- Anti-tax conservatives, including the current "Tea Party" movement, enjoy portraying their cause as being in association with the nation's Founding Fathers.
- Critics of the Founders (and these critics are usually from the left side of the political spectrum, often the Far Left as is the case with the now late, though still sadly popular Howard Zinn) enjoy undermining the credibility and heroic stature of the Founders, with arguments that the Founders were motivated purely or primarily by greedy, monetary interests.
- Sam Adams, the Sons of Liberty, and the Committees of Correspondence were extremely effective with their public relations campaigns of the 1760s. Let's face it. The Founders were so good at their protest against taxation without proper representation that it's helped shape and define the legacy of the Revolutionary War itself.
The truth is far more complicated and nuanced than simple slogans or sound bytes. Unfortunately, most Americans haven't the patience or attention span to fully appreciate the truths and facts within history. While I certainly don't pretend to have complete knowledge of the truth myself, I do hope, in this brief blog post, to encourage you to seek out the correct information from the best sources, when it comes to historical questions such as this one. And in the case of the causes of the American Revolution, the best sources are those who started and fought the Revolution!
Was The American Revolution About Taxes?
While one might argue that the social and political upheaval of the Revolutionary period extends from the French and Indian War of the 1760s through the middle of the 1800s, the actual war itself began April 19, 1775, when British troops clashed with armed colonists in the New England villages of Lexington and Concord.
The bloodshed surrounding Lexington and Concord (and the long, painful British march back to Boston) took place ten years after the most egregious and hated of the taxes imposed on the colonies. That tax was the Stamp Act of 1765. While it certainly resulted in riots and mob violence, there was no war. There certainly was no movement for independence. That would come much later, after many "injuries and usurpations."
The American Revolution was not about taxes. It was about the colonial assertion that they had a right, as British subjects, to govern themselves, as defined by the colonial charters and British constitutional tradition. The power to levy taxes was part of the overall debate over self-government. Only the duly elected assemblies within each colony (such as the Virginia House of Burgesses or the Massachusetts legislature) had the right to pass laws or levy taxes within each colony. That was the main issue at play, and all grievances stemmed from that.
What Were The Colonial Grievances?
Anyone looking for an explanation of the causes of the American Revolution, at least from the perspective of the North American colonies, need only look as far as the Declaration of Independence. Laid out for the entire world to see are all the grievances which the colonists had against Great Britain. Here is what the Declaration of Independence has to say:
"The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."
And there you have it....the colonial grievances against King George III and the British Parliament. Were some of the reasons perhaps over stated? Maybe. But that's for another blog post. The point here is that the Second Continental Congress very clearly laid out the reasons for their war for independence. Taxation was simply one of them. It was not the only one, nor was it the most important. And taxation would not have been an issue at all, were it not for the overriding disagreement over self-government.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment