Almost every American cuts his teeth on the American Revolution. As children, we are spoon fed stories about the courageous George Washington braving that grueling winter at Valley Forge and Nathan Hale, strong even in the face of death, going to the gallows, crying out, "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country." Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Paul Revere-these are names that are engraved on the minds of every American school child. Yes, you know the names--you know the stories, but do you really know the flavor of the times? Do you know why the Revolution happened? Do you know what philosophy underlies 'the American War for Independence? Do you know how it affected the world? And finally, do you know how it affected America and American literature? In the pages of your textbook, you will find, in a very abbreviated form, the political and economic reasons for the Revolutionary War. The colonists began to feel like a nation--calling themselves Americans and resenting the interference of the British. Colonists wanted to have more control in governing the colonies--including more financial control. They resented being taxed by Great Britain, particularly since they felt they had no voice in British government (taxation without representation). These reasons, however, tell only half of the story. The colonists had many legitimate complaints against the British government, but many colonized territories have had equally legitimate complaints against their parent countries, and yet they have not resorted to revolution. The Age of Reason concept of government predisposed the American colonists to view their complaints against Great Britain as sufficient cause for revolt. The Concept of Government in the Age of Reason In Lesson 4, you learned about the basic beliefs of supporters of the Age of Reason. Remember that they emphasized the power of reason and the capability and perfectibility of man. Now let's look at how these basic beliefs were translated into a concept of government that favored individual rights and government by consensus. In the United States of the twentieth century, we often take our right to vote for granted. We don't realize that the idea of the people electing government officials is a relatively new one--a product, in large part, of the Age of Reason. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the concept of the divine right of kings was almost undisputed in Europe. The divine right of kings is the belief that God had conferred on the king of a country and his house the power and the right to govern. Man had no say in what God ordained. In England, the concept of divine right was. challenged by Oliver Cromwell in the 1600s when King Charles I was deposed and beheaded for his "crimes" against the kingdom. Unfortunately, the Commonwealth Republic that Cromwell established degenerated into a Protectorate that quickly became a dictatorship. Not long after Cromwell's death, the British Parliament reinstituted the monarchy and the divine right of kings. The concept of government by the people was never fully explored or supported by Cromwell's abortive government. Not until the end of the 1600s were the concepts of government by consensus and the natural rights of man fully developed and written down as a coherent and cogent philosophy. In 1690, John Locke, one of the most important philosophers of the Age of Reason, published his great political work, Two Treatises of Government--a pivotal influence on the leaders of the Revolutionary War 80 years later. What did Two Treatises of Government propose? Basically, it proposed that man was by nature good and that natural law had given man liberty and natural rights (the protection of life, the acquisition and security of property, freedom of movement, equal justice before law, and the freedom to speak and think within certain limits). Natural rights, according to Locke, had existed before formal government and were superior to it. Because these natural rights were not self-enforcing, some form of government was needed to protect them. Government, then, was to serve man--man was not to serve government. The idea of government serving only to protect the natural rights of man developed into the social contract theory. In order to protect their rights, men consented to be governed. They struck up a bargain with the state. The English jurist Blackstone defined the social contract theory of government neatly when he said that government was "a voluntary compact between a ruler and the ruled . . . . liable to such limitations as are necessary for the security of the absolute rights of the latter." The entire purpose of the contract was to provide security, and the happy enjoyment of life, liberty, and property for the governed. Implicit in the terms of the social contract were three things: That the primary power of government remain with the people That th
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1 :
Is there a question in your copy/paste essay?
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So what is your question?
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I think you should add that all the power of the monarchy was removed in 1689 and was placed in the hands of the elected Parliament. King George III had virtually no power, the American Colonists were fighting against the policies of an elected Parliament and Prime Minister, NOT (as the US education system teaches) a tyrannical King. Also, England is not the same as Britain, English is not the same as British.
