Revolution In America Essay Research Paper Discuss

Revolution In America Essay, Research Paper

Discuss the validity of this statement

Despite the view of many historians that the conflict between Great Britain and

her thirteen North American colonies, was economic in origin, in fact the American

Revolution had its roots in politics and in other areas of American life.

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I agree with this statement that the American Revolution had its roots politics,

economics, and in other aspects of American life. The populas of the thirteen colonies did

not find the need to stage a revolution just because of any one of these things, it took

different aspects of each, being tainted with by the British monarch and Parliment to stage

a revolution against a former motherland. As Thomas Jefferson so boldly stated in the

Declaration of Independence, “When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary

for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,

and to assume, among the powers of earth, the seperate and equal station to which the

laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinion of

mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Thomas Jefferson then goes on to explain the colonies grievences that come from the

of the colonies politics, economics, and way of life.

The American Revolution started when the first colonists stepped foot on

American soil, and lasted over a century and a half. Most of the people who came to

settle in the New World from England came to avoid persecution, wether it be religious,

or other. When colonists finally arrived in America after the horrid voyage from England,

they became discontented, and already felt separate from the English Government. The

young New World matured and aquired privledges of self-government, privledges that

colonies on different continents did not recieve, this was a problem from the beginning.

As Britain sees the economic success of the colonies, she begins to tighten the nuece on

the colonies by setting up a policy of mercantillism, a theory that existed in the Americas

only to help Britain financially. This was just the beginning of the laws that agitated early

America.

Britain began to place more laws on the colonies, restricting commerce, and

hurting the livlihood of early Americans. Parliment added additional laws on the colonies

normally to further extend her wealth. The colonists had restrictions on what they could

produce at home, and were forbidden to produce products that would rival English ones.

Economic initiative was stifled could not buy, sell, ship or manufacture under the most

profitable conditions at full liberty. Colonies were forced to print paper currency that,

without a bank, depreciated. This restrained colonial governments from passing

bsankruptcy laws. Americans despised mercantillism, and saw it as an insult from the

beginning.

The Stamp Act was passed by parliment to repay Britain’s huge debt after the

Seven Years War. Britain felt that the colonists should have to help pat for the cost of the

war because Britain was protecting the colonies, the colonists didn’t feel this way, and

responded with riots and the famous saying that rang out in the colonies in rhe years

before the Revolutionary War, “No taxation withuot representation.” This meant that the

the colonists felt that they should be represented in British politics if they were being

taxed. The Stamp Act is the time the causes of the Revolution went past economic, their

political rights were being enfringed, and their way of life tainted.

The Townshend Acts put more taxes on items like glass, lead, paper, and tea.

Red-blooded Americans saw these acts as another attempt to enchain the colonies. The

parliment then took the next step and suspended the legislature of New York for not

complying with the Quatering Act, which invaded the colonists homes, and wealth. Soon

after the Townshend Acts, 10 red coats fired upon a large group of people in Boston

which ended with eleven Bostonians killed or wounded.

Actions like the Boston Tea Party that were held in response to the Townshend

Acts caused Parliment to pass the Intloerable Acts. These acts posesssed a series of

Repressive Acts to punish mainly Boston for the Boston Tea Party. The most repressive

of all was the Boston Port Act, which closed all of Boston’s ports. These Intolerable Acts,

which were viewed as intolorable by the colonists, lit the match to the fire of revolution.

After the Intolerable Acts were passed, delagates from 12 of the 13 colonies met in

Philadelphia to discuss what to do. The Congress created the Association, it called for a

complete boycott of all British goods. The Continental Congress met again, this writing

the Declaration of Independence, after, in their eyes, they had been stripped of all thier

rights by Britain, and the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord. The Declaration of

Independence declared the United States of America a separate nation from Great Britain.

In conclusion, it is in my opinion that the American Revolution was caused by the

enfringement of the American way of life, which includes a government for the people, by

the people, not an all powerful monarch, free enterprise, not enterprise to benefit another

nation, and most importantly, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.