (1632–1704) ideas on liberty greatly influenced the political thinking behind the revolution, especially through his indirect influence on English writers.
• He is often referred to as "the philosopher of the American Revolution," and is credited with leading Americans to the critical concepts of social contract, natural rights,"born free and equal", protestant ideology.He argued that, as all humans were created equally free, governments needed the consent of the governed.
• The  United States Declaration of Independence, also referred to the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" as justification for the Americans' separation from the British monarchy.
• The theory of the "social contract" influenced the belief among many of the Founders that among the "natural rights" of man was the right of the people to overthrow their leaders, should those leaders betray the historic rights of Englishmen.In terms of writing state and national constitutions, the Americans heavily used the analysis of Montesquieu(French Philosopher) regarding the wisdom of the "balanced" British Constitution and balanced separation of powers.
• A motivating force behind the revolution was the American embrace of a political ideology called "republicanism", which was dominant in the colonies by 1775, but of minor importance back in Britain. The republicanism was inspired by the "country party" in Britain, whose critique of British government emphasized that corruption was a terrible reality in Britain.Americans feared the corruption was crossing the Atlantic; the commitment of most Americans to republican values and to their rights, energized the revolution, as Britain was increasingly seen as hopelessly corrupt and hostile to American interests. Britain seemed to threaten the established liberties that Americans enjoyed.The greatest threat to liberty was depicted as corruption. The colonists associated it with luxury and, especially, inherited aristocracy, which they condemned.
• The Founding Fathers were strong advocates of republican values, particularly Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, George Washington, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, which required men to put civic duty ahead of their personal desires. Men had a civic duty to be prepared and willing to fight for the rights and liberties of their countrymen.
• John Adams agreed with some classical Greek and Roman thinkers in that "Public Virtue cannot exist without private, and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics."
• For women, "republican motherhood" became the ideal; the first duty of the republican woman was to instill republican values in her children and to avoid luxury and ostentation.

(3)Fusing republicanism and liberalism

• While some republics had emerged throughout history, such as the Roman Republic of the ancient world, one based on liberal principles had never existed. Thomas Paine's best-seller pamphlet Common Sense contributed significantly to spreading the ideas of republicanism and liberalism together.Paine provided a new and widely accepted argument for independence, by advocating a complete break with history. 

(4)Impact of Great Awakening

• Dissenting (i.e. Protestant, non-Church of England) churches of the day were the "school of democracy.
• Throughout the colonies, dissenting Protestant ministers preached Revolutionary themes in their sermons, while most Church of England clergymen preached loyalty to the King. Religious motivation for fighting tyranny reached across socio-economic lines to encompass rich and poor, men and women, frontiersmen and townsmen, farmers and merchants.
• Evangelicalism of the era challenged traditional notions of natural hierarchy by preaching that the Bible taught all men are equal, so that the true value of a man lies in his moral behaviour, not his class.It worked together to unite rationalists and evangelicals and thus encouraged American defiance of the Empire.

(5)Class and psychology of the factions

• John Adams concluded in 1818:"The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people ... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution."
• In terms of class, Loyalists tended to have long-standing social and economic connections to British merchants and government.In addition, officials of colonial government and their staffs, those who had established positions and status to maintain, favoured maintaining relations with Great Britain. 
• By contrast,Patriots by number tended to be farmers, craftsmen and small merchants who joined the Patriot cause to demand more political equality. They were especially successful in Pennsylvania but less so in New England, where John Adams attacked Thomas Paine's Common Sense for the "absurd democratic notions" it proposed.
• Leaders of both the Patriots and the Loyalists were men of educated, propertied classes.
• Older and better established men, Loyalists tended to resist innovation. They thought resistance to the Crown—which they insisted was the only legitimate government—was morally wrong, while the Patriots thought morality was on their side.
• Many Loyalists realized that independence was bound to come eventually, but they were fearful that revolution might lead to anarchy, tyranny or mob rule. In contrast, the prevailing attitude among Patriots, who made systematic efforts to use mob violence in a controlled manner, was a desire to seize the initiative.
• Ideological demands always came first: the Patriots viewed independence as a means to gain freedom from British oppression and taxation and, above all, to reassert what they considered to be their rights as English subjects. 

(6)King George III

• The war became a personal issue for the king, fuelled by his growing belief that British leniency would be taken as weakness by the Americans. The king also sincerely believed he was defending Britain's constitution against usurpers, rather than opposing patriots fighting for their natural rights.

