The American Revolution (1765–1789) was a political movement in the Thirteen Colonies of Great Britain. It began as a rebellion and turned into a revolution eventually creating the sovereign United States, which was the outcome of the associated American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). The Second Continental Congress, as the provisional government, established the Continental Army and appointed George Washington as its commander-in-chief in 1775. The following year, the Congress passed the Lee Resolution on July 2nd and unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4th. Throughout most of the war, the outcome appeared uncertain, but a 1781 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 and the acknowledgment of American sovereignty, which was formalized in the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783. The Constitution took effect in 1789 and the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791.
Discontent with colonial rule began shortly after the French and Indian War, which ended in 1763. Although the colonies had fought and supported the war directly, the British Parliament imposed new taxes to compensate for wartime costs and transferred control of the colonies' western lands to British officials in Montreal. Representatives from several colonies convened in New York City for the Stamp Act Congress in 1765. Its declaration argued that taxation without representation and other policies violated their rights as Englishmen. In 1767, though the Stamp Act was repealed, tensions increased again following Parliament's passing of the Townshend Acts. In an effort to quell the mounting rebellion, King George III deployed British troops to the colony of Massachusetts, where there was a conflict in the 1770 Boston Massacre. In December 1773, the local faction of the Sons of Liberty orchestrated the Boston Tea Party, during which they dumped chests of taxed tea owned by the British East India Company into the Boston Harbor. Parliament responded by enacting a series of punitive laws, called the Intolerable Acts. These were intended to end self-government in Massachusetts but instead increased American support for revolution.
In 1774, 12 of the Thirteen Colonies sent delegates to the First Continental Congress (the Province of Georgia joined in 1775). The First Continental Congress began coordinating Patriot resistance through underground networks of committees largely built on the foundations of the Sons of Liberty network. In August 1775, King George III proclaimed Massachusetts to be in rebellion. The British attempted to disarm the colonists, resulting in the Battles of Lexington and Concord, starting the Revolutionary War. The Second Continental Congress convened in May of 1775 and created the Continental Army, which then surrounded Boston, forcing the British to withdraw by sea in March 1776 and leaving Patriots in control in every colony. In May 1776, Congress voted to suppress all forms of Crown authority to be replaced by locally created authority, and each colony created a state constitution. On July 2, the Congress passed the Lee Resolution, affirming their support for joint independence. On July 4, 1776, they unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming that "all men are created equal". After that, Congress began drafting the Articles of Confederation, an effort to establish a multi-state self-governing coordinating body capable of negotiating international treaties and prosecuting the war.
The Revolutionary War continued for another five years, during which France eventually entered. On September 28, 1781, Washington commanded the Continental Army's capture of a British army under General Cornwallis at the Siege of Yorktown, leading to the collapse of King George's control of Parliament. Consensus in Parliament soon shifted to the war ending on American terms. On September 3, 1783, the British signed the Treaty of Paris, recognizing the sovereign independence of the United States, and ceding to the new nation nearly all the territory east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes. 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, although with significant democratic limitations compared to later evolution of the concept.
Origins
After the Glorious Revolution in Great Britain, the Britain adopted a policy of "salutary neglect," whereby the Thirteen Colonies were largely left to govern themselves. As a result of this new policy, as well as the ideals of liberty which had been borne out of the Glorious Revolution, there emerged new government systems (as exemplified by William Penn's Frame of Government of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Charter of 1691); religious institutions (as exemplified by the democratic nature of Congregational Protestantism in New England and the First Great Awakening across the colonies); and occasionally, attitudes towards slavery (as exemplified by Massachusetts and, at least initially, Georgia banning the practice), although the latter of these was less common. This British policy reverted significantly after the French and Indian War. 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, prompting the Thirteen Colonies to seek restoration of greater autonomy from Britain. After the American Revolution one Patriot, Capt. Levi Preston of Danvers, Massachusetts, who was asked why the Americans rebelled against England, responded: "...we always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn't mean we should."
1651–1763: Evolution of colonial policy
Development of colonial self-government
The Thirteen Colonies were established in the 17th century as part of the English Empire and became parts of the British Empire after the union of England and Scotland in 1707.
The development of a unique American identity can be traced to the English Civil War (1642–1651) and its aftermath. In that period the Puritan colonies of New England supported the Commonwealth government responsible for the execution of King Charles I. After the Stuart Restoration of 1660, Massachusetts did not recognize Charles II as the legitimate king for more than a year after his coronation. In King Philip's War (1675–1678), the New England colonies fought a coalition of a few Native American tribes without military assistance from England, thereby contributing to the development of a uniquely American identity separate from that of the British people.
