American Revolution

The American Revolution began not with a bang, but with a quiet, simmering resentment that had been brewing for decades before the first shot was fired. It started as a rebellion demanding reform, a desperate attempt by the Thirteen Colonies to preserve their rights as Englishmen, yet it evolved into a total revolution that would replace the entire social and political order. The movement was born from the ashes of the French and Indian War, which ended in 1763, leaving the British Empire with a massive debt and a new policy of control that the colonists found intolerable. The colonies had fought and paid for that war, yet Parliament imposed new taxes to compensate for the costs, transferring control of western lands to British officials in Montreal. This shift from a policy of salutary neglect to one of strict oversight created a powder keg that would eventually explode into a war for independence. The Second Continental Congress, acting as the provisional government, established the Continental Army and appointed George Washington as its commander-in-chief in 1775. The following year, the Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July, marking the transition from a struggle for rights within the empire to a fight for a new nation. Throughout most of the war, the outcome appeared uncertain, with the British holding significant military advantages. However, in 1781, a decisive victory by Washington and the Continental Army in the Siege of Yorktown led King George III and the Fox, North coalition in government to negotiate the cessation of colonial rule. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 formalized this sovereignty, and the Constitution took effect in 1789, followed by the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791. Discontent with colonial rule began shortly after the French and Indian War in 1763, setting the stage for a conflict that would redefine the concept of governance in the modern world.

Salutary Neglect And Control

The British political establishment, especially after taking massive swaths of land from the former territories of New France, pursued a policy of greater control over colonial affairs, marking a sharp departure from the era of salutary neglect. Before 1763, the colonies were largely left to govern themselves, a practice that allowed for the development of unique government systems like William Penn's Frame of Government of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Charter of 1691. Religious institutions, such as the democratic nature of Congregational Protestantism in New England and the First Great Awakening across the colonies, flourished under this loose supervision. The British government lacked the resources and information necessary for close supervision, so officials negotiated and compromised with colonial leaders to gain compliance with imperial policies. The colonies defended themselves with colonial militias, and the British government rarely sent military forces to America before 1755. During the French and Indian War, the British government fielded 45,000 soldiers, half British Regulars and half colonial volunteers, and the colonies contributed funds and materiel to the war effort. Great Britain defeated France and acquired that nation's territory east of the Mississippi River, but the victory brought a new reality. In early 1763, the Bute ministry decided to permanently garrison 10,000 soldiers in North America, motivated by the desire to allow approximately 1,500 politically well-connected British Army officers to remain on active duty in America with full pay. The excuse for a standing army in America was defense against French troops stationed in the West Indies and foreign populations in newly acquired territories. However, increased British migration beyond the Appalachian Mountains and Native American anger over the policies of General Jeffery Amherst caused Pontiac's War. In response, the Grenville ministry issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, designating the territory between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River an Indian Reserve closed to colonial settlement. The Proclamation angered settlers, fur traders, and land speculators, yet it failed to stop westward migration. The national debt had grown to £133 million with annual debt payments of £5 million, and stationing troops in North America on a permanent basis would cost another £360,000 a year. On a per capita basis, including near-majority slaves in some colonies, Americans paid 1 shilling in taxes to the empire compared to 26 shillings paid by the English. Grenville believed that the colonies should make a bigger contribution to the troop costs, setting the stage for a series of taxes that would ignite the revolution.

When did the American Revolution begin and what caused it?

The American Revolution began with simmering resentment after the French and Indian War ended in 1763. The conflict started as a rebellion demanding reform when the British Empire imposed new taxes and policies of control on the Thirteen Colonies to compensate for war debts.

Who was appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in 1775?

George Washington was appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army by the Second Continental Congress in 1775. The Congress acted as the provisional government and established the army to defend colonial rights against British rule.

On what date was the Declaration of Independence adopted by Congress?

The Second Continental Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July 1776. Thomas Jefferson drafted the document which was presented by the Committee of Five and adopted at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia.

When did the Siege of Yorktown end and what was the result?

The Siege of Yorktown ended in October 1781 when the British surrendered their second invading army to the combined French and Continental armies. This decisive victory led King George III and the Fox, North coalition to negotiate the cessation of colonial rule.

What dates mark the ratification of the Articles of Confederation and the U.S. Constitution?

The Articles of Confederation were fully ratified on the 1st of March 1781, dissolving the Continental Congress. The Constitution was ratified in 1788 and took effect in 1789, followed by the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791.