(7)Patriots

• At the time, revolutionaries were called "Patriots", "Whigs", "Congress-men", or "Americans". 
• They included a full range of social and economic classes, but were unanimous regarding the need to defend the rights of Americans and uphold the principles of republicanism in terms of rejecting monarchy and aristocracy.
• Newspapers were strongholds of patriotism, and printed many pamphlets, announcements, patriotic letters and pronouncements.
• 40–45% of the white population in the Thirteen Colonies supported the Patriots' cause, 15–20% supported the Loyalists, and the remainder were neutral.
• They were highly sensitive to the issue of tyranny, which they saw manifested in the British response to the Boston Tea Party. The arrival in Boston of the British Army heightened their sense of violated rights, leading to rage and demands for revenge. They had faith that God was on their side.[103]

(8)Loyalists

• Those who actively supported the king were known at the time as "Loyalists", "Tories", or "King's men". 
• The Loyalists never controlled territory unless the British Army occupied it. Loyalists were typically older, less willing to break with old loyalties, often connected to the Church of England, and included many established merchants with strong business connections across the Empire, as well as royal officials.
• There were 500 to 1000 black loyalists who were held as slaves by patriots, escaped to British lines and joined the British army.
• The revolution could divide families. The most dramatic example was when William Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin and royal governor of the Province of New Jersey, remained loyal to the Crown throughout the war.
• Recent immigrants who had not been fully Americanized were also inclined to support the King, such as recent Scottish settlers in the back country.
• After the war, the great majority Loyalists remained in America and resumed normal lives. Some, such as Samuel Seabury, became prominent American leaders. Estimates vary, but about 62,000 Loyalists relocated to Canada, and others to Britain or to Florida or the West Indies.
• Nearly all black loyalists left for Nova Scotia, Florida, or England, where they could remain free.When Loyalists left the South in 1783, they took thousands of their slaves with them to be slaves in the British West Indies.

(10)Neutrals

• Most kept a low profile, but the Quakers, especially in Pennsylvania, were the most important group to speak out for neutrality. As Patriots declared independence, the Quakers, who continued to do business with the British, were attacked as supporters of British rule.

(11)Role of women

• Women were involved on both sides.
• While formal Revolutionary politics did not include women, ordinary domestic behaviors became charged with political significance. They participated by boycotting British goods, spying on the British, following armies as they marched, washing, cooking, and tending for soldiers, and in a few cases fighting disguised as men.
• Mercy Otis Warren held meetings in her house and cleverly attacked Loyalists with her creative plays and histories.
• Above all, they continued the agricultural work at home to feed their families and the armies. They maintained their families during their husbands' absences and sometimes after their deaths.
• American women were integral to the success of the boycott of British goods, as the boycotted items were largely household items such as tea and cloth. Women had to return to knitting goods, and to spinning and weaving their own cloth.
• A crisis of political loyalties could disrupt the fabric of colonial America women's social worlds: whether a man did or did not renounce his allegiance to the King could dissolve ties of class, family, and friendship, isolating women from former connections. Legal divorce, usually rare, was granted to Patriot women whose husbands supported the King.

(12)Other participants

(a)France: 

• In early 1776, France set up a major program of aid to the Americans, and the Spanish secretly added funds to buy munitions.
• American rebels obtained some munitions through the Dutch Republic as well as French and Spanish ports in the West Indies.

(b)Spain:

• Spain did not officially recognize the U.S. but became an informal ally when it declared war on Britain on June 21, 1779. 

(c)Native Americans:

• Most Native Americans rejected pleas that they remain neutral and supported the British Crown, both because of trading relationships and its efforts to prohibit colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. 
• Facing starvation and homeless for the winter, many natives fled to the Niagara Falls area and to Canada, mostly to what became Ontario. The British resettled them there after the war, providing land grants as compensation.

(13)African Americans

• Free blacks in the North and South fought on both sides of the Revolution, but most fought for the patriots to further their interests.Both sides offered freedom and re-settlement to slaves who were willing to fight for them.
• British tried to turn slavery against the Americans but England greatly feared the effects of any such move on its own West Indies, where there are  large number of slave-holding Loyalists and wealthy Caribbean planters and merchants. The British elites also understood that an all-out attack on one form of property could easily lead to an assault on all boundaries of privilege and social order.
• American advocates of independence termed British calls for slave freedom hypocritical ,as many of British leaders were planters who held hundreds of slaves.
• Many slaves escaped to British lines throughout the South, causing dramatic losses to slave-holders and disrupting cultivation and harvesting of crops.After British defeat they were evacuated and resettled from New York to Nova Scotia or in England or in the West Indies of the Caribbean and later in Sierra Leone.