In the 1680s, Charles and his brother, James II, attempted to bring New England under direct English control. The colonists fiercely opposed this, and the Crown nullified their colonial charters in response. In 1686, James finalized these efforts by consolidating the separate New England colonies along with New York and New Jersey into the Dominion of New England. Edmund Andros was appointed royal governor and tasked with governing the new Dominion under his direct rule. Colonial assemblies and town meetings were restricted, new local taxes were levied, and rights were abridged. Dominion rule triggered bitter resentment throughout New England. When James tried to rule without Parliament, the English aristocracy removed him from power in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. This was followed by the 1689 Boston revolt, which overthrew Dominion rule. Colonial governments reasserted their control after the revolt. The new monarchs, William and Mary, granted new charters to the individual New England colonies.
After the Glorious Revolution, the British Empire became a constitutional monarchy with sovereignty in the King-in-Parliament. Aristocrats inherited seats in the House of Lords, while the gentry and merchants controlled the elected House of Commons. The king ruled through cabinet ministers who depended on majority support in the Commons to govern effectively. British subjects on both sides of the Atlantic proudly claimed that the unwritten British constitution, with its guarantees of the rights of Englishmen, protected personal liberty better than any other government.
The British constitution served as the model for colonial governments. The Crown appointed a royal governor in each colony to exercise executive power, usually also appointing a Governor's Council largely to act as an unelected upper chamber of the legislature. Property owners elected a colonial assembly amongst themselves with powers to legislate and levy taxes, but the British government reserved the right to veto colonial legislation.
The British government lacked the resources and information necessary for close supervision of the colonies. Instead, British officials negotiated and compromised with colonial leaders to gain compliance with imperial policies. The colonies defended themselves with provincial troops and colonial militias of locals, and the British government rarely sent military forces to America before 1755. According to historian Robert Middlekauff, "Americans had become almost completely self-governing" before the American Revolution, a practice that was consistent with the British monarchy's practice of salutary neglect.
Mercantilism
With little industry except shipbuilding, the colonies exported agricultural products in return for manufactured goods. They also imported molasses, rum, and sugar from the British West Indies. In 1651, Parliament passed the first in a series of Navigation Acts, which restricted colonial trade with foreign countries. The British government pursued this policy of mercantilism in order to grow its economic and political power. According to mercantilism, the colonies existed for the mother country's economic benefit, and the colonists' economic needs were largely inconsequential. The Thirteen Colonies could trade with the rest of the empire but only ship certain commodities like tobacco to Britain. Any European imports bound for British America had to first pass through an English port and pay customs duties. Other laws regulated the developing colonial industries to prevent competition with industries in Britain, such as the Wool Act 1698, the Hat Act 1731, and the Iron Act 1750.
Colonial reactions to these policies were mixed. The Molasses Act 1733, for example, placed a duty of six pence per gallon upon foreign molasses imported into the colonies. This act was particularly egregious to the New England colonists, who protested it as unconstitutional taxation without representation in the British parliament. The act increased the smuggling of foreign molasses, and the British government ceased enforcement efforts after the 1740s.
On the other hand, certain merchants and local industries benefited from the restrictions on foreign competition. The limits on foreign-built ships greatly benefited the colonial shipbuilding industry, particularly in New England. Some argue that the economic impact was minimal on the colonists, but the political friction that the acts triggered was more serious, as the merchants most directly affected were also the most politically active.
British military presence after 1754
During the French and Indian War (1754–1763), the British government fielded 45,000 soldiers, half British Regulars and half colonial volunteers. The colonies also contributed funds and materiel to the war effort; though, two-fifths of this spending was reimbursed by the British government. Great Britain defeated France and acquired that nation's territory east of the Mississippi River.
In order to allow approximately 1,500 politically well-connected British Army officers to remain on active duty in America with full pay after the war, the Bute ministry decided in early 1763 to permanently garrison 10,000 soldiers in North America. Due to long-established English resistance to a standing army, stationing these officers in Great Britain during peacetime was a politically unacceptable alternative. The excuse made for a standing army in America was defense against French troops stationed in the West Indies, and foreign populations in newly acquired territories (the French in Canada and the Spanish in Florida). In addition, British soldiers were supposed to help collect customs duties and prevent colonists from instigating conflict with Native Americans.
Instead, increased British migration beyond the Appalachian Mountains and Native American anger over the policies of General Jeffery Amherst caused Pontiac's War (1763–1766). 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; however, it failed to stop westward migration.