Taxes Without Representation

The need for money played a part in every important decision made by Grenville regarding the colonies, and for that matter by the ministries that followed up to 1776. In 1764 Parliament passed the Sugar Act, decreasing the existing customs duties on sugar and molasses but providing stricter measures of enforcement and collection. That same year, Grenville proposed direct taxes on the colonies to raise revenue, but he delayed action to see whether the colonies would propose some way to raise the revenue themselves. Parliament passed the Stamp Act in March 1765, which imposed direct taxes on the colonies for the first time. All official documents, newspapers, almanacs, and pamphlets were required to have the stamps, even decks of playing cards. The colonists did not object that the taxes were high; they were actually low. They objected to their lack of representation in the Parliament, which gave them no voice concerning legislation that affected them, such as the tax, violating the unwritten English constitution. This grievance was overly simplified with the slogan No taxation without representation. Shortly following adoption of the Stamp Act, the Sons of Liberty formed, and began using public demonstrations, boycotts, and threats of violence to ensure that the British tax laws became unenforceable. In Boston, the Sons of Liberty burned the records of the vice admiralty court and looted the home of chief justice Thomas Hutchinson. Several legislatures called for united action, and nine colonies sent delegates to the Stamp Act Congress in New York City in October. Moderates led by John Dickinson drew up a Declaration of Rights and Grievances stating that the colonists were equal to all other British subjects and that, among other abuses, taxes passed without representation in Parliament violated their rights as Englishmen. The Parliament at Westminster saw itself as the supreme lawmaking authority throughout the Empire and thus entitled to enact any legislation, including levying any tax, without colonial approval or even consultation. They argued that the colonies were legally British corporations subordinate to the British Parliament. Parliament insisted that the colonists effectively enjoyed a virtual representation, as most British people did, since only a small minority of the British population were eligible to elect representatives to Parliament. However, Americans such as James Otis maintained that there was no one in Parliament responsible specifically to any colonial constituency, so they were not virtually represented by anyone in Parliament. The Rockingham government came to power in July 1765, and Parliament debated whether to repeal the stamp tax or to send an army to enforce it. Benjamin Franklin appeared before them to make the case for repeal, explaining that the colonies had spent heavily in manpower, money, and blood defending the empire, and that further taxes to pay for those wars were unjust and might bring about a rebellion. Parliament agreed and repealed the tax on the 21st of February 1766, but they insisted in the Declaratory Act of March 1766 that they retained full power to make laws for the colonies in all cases whatsoever. The repeal nonetheless caused widespread celebrations in the colonies, but the underlying tension remained.

The Road To Rebellion

In 1767, the British Parliament passed the Townshend Acts, which placed duties on several staple goods, including paper, glass, and tea, and established a Board of Customs in Boston to more rigorously execute trade regulations. Parliament's goal was not so much to collect revenue but to assert its authority over the colonies. The new taxes were enacted on the belief that Americans only objected to internal taxes and not to external taxes such as custom duties. However, in his widely read pamphlet, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, John Dickinson argued against the constitutionality of the acts because their purpose was to raise revenue and not to regulate trade. Colonists responded to the taxes by organizing new boycotts of British goods. These boycotts were less effective, however, as the goods taxed by the Townshend Acts were widely used. In February 1768, the Assembly of Massachusetts Bay Colony 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. Meanwhile, a riot broke out in Boston in June 1768 over the seizure of the sloop Liberty, owned by John Hancock, for alleged smuggling. Customs officials were forced to flee, prompting the British to deploy troops to Boston. A Boston town meeting declared that no obedience was due to parliamentary laws and called for the convening of a convention. A convention assembled but only issued a mild protest before dissolving itself. In January 1769, Parliament responded to the unrest by reactivating the Treason Act 1543 which called for subjects outside the realm to face trials for treason in England. The governor of Massachusetts was instructed to collect evidence of said treason, and the threat caused widespread outrage, though it was not carried out. On the 5th of March 1770, a large crowd gathered around a group of British soldiers on a Boston street. The crowd grew threatening, throwing snowballs, rocks, and debris at them. One soldier was clubbed and fell. There was no order to fire, but the soldiers panicked and fired into the crowd. They hit 11 people; three civilians died of wounds at the scene of the shooting, and two died shortly after. The event quickly came to be called the Boston Massacre. The soldiers were tried and acquitted, defended by American patriot John Adams, but the widespread descriptions soon began to turn colonial sentiment against the British. This accelerated the downward spiral in the relationship between Britain and the province of Massachusetts. A new ministry under Lord North came to power in 1770, and Parliament repealed most of the Townshend duties, except the tax on tea. 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. In June 1772, American patriots, including John Brown, burned a British warship that had been vigorously enforcing unpopular trade regulations, in what became known as the Gaspee Affair. The affair was investigated for possible treason, but no action was taken. In 1773, private letters were published in which Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson claimed that the colonists could not enjoy all English liberties, and in which Lieutenant Governor Andrew Oliver called for the direct payment of colonial officials, which had been paid by local authorities. The letters' contents were used as evidence of a systematic plot against American rights, and discredited Hutchinson in the eyes of the people; the colonial Assembly petitioned for his recall. Benjamin Franklin, postmaster general for the colonies, acknowledged that he leaked the letters, which led to him being removed from his position. In Boston, Samuel Adams set about creating new Committees of Correspondence, which linked Patriots in all 13 colonies and eventually provided the framework for a provisional government. Virginia, the largest colony, set up its Committee of Correspondence in early 1773, on which Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson served. A total of about 7,000 to 8,000 Patriots served on these Committees; Loyalists were excluded. The committees became the leaders of the American resistance to British actions, and later largely determined the war effort at the state and local level. When the First Continental Congress resolved to boycott British products, the colonial and local Committees took charge, examining merchant records and publishing the names of merchants who attempted to defy the boycott by importing British goods.