Interpretations of American Revolution:

1. American Revolution was a struggle over political and intellectual ideals. Despite the radical political nature of the Revolution, the Revolution was of a “tranquil” and conservative nature in other ways. 
2. Progressive Historians began to investigate the social and economic factors which were involved in the Revolution.The economic interests of wealthy merchants activated their revolutionary impulses. The war assumed the dimensions of an American civil war, pitting the conservative sections of society against the radical. The victory of the radicals opened the door for changes and led to the democratization of the country, as well for as any number of hitherto unimaginable economic and social aspirations.
3. Economic and class conflicts dividing Colonial American society at the time of the Revolution were not severe. Rather, colonial society was united by political beliefs that were widely held by white Americans regardless of social class. Political ideology motivating the colonists had deep and complex roots. This ideology was not mere propaganda advanced in the pursuit of social or class conflicts. It was a genuinely held set of beliefs that served as the primary motivation for revolution.
4. Late 1960’s: “New Left” Historians returned to social and economic conflicts within American society that helped create a revolutionary environment. The growing economic distress in colonial cities and the role of popular mobs which evinced resentment of American and British elites alike.
5. Avoiding the dichotomy of interests vs. ideals, and emphasizing that both interpretations have a role to play in gaining a complete understanding of the complex array of forces at work in the Revolution.Also  the role of marginal groups in society such as women, native Americans, and slaves can't be denied.
6. Revolution, regardless of its causes, was a radical event which had a transformative effect on large segments of American social and economic life. These factors may not have been motivations for revolution, but the ideals of traditional gender roles, deference, and patriarchy were radically altered.

Effects of the Revolution

(1)Loyalist expatriation

• About 60,000 to 70,000 Loyalists left the newly founded republic; some left for Britain and the remainder, called United Empire Loyalists, received British subsidies to resettle in British colonies in North America, especially Quebec,Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia.
• The new colonies of Upper Canada (now Ontario) and New Brunswick were created by Britain for their benefit. However, about 80% of the Loyalists stayed and became loyal citizens of the United States.

(2)Interpretations

• Some argues that the events were not "revolutionary," as the colonial society was not transformed but replaced a distant government with a local one.
• But American Revolution was a unique and radical event that produced deep changes and had a profound effect on world affairs, based on an increasing belief in the principles of the Enlightenment as reflected in how liberalism was understood during the period, and republicanism. These were demonstrated by a leadership and government that espoused protection of natural rights, and a system of laws chosen by the people.
• However, what was then considered the people was still restricted to free white males who were able to pass a property-qualification.Only with the development of the American system over the following centuries would a government by the people promised by the revolution be won for a greater inclusion of the population.

(3)An inspiration

• After the Revolution, genuinely democratic politics became possible.The rights of the people were incorporated into state constitutions. 
• Concepts of liberty, individual rights, equality among men and hostility toward corruption became incorporated as core values of liberal republicanism.
• The example of the first successful revolution against a European empire, and the first successful establishment of a republican form of democratically elected government, provided a model for many other colonial peoples who realized that they too could break away and become self-governing nations.
• The American Revolution was the first wave of the Atlantic Revolutions: the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, and the Latin American wars of independence. Aftershocks reached Ireland in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and in the Netherlands.
• The Revolution had a strong, immediate influence in Great Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, and France. Many British and Irish Whigs spoke in favour of the American cause. 
• In Ireland, there was a profound impact; the Protestants who controlled Ireland were demanding more and more self-rule.While Ireland did have a parliament which could make decisions, only Protestants voted for it and the British could control it. Campaigners for reform in Ireland reacted to the struggle in America by organising a boycott of British imports and groups of armed volunteers.The King and his cabinet in London could not risk another revolution on the American model, and they made a series of concessions to the Patriot faction in Dublin. Britain thus relaxed its trade restrictions on Ireland, to allow them to trade with British colonies and freely export wool, and reformed the government by allowing non-Anglicans to hold public offices. They repealed the Irish Declaratory Act while granting full legislative independence. The result was an Ireland which remained part of the British Empire.
• The Revolution, along with the Dutch Revolt (end of the 16th century) and the English Civil War (in the 17th century), was among the examples of overthrowing an old regime for many Europeans who later were active during the era of the French Revolution, such as Marquis de Lafayette.
• The American Declaration of Independence influenced the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789.
• The spirit of the Declaration of Independence led to laws ending slavery in all the Northern states and the Northwest Territory, with New Jersey the last in 1804—long before the British Parliament acted in 1833 to abolish slavery in its colonies. States such as New Jersey and New York adopted gradual emancipation of slaves.