1764–1766: Sugar Act and Stamp Act Crisis leads to organized resistance
According to historian Middlekauff, "the need for money played a part in every important decision made by Prime Minister George Grenville regarding the colonies—and for that matter by the ministries that followed up to 1776." The national debt had grown to £133 million with annual debt payments of £5 million (out of an £8 million annual budget). Stationing troops in North America on a permanent basis would cost another £360,000 a year. On a per capita basis, Grenville claimed Americans paid 1 shilling in taxes directly to the empire (not including local taxes) compared to 26 shillings paid by the English. The enslaved, a near majority of the population in some colonies, did not pay any taxes and therefore skewed this comparison.
On March 9, 1764, Grenville proposed the Sugar Act, which was enacted by Parliament in April. It lowered the duty on foreign molasses from 6 pence to 3 pence per gallon. The Treasury believed it would generate £78,000. To ensure this money could be collected, the act strengthened efforts against smuggling. Customs officials could choose whether to prosecute violators in colonial courts or vice admiralty courts. Unlike colonial courts where there was a presumption of innocence and cases were decided by local juries who frequently acquitted accused smugglers, vice admiralty courts operated on a presumption of guilt and cases were decided by Crown-appointed judges. On the same day he introduced the Sugar Act in Parliament, Grenville stated it might be necessary to levy stamp duties on the colonies to raise additional revenue, but he delayed action to give the colonies time to propose another way to raise the revenue.
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, thereby violating the unwritten English constitution. This grievance was overly simplified with the slogan "No taxation without representation". Shortly following adoption of the Stamp Act, factions of the Sons of Liberty formed in each colony, and began using public demonstrations, boycotts, and threats of violence to ensure that the offending British policies 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 in part 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 February 21, 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.
1767–1773: Townshend Acts, Tea Act and the escalation of violence
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. The new taxes were enacted on the belief that Americans only objected to internal taxes and not to external taxes such as custom duties. John Dickinson however, in his widely read pamphlet Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, 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. In June 1768 a riot broke out in Boston 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 March 5, 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, and other colonies were becoming increasingly empathetic.
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. This would have reduced the influence of colonial representatives over their government. 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.
From Boston Samuel Adams set about creating new Committees of Correspondence, built largely on the foundations of the underground Sons of Liberty network, linking Patriots in all 13 colonies and eventually providing 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.
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 December 16, 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.
1774–1775: Intolerable Acts and the unifying First Continental Congress
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, "Starting in August 1774, each time a court was slated to meet in some Massachusetts town, great numbers of angry citizens made sure it did not". The next month Patriots issued the Suffolk Resolves and formed an alternative shadow cabinet known as the Massachusetts 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 December 1, 1774, of all British goods; it was enforced by new local committees authorized by the Congress that were largely built upon the earlier Committees of Correspondence. It also began coordinating Patriot resistance by militias in each colony, including many veterans who had gained military experience in the French and Indian War. For the first time, the Patriots were armed and unified against Parliament.
Military hostilities begin
King George III 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, resulting in the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 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 June 14, 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, would issue a Proclamation of Rebellion in August which declared that all the states were "in rebellion" and the members of Congress were traitors. Meanwhile, the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775 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.
As Benjamin Franklin wrote to Joseph Priestley in October 1775: Britain, at the expense of three millions, has killed 150 Yankees this campaign, which is £20,000 a head ... During the same time, 60,000 children have been born in America. From these data his mathematical head will easily calculate the time and expense necessary to kill us all.
In the winter of 1775, the Americans invaded northeastern Quebec under generals Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery. The attack was a failure; many Americans were killed, captured, or died of smallpox.
From rebellion to revolution
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.
Creating new state constitutions
On January 5, 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 May 26, 1776, John Adams wrote James Sullivan from Philadelphia, warning against extending the franchise too far:
Depend upon it, sir, it is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy and altercation, as would be opened by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters. There will be no end of it. New claims will arise. Women will demand a vote. Lads from twelve to twenty one will think their rights not enough attended to, and every man, who has not a farthing, will demand an equal voice with any other in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks, to one common level[.]
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 (though New York and Maryland lowered property qualifications)
Bicameral legislatures, with the upper house as a check on the lower
Strong governors with veto power over the legislature and substantial appointment authority
Few or no restraints on individuals holding multiple positions in government
The continuation of state-established religion
In Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New Hampshire, the resulting constitutions embodied:
universal manhood suffrage, or minimal property requirements for voting or holding office (New Jersey enfranchised some property-owning widows, a step that it retracted 25 years later)
strong, unicameral legislatures
relatively weak governors without veto powers, and with little appointing authority