Cause Of The Revolutionary War Essay Research
Cause Of The Revolutionary War Essay, Research Paper
The haphazard and disorganised British regulation of the American settlements in the decennary prior to the eruption led to the Revolutionary War. The misdirection of the settlements, the revenue enhancement policies that violated the settler right & # 8217 ; s, the distractions of foreign wars and political relations in England and mercantilist policies that benefited the English to a much greater grade so the settlers all show the British incompetency in their regulation over the settlements. These policies and distractions were some of the causes of the Revolutionary War.
The involvements of England within the settlements were egoistic. The English were working were seeking to regulate the settlements by utilizing the mercantilist system. Mercantilism is when the province directs all the economic activities within it & # 8217 ; s boundary lines ( Blum 31 ) . England was non trying to do any alterations that would assist the settlers. They limited the settlements commerce to internal trade merely ( Miller 9 ) . The English were working the settlements by demanding that the settlements import more from England so they exported to the settlements. They were importing natural stuffs from the settlements and doing them into exportable goods in England. They would so transport these goods to foreign markets all around the universe including the settlements ( America Online ) . Throughout the 17th century the English saw America as a topographic point to acquire stuffs they didn & # 8217 ; Ts have at place and a market to sell finished merchandises at after the goods had been manufactured. This was damaging to the settlements because it prevented them from fabricating any of the natural stuffs they produced and made them more dependent upon England.
In add-on to the agitation caused by their mercantilist policies, domestic political issues distracted them from the activities of the settlements. Throughout the 16 100s, Great Britain was more involved in work outing the Constitutional issue of who was to hold more power in English authorities, the male monarch or parliament. When this complex issue was eventually resolved in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, England turned its attending back to the settlements and found that settlers had developed their ain individuality as American.
There was no cardinal office in England to command what was go oning in the settlements. The executive authorization in England was divided among several curates and commissioners that did non move rapidly or in unison. Besides, the Board of Trade, the subdivision of authorities that knew more about the settlements than any other regulating organic structure in England, did non hold the power to do determinations or to implement edicts. Due to the distractions from the complex constitutional issues and uneffective governmental organisation the settlers felt further separated from England ( Blum 51 ) .
The political scene in England was laced with corruptness. Military officers of the authorities sent to the settlements were frequently bribe-taking politicians that were non smart plenty to keep authorities places in England. After Grenville and Townshend the most unqualified was Lord North, who became Prime Minister in 1770 after the decease of Charles Townshend. & # 8220 ; North was the sort of politician George had been looking for & # 8212 ; -a drudgery, dogged, hardworking adult male, neither a sap nor a mastermind, much like the male monarch himself. For the following 12 old ages, despite the resistance of abler work forces, he remained at the caput of the authorities ( Blum 104 ) . & # 8221 ; Corruption and incompetency among regulating politicians frequently made their regulation over the settlements ineffective.
In the old ages taking up to the concluding decennary before the American Revolution, the relationship between Great Britain and her settlements in North America continued to deteriorate. Relations began to decline with the great triumph over the Gallic and Indians in the Seven Years War. Unwelcome British military personnels had remained in the settlements. Debts from this war caused the Prime Minister at the clip, Lord Grenville, to implement Mercantilism in an attempt to acquire the settlers to pay their portion of the national debt that had doubled since 1754 ( Blum 95 ) .
England passed many Acts that were badly conceived and had long term effects on the relationship between England and the settlements. The most controversial of these were direct revenue enhancements. The last clip Parliament had tried a direct revenue enhancement was every bit recent as 1765, when Lord Grenville enacted the Stamp Act which forced the settlers to pay for casts on printed paperss, the Stamp Act ( Higginbotham 34 ) . The Americans had felt the revenue enhancements of Lord Grenville tungsten
ere “a deliberate purpose to disown the settlers by denying them the rights of the English ( Blum 96 ) .” The first of these Acts of the Apostless were the Townshend Acts. The Townshend Acts were passed in 1767 and placed new revenue enhancements on paper, pigments, tea, lead and, glass. The new revenue enhancements would be used to pay for British functionaries in the American service. These Acts of the Apostless infuriated the settlers because they believed that Parliament had the right to set revenue enhancements on the trade of the settlements but could non put revenue enhancements straight on the settlers to raise gross ( America Online ) .