(4)Status of American women

• The democratic ideals of the Revolution inspired changes in the roles of women.
• The concept of republican motherhood was inspired by this period and reflects the importance of Republicanism as the dominant American ideology. It assumed that a successful republic rested upon the virtue of its citizens. Women were considered to have the essential role of instilling their children with values conducive to a healthy republic. 
• During this period, the wife's relationship with her husband also became more liberal, as love and affection instead of obedience and subservience began to characterize the ideal marital relationship. 
• Patriarchy faded as an ideal; young people had more freedom to choose their spouses and more often used birth control to regulate the size of their families. Society emphasized the role of mothers in child rearing, especially the patriotic goal of raising republican children rather than those locked into aristocratic value systems.
• Whatever gains they had made, however, women still found themselves subordinated, legally and socially, to their husbands, disfranchised and usually with only the role of mother open to them. But, some women earned livelihoods which were not originally recognized as significant by men.

(5)Societal Impacts of the American Revolution

• The Revolution brought myriad consequences to the American social fabric. There was no REIGN OF TERROR as in the French Revolution. There was no replacement of the ruling class by workers' groups as in revolutionary Russia. How then could the American Revolution be described as radical? 
• Nearly every aspect of American life was somehow touched by the REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT. From slavery to women's rights, from religious life to voting, American attitudes would be forever changed.
• Some changes would be felt immediately. Slavery would not be abolished for another hundred years, but the Revolution saw the dawn of an organized abolitionist movement.
• English traditions such as land inheritance laws were swept away almost immediately. 
• The Anglican Church in America could no longer survive. After all, the official head of the Church of England was the British monarch.
• States experimented with republican ideas when drafting their own constitutions during the war. All these major changes would be felt by Americans before the dawn of the nineteenth century.
• The American Revolution produced a new outlook among its people that would have ramifications long into the future. Groups excluded from immediate equality such as slaves and women would draw their later inspirations from revolutionary sentiments. 
• Americans began to feel that their fight for liberty was a global fight. Future democracies would model their governments on ours. 

(6)Impact on Britain:

Diplomatic and Imperial Effects

• Britain may have lost thirteen colonies in America, but it retained Canada and land in the Caribbean, Africa and India. It then began to expand in these regions instead, building up what has been called the ‘Second British Empire’, which eventually became the largest dominion in world history. Britain’s role in Europe was not diminished, and its diplomatic power was soon restored, and able to play a key role in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
• Britain gave self rule to many white colonies in fear of loosing them like America.

Financial Effects

• Britain spent a huge amount of money fighting the Revolutionary War, increasing national debt hugely. Taxes had to be raised as a result. The trade which Britain relied on for wealth was severely interrupted, with imports and exports experiencing large drops and the recession which followed caused stock and land prices to plummet.
• Trade was also affected by naval attacks from Britain’s enemies.
• On the other hand, wartime industry such as the naval suppliers or the elements of the textile industry which made uniforms experienced a boost, and unemployment fell as Britain struggled to find enough men for the army, a situation which would cause them to hire German soldiers. 
• British ‘privateers’ experienced as much success preying on enemy merchant ships as almost any of their opponents. 
• The effects on trade were also short term, as British trade with the new USA rose to the same levels as trade with them in colonial form by 1785, and by 1792 trade between Britain and Europe had doubled. Additionally, while Britain gained an even larger national debt, they were in a position to live with it and there were no financially motivated rebellions like those of France. Indeed, Britain was able to support several armies during the Napoleonic wars

Political Effects:

• In Britain the failure of the American Revolutionary War led to demands for constitutional reform.
• Petitions flooded from the ‘Association Movement’, demanding a pruning of the king’s government, the expansion of who could vote, and a redrawing of the electoral map. Some even demanded universal manhood suffrage.
• The power the Association Movement had around early 1780 was huge, and it managed to achieve widespread support. It did not last long. 
• In June 1780 the Gordon Riots paralysed London. While the cause of the riots was religious, landowners and moderates were frightened away from supporting anymore reform and the Association Movement declined.The moment passed.