The Tea Party And War

Meanwhile, Parliament passed the Tea Act lowering the price of taxed tea exported to the colonies, to help the British East India Company undersell smuggled untaxed Dutch tea. Special consignees were appointed to sell the tea to bypass colonial merchants. The act was opposed by those who resisted the taxes and also by smugglers who stood to lose business. In every colony demonstrators warned merchants not to bring in tea that included the hated new tax. In most instances, the consignees were forced by the Americans to resign and the tea was turned back, but Massachusetts governor Hutchinson refused to allow Boston merchants to give in to pressure. A town meeting in Boston determined that the tea would not be landed, and ignored a demand from the governor to disperse. On the 16th of December 1773, a group of men, led by Samuel Adams and dressed to evoke the appearance of Indigenous people, boarded the ships of the East India Company and dumped £10,000 worth of tea from their holds, approximately £636,000 in 2008, into Boston Harbor. Decades later, this event became known as the Boston Tea Party and remains a significant part of American patriotic lore. The British government responded by passing four laws that came to be known as the Intolerable Acts, further darkening colonial opinion towards England. The first was the Massachusetts Government Act which altered the Massachusetts charter and restricted town meetings. The second was the Administration of Justice Act which ordered that all British soldiers to be tried were to be arraigned in Britain, not in the colonies. The third 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. The fourth was the Quartering Act of 1774, which allowed royal governors to house British troops in the homes of citizens without 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. In September 1774, the First Continental Congress convened in Pennsylvania, consisting of representatives from each colony, to serve as a vehicle for deliberation and collective action. During secret debates, conservative Joseph Galloway proposed the creation of a colonial Parliament that would be able to approve or disapprove acts of the British Parliament, but his idea was tabled in a vote of 6 to 5 and was subsequently removed from the record. Congress called for a boycott beginning on the 1st of December 1774, of all British goods; it was enforced by new local committees authorized by the Congress that were largely built upon the Sons of Liberty network. It also began coordinating Patriot resistance by militias which existed in every colony and which had gained military experience in the French and Indian War. For the first time, the Patriots were armed and unified against Parliament. King George declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion in February 1775 and the British garrison received orders to seize the rebels' weapons and arrest their leaders, leading to the Battles of Lexington and Concord on the 19th of April 1775. The Patriots assembled a militia 15,000 strong and laid siege to Boston, occupied by 6500 British soldiers. The Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia on the 14th of June 1775. The congress was divided on the best course of action. They authorized formation of the Continental Army, appointing George Washington as its commander-in-chief, while producing the Olive Branch Petition in which they attempted to come to an accord with King George. The king, however, issued a Proclamation of Rebellion which declared that the states were in rebellion and the members of Congress were traitors. The Battle of Bunker Hill followed on the 17th of June 1775. It was a British victory, but at a great cost: about 1,000 British casualties from a garrison of about 6,000, as compared to 500 American casualties from a much larger force. In the winter of 1775, the Americans invaded northeastern Quebec under generals Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery, expecting to rally sympathetic colonists there. The attack was a failure; many Americans were killed, captured, or died of smallpox. In March 1776, aided by the fortification of Dorchester Heights with cannons recently captured at Fort Ticonderoga, the Continental Army led by George Washington forced the British to evacuate Boston. The revolutionaries now fully controlled all thirteen colonies and were ready to declare independence. There still were many Loyalists, but they were no longer in control anywhere by July 1776, and all of the Royal officials had fled.

Independence And Alliances

Following the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775, the Patriots had control of Massachusetts outside Boston's city limits, and the Loyalists suddenly found themselves on the defensive with no protection from the British army. In each of the Thirteen Colonies, American patriots overthrew their existing governments, closed courts, and drove out British colonial officials. They held elected conventions and established their own legislatures, which existed outside any legal parameters established by the British. New constitutions were drawn up in each state to supersede royal charters. They proclaimed that they were now states, no longer colonies. On the 5th of January 1776, New Hampshire ratified the first state constitution. In May 1776, Congress voted to suppress all forms of Crown authority, to be replaced by locally created authority. New Jersey, South Carolina, and Virginia created their constitutions before July 4. Rhode Island and Connecticut simply took their existing royal charters and deleted all references to the Crown. The new states were all committed to republicanism, with no inherited offices. On the 26th of May 1776, John Adams wrote James Sullivan from Philadelphia warning against extending the franchise too far. The resulting constitutions in states, including those of Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia featured property qualifications for voting and even more substantial requirements for elected positions, bicameral legislatures, with the upper house as a check on the lower, strong governors with veto power over the legislature and substantial appointment authority, and few or no restraints on individuals holding multiple positions in government. The continuation of state-established religion was also common. In Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New Hampshire, the resulting constitutions embodied universal manhood suffrage, or minimal property requirements for voting or holding office, strong, unicameral legislatures, relatively weak governors without veto powers, and with little appointing authority, and prohibition against individuals holding multiple government posts. The radical provisions of Pennsylvania's constitution lasted 14 years. In 1790, conservatives gained power in the state legislature, called a new constitutional convention, and rewrote the constitution. The new constitution substantially reduced universal male suffrage, gave the governor veto power and patronage appointment authority, and added an upper house with substantial wealth qualifications to the unicameral legislature. Thomas Paine called it a constitution unworthy of America. In April 1776, the North Carolina Provincial Congress issued the Halifax Resolves explicitly authorizing its delegates to vote for independence. By June, nine Provincial Congresses supported independence from Britain, and Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New York followed. Richard Henry Lee was instructed by the Virginia legislature to propose independence, and he did so on the 7th of June 1776. Gathered at Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, later renamed Independence Hall, 56 of the nation's Founding Fathers representing the United Colonies adopted and issued to King George III the Declaration of Independence. It had been drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, and was presented by the Committee of Five which was charged with authoring it. The Congress struck several provisions of the Committee's draft, and then adopted it unanimously on July 4. The Declaration embodied universal rights expressed through the political philosophies of liberalism and republicanism, rejected monarchy and aristocracy, and famously proclaimed that all men are created equal. What had begun as a rebellion demanding the rights of Englishmen had now evolved into a revolution to overthrow and replace the political and social order in America. With the issuance of the Declaration of Independence, each colony began operating as independent and sovereign states. The next step was to form a union to facilitate international relations and alliances. On the 5th of November 1777, the Congress approved the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union and sent it to each state for ratification. The Congress immediately began operating under the Articles' terms, providing a structure of shared sovereignty during prosecution of the Revolutionary War. The Articles were fully ratified on the 1st of March 1781. At that point, the Continental Congress was dissolved and a new government of the United States in Congress Assembled took its place the following day, on the 2nd of March 1782, with Samuel Huntington leading the Congress as presiding officer. The capture of a British army at Saratoga encouraged the French to formally enter the war in support of Congress, and Benjamin Franklin negotiated a permanent military alliance in early 1778. France thus became the first foreign nation to officially recognize the Declaration of Independence. On the 6th of February 1778, the United States and France signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance. William Pitt spoke out in Parliament urging Britain to make peace in America and to unite with America against France, while British politicians who had sympathized with colonial grievances now turned against the Americans for allying with Britain's rival and enemy. The Spanish and the Dutch became allies of the French in 1779 and 1780 respectively, forcing the British to fight a global war without major allies, and requiring it to slip through a combined blockade of the Atlantic. The Dutch Republic, also at war with Britain, was the next country after France to sign a treaty with the United States, on the 8th of October 1782. On the 3rd of April 1783, Ambassador Extraordinary Gustaf Philip Creutz, representing King Gustav III of Sweden, and Benjamin Franklin, signed a Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the U.S. Britain began to view the American Revolutionary War as merely one front in a wider war, and the British chose to withdraw troops from America to reinforce the British colonies in the Caribbean, which were under threat of Spanish or French invasion.