The interpreter of the settlements, John Dickinson, wrote in his & # 8220 ; Letters of a Pennsylvania Farmer, & # 8221 ; on the issue of direct revenue enhancements. He distinguished between revenue enhancements that were imposed to modulate trade and those that were intended entirely to raise gross. If the revenue enhancement was used to advance commercialism it was justifiable, but if the revenue enhancement was used merely to derive gross it was non viewed as a legitimate revenue enhancement ( America Online ) . The settlers believed that this new revenue enhancement was non legitimate and hence there was strong resistance to it throughout the settlements.
By 1766 England backed off in their attempts to revenue enhancement their settlements. Following a twelvemonth of resistance from the settlers England revoked the Stamp Act and the first Quartering Act, but they still passed the Declaratory Act ( History Place ) . In 1766 the Declaratory Act was passed. It was passed the same twenty-four hours that the Stamp Act was repealed. The Declaratory Act gave the English authorities entire power to go through Torahs to regulate the settlements. The British claimed that the settlements had ever been and should ever be capable to the British Crown ( Blum 99 ) . & # 8221 ;
In 1773 the Tea Act was passed. The Tea Act non merely put a three penny per lb revenue enhancement on tea but it besides gave the British East India Company a close monopoly because it allowed the company to sell straight to the colonial agents avoiding any jobbers. In Boston the settlers held a town meeting to seek to acquire their Tea Agents to vacate. The Tea Agents would non vacate and a few months subsequently angered Bostonians dressed as American indians boarded three tea ships and dumped it all into Boston Harbor ( Blum 106 ) .
In 1774 the unbearable Acts were passed. They were passed as a manner to censure the Bostonians for the Boston Tea Party. This didn & # 8217 ; t travel over good in Boston because both the inexperienced person and the guilty were being punished every bit ( America Online ) . There were five Acts of the Apostless within the Intolerable Acts. The Massachusetts Government Act, a new Quartering Act, the Administration of Justice Act the Quebec Act and the shutting of the port of Boston. The Massachusetts Government Act said that the Governor & # 8217 ; s council had to be appointed by the King and limited town meetings to one per twelvemonth. The new Quartering Act, & # 8220 ; authorized the quartering of military personnels within a town ( alternatively of in the barracks provided by the settlement ) whenever their commanding officers thought it desirable. & # 8221 ; The Administration of Justice Act stated that, & # 8220 ; any authorities or imposts officer indicted for slaying could be tried in England, beyond the control of local juries. & # 8221 ; The Quebec Act was non intended to be used as a penalty of the settlers, instead to widen the boundaries of the state of Quebec to the Ohio River and give the Roman Catholics in that state spiritual autonomy and the dual protection of French and English jurisprudence. But the Quebec Act really angered the settlers because the settlers populating in Quebec were acquiring rights that the Americans felt were being taken off from them ( Blum 106 ) .
During these old ages of uneffective regulation, the causes of the Revolutionary War emerged. Laws and policies enacted were self-seeking, doing the settlers to smartly defy and seek to avoid British authorization. The settlers moves toward spiritual and commercial self-government were overlooked while England dealt with the Seven old ages war and a domestic political crisis. All these factors highlighted the differences and misreckonings of the British and were the beginnings of the Revolutionary War.
Blum, John M. The National Experience. Fort Worth: Hartcourt Brace College Publishers, 1993.
Higginbotham, Don. The War of American Independence. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1971.
Miller, John C. Origins of the American Revolution. London: Oxford University Press, 1943.
America Online, Research and Learn, History, American History, Revolutionary War Forum, Rev War Archives, Part 1.
Preliminary to Revolution 1763 to 1775. & # 8221 ; The History Place.
