War of Independence There Are Thesis

...[p. 41] Reasons may be given, why an Act ought to be repeal'd, and yet obedience must be yielded to it till that repeal takes place.

The intent of most colonists, was to create change through the proper channels, as has been described by the Philadelphia congress, as having occurred over the ten years bridging the two previous declarations.

A consummate expert on the War of Independence, writing in the early twentieth century, Van Tyne, stresses that the development of the ideal of democratic representation, was seeded in the ideals of Puritan politics which were spurned by the exposure of ministers to the ideas of John Locke and John Milton, who demonstratively effected the ideas of the American colonists as well as many others all over the colonial world. The idea of a fierce fight against tyranny and unchecked despotism was an essential standard of the day and at some point, amongst generations of separation from the Crown even loyalists, of which there were many began to wonder why subjects of the Crown in England were being represented more fairly than subjects of the Crown in the colonies. So, again according to Van Tyne the failure of the crown to adopt reasonable and supported enforcement and non-military infrastructure was a revolution waiting to happen.

But above all, the political writings of John Locke furnished Americans, whether Carolinians or New Englanders, with an arsenal of arguments against the arbitrary rule of both King and Parliament. If any one man can be said to have dominated the political philosophy of the American Revolution, it is John Locke. American political thinking was largely an exegesis upon Locke: and patriots quoted him with as much reverence as Communists quote Marx today. Indeed, it is not too much to say that during the era of the American Revolution, the 'party line' was John Locke."

Colonial thinking, though still largely loyalist broke down as a result of the inability of the Crown to develop and enforce policies that fed their desire to build a new land in the colonies, with a moderate to lax external sense of control. England on the other hand had a different vision of the colonial purpose, which was centered around support of the Crown not through the development of property holding or goods production but through the acquisition of raw materials, to help build English interests, an ideal that had outgrown the colonies after generations of relative self-control.

Although these acts were only a part of English mercantilism, they were its most important expression and formed the basis of British colonial policy long after the American Revolution had demonstrated their inadequacy. By mercantilist theory, the function of colonies was to produce raw materials for the use of the mother country, to consume its manufactures and to foster its shipping; and the purpose of the Laws of Trade and Navigation was to ensure that the English colonies fulfilled these ends. This implied, as mercantilists readily admitted, that the colonies were to remain dependent agricultural regions..."

The development of the colonies, in their own right as producers of finished goods, industrialists, land holders and tradesmen, was an essential element of the development of the autonomy that made colonists unhappy when the "mother country" attempted to belatedly enforce the antiquated Laws of Trade and Navigation. The laws and there enforcement to some degree forced the colonists to face the fact that England had no real interest in independent prosperity, which was an insightful aspect of the colonial character. This failure by the crown to recognize the independent development of the region and curtail or alter the laws to meet the changing needs of the colonial interest and independence was the ultimate source of the revolutionary cause. Had England responded to the American tumult with swift and decisive changes to policy history may have been written by a different victor.

Bibliography

Bancroft, Hubert H.. American war for Independence: Early Causes. 2002-2003. http://www.publicbookshelf.com/public_html/The_Great_Republic_By_the_Master_Historians_Vol_II/americanw_bb.html.

Leach, Douglas Edward. Roots of Conflict: British Armed Forces and Colonial Americans, 1677-1763. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1986.

Miller, John C. Origins of the American Revolution. Boston: Little, Brown, 1943.

Morison, S.E., ed. Sources and Documents Illustrating the American Revolution, 1764-1788, and the Formation of the Federal Constitution. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923.

Rickard, John., American War of Independence (1775-1782), 25 May 2003. http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_american_independence.html

Van Tyne, Claude H. The Causes of the War of Independence. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 1923.

Douglas Edward Leach, Roots of Conflict: British Armed Forces and Colonial Americans, 1677-1763 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 10.

2. Hubert H. Bancroft. American war for Independence: Early Causes. 2002- 2003. http://www.publicbookshelf.com/public_html/The_Great_Republic_By_the_Master_Historians_Vol_II/americanw_bb.html.

Douglas Edward Leach, Roots of Conflict: British Armed Forces and Colonial Americans, 1677-1763 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 10.

Hubert H. Bancroft. American war for Independence: Early Causes. 2002- 2003. http://www.publicbookshelf.com/public_html/The_Great_Republic_By_the_Master_Historians_Vol_II/americanw_bb.html.

Rickard, John American War of Independence (1775-1782), 25 May 2003. http://www.rickard.karoo.net/articles/wars_american_independence.html#causes.

S.E. Morison, ed., Sources and Documents Illustrating the American Revolution, 1764-1788, and the Formation of the Federal Constitution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923), 141.

S.E. Morison, ed., Sources and Documents Illustrating the American Revolution, 1764-1788, and the Formation of the Federal Constitution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923), 142,.

S.E. Morison, ed., Sources and Documents Illustrating the American Revolution, 1764-1788, and the Formation of the Federal Constitution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923), 4.

S.E. Morison, ed., Sources and Documents Illustrating the American Revolution, 1764-1788, and the Formation of the Federal Constitution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923), 6.

Claude H. Van Tyne.. The Causes of the War of Independence. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing 1923) 2.

John C. Miller, Origins of the American Revolution (Boston: Little, Brown, 1943), 170.

Rickard, John American War of Independence (1775-1782), 25 May 2003. http://www.rickard.karoo.net/articles/wars_american_independence.html#causes.

John C. Miller, Origins of the American Revolution (Boston: Little, Brown, 1943), 4.