The Final Victory And Peace

The British army under Cornwallis marched to Yorktown, Virginia, where they expected to be rescued by a British fleet. The fleet did arrive, but so did a larger French fleet. The French were victorious in the Battle of the Chesapeake, and the British fleet returned to New York for reinforcements, leaving Cornwallis trapped. In October 1781, the British surrendered their second invading army of the war under a siege by the combined French and Continental armies commanded by Washington. Washington did not know if or when the British might reopen hostilities after Yorktown. They still had 26,000 troops occupying New York City, Charleston, and Savannah, together with a powerful fleet. The French army and navy departed, so the Americans were on their own in 1782, 83. The American treasury was empty, and the unpaid soldiers were growing restive, almost to the point of mutiny or possible coup d'etat. Washington dispelled the unrest among officers of the Newburgh Conspiracy in 1783, and Congress subsequently created the promise of a five years bonus for all officers. Historians continue to debate whether the odds were long or short for American victory. John E. Ferling says that the odds were so long that the American victory was almost a miracle. On the other hand, Joseph Ellis says that the odds favored the Americans, and asks whether there ever was any realistic chance for the British to win. He argues that this opportunity came only once, in the summer of 1776, where Admiral Howe and his brother General Howe missed several opportunities to destroy the Continental Army. Chance, luck, and even the vagaries of the weather played crucial roles. Ellis's point is that the strategic and tactical decisions of the Howes were fatally flawed because they underestimated the challenges posed by the Patriots. Ellis concludes that, once the Howe brothers failed, the opportunity would never come again for a British victory. Support for the conflict had never been strong in Britain, where many sympathized with the Americans, but now it reached a new low. King George wanted to fight on, but his supporters lost control of Parliament and they launched no further offensives in America on the eastern seaboard. During negotiations in Paris, the American delegation discovered that France supported American independence but no territorial gains, hoping to confine the new nation to the area east of the Appalachian Mountains. The Americans opened direct secret negotiations with London, cutting out the French. British Prime Minister Lord Shelburne was in charge of the British negotiations, and he saw a chance to make the United States a valuable economic partner, facilitating trade and investment opportunities. The US obtained all the land east of the Mississippi River, including southern Canada, but Spain took control of Florida from the British. It gained fishing rights off Canadian coasts, and agreed to allow British merchants and Loyalists to recover their property. Prime Minister Shelburne foresaw highly profitable two-way trade between Britain and the rapidly growing United States, which did come to pass. The blockade was lifted and American merchants were free to trade with any nation anywhere in the world. The British largely abandoned their Indigenous allies, who were not a party to this treaty and did not recognize it until they were defeated militarily by the United States. However, the British did sell them munitions and maintain forts in American territory until the Jay Treaty of 1795. Losing the war and the Thirteen Colonies was a shock to Britain. The war revealed the limitations of Britain's fiscal-military state when they discovered that they suddenly faced powerful enemies with no allies, and they were dependent on extended and vulnerable transatlantic lines of communication. The defeat heightened dissension and escalated political antagonism to the King's ministers. The King went so far as to draft letters of abdication, although they were never delivered. 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, and the result was a crisis from 1776 to 1783. The crisis ended after 1784 confidence in the British constitution was restored during the administration of Prime Minister William Pitt. The war expenses of the individual states added up to $114 million, compared to $37 million by the central government. In 1790, Congress combined the remaining state debts with the foreign and domestic debts into one national debt totaling $80 million at the recommendation of first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. Everyone received face value for wartime certificates, so that the national honor would be sustained and the national credit established. The national government was still operating under the Articles of Confederation and settled the issue of the western territories, which the states ceded to Congress. American settlers moved rapidly into those areas, with Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee becoming states in the 1790s. However, the national government had no money either to pay the war debts owed to European nations and the private banks, or to pay Americans who had been given millions of dollars of 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 the repetition of internal revolts such as the Shays's Rebellion of 1786 in Massachusetts. They convinced the Congress of the Confederation to call the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. The Convention adopted a new Constitution which provided for a republic with a much stronger national government in a federal framework, including an effective executive in a check-and-balance system with the judiciary and legislature. The Constitution was ratified in 1788, after a fierce debate in the states over the proposed new government. The new administration under President George Washington took office in New York in March 1789 and the new bicameral Congress of the United States was seated. James Madison spearheaded Congressional legislation proposing amendments to the Constitution as assurances to those cautious about federal power, guaranteeing many of the inalienable rights that formed a foundation for the revolution. Rhode Island was the final state to ratify the Constitution in 1790, the first ten amendments were ratified in 1791 and became known as the United States Bill of Rights. The United States became the first nation to establish a federal republic with a written constitution based on the principles of universal natural rights, consent of the governed and equality under the law, albeit with significant democratic limitations compared to later evolution of the concept.