The colonies had a radical reaction towards England after England taxed, used military action against the colonies, and the American colonies wanted their own government. After the French and Indian War, England ended up in major debt. England decided to tax the colonies to help pay for the debt that they accumulated. England believed in mercantilism, which is the idea that the colonies exist to benefit the mother country. With this idea it justified the taxes that England started to enforce on the colonies.
Since the colonies were part of the British empire, you can classify it as a civil war because part of a nation was succeeding from the empire. The colonists were in support of a different governmental structure. In the Declaration of Independence, it says That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government. The colonists believed that the British government was destructive towards the colonies because it was implementing taxes the colonists believed to be unnecessary with out colonial representation in parliament. Since the colonies were a part of the British empire they believed it was necessary for them to have direct representation in parliament.
The French however were trying to cause a true revolution, a reason to overthrown their king and remove all the inequalities there was. The American Revolution, beginning in 1776, had started with tensions between Britain and its colonist due to the debt that the Britain’s accrued from the war with the French and Indians. Up to this point the colonist had elected their own assemblies and had grown accustomed to running their own affairs. The British began passing legislation, which increased the taxation of American colonies, tightening their control over the colonists. One of the regulations that Parliament passed was the Stamp Act of 1765.
After the British conquering the Seven Years war, America was seized by Great Britain. Being forced to pay taxes and pay off the expenses was just a normal was of life from now on for the Americans. A major action that took place in Britain was the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act was mainly that all documents had to be tattooed with a marking indicating that the tax on the document was paid off. Americans were fuming when the British allowed the East Indian Tea Company to send the merchandise directly to the colonies.
Professor of history Gordon S. Wood views the struggle for a new constitution in 1787-1788 as a social conflict between upper-class Federalists who desired a stronger central government and the “humbler” Anti-Federalists who controlled the state assemblies. He says that the writers and supporters of the Constitution were Federalists and they believed that the Constitution was a fulfillment. Which basically means, that those Federalists didn’t see anything wrong with the Constitution. Antifederalists said the Constitution was a denial of the principles of 1776. They were saying that the Constitution was didn’t honor the liberty nor the self-government.
British stated they fought to preserve the colonies therefore colonies should repay the favor. British started to tax them and Americans believed parliament could not represent them. England implemented the “virtual” representation of colonies by parliament. It became like Howard Zinn says, “the American leadership was less in need of English rule, the English more in need of the colonist’s wealth. (60) Many Acts were implemented to the colonies but the most significant was the Stamp Act.
Disagreements erupted over how the colonies felt that they should be treated and the way they were actually treated by Britain. The British stance was that the colonies were created for the benefit of Britain and the Colonialists wanted more say in their own existence. One main cause of the revolution was that the Colonists wanted more representation within the British government hence “no taxation without representation”, (Hickman n.d.), Britain was unwilling to do this. Another factor was the geographical distance between Britain and the Colonists, this created a sense of independence with in the colonies. Britain therefore tried to tighten control over the Colonists through a series of acts designed to quell any sense of rebellion.
King George didn't allow the colonies to make their own laws, which is an evident sign of him "using" the colonies. King George only cared about the welfare of his own country of Great Britain, not of his oversea colonies. As long as the colonies continued to provide revenue to it's mother country, George was satisfied. In order to do this he employed laws like the Navigation act, which prohibited trade with countries other than Great britain, and the Stamp Act which put taxes on almost everything the colonist bought. These laws, along with many others, upset the colonist to the breaking point in 1776 when they created the Declaration of Independance.
There was some friction in the economic relationship between Britain and its American colonies. After the war, the British were left in a large debt. This caused them to strictly regulate trade and put taxes on commonly used goods, like playing cards and paper for the Stamp Act, as well as sugar importations for the Sugar Act. The colonists protested against these acts, leading them to begin a non-importation movement in which they would stop buying goods from Britain. The British were pressured into
Between the settlement of Jamestown in 1607 and the French and Indian War the colonies have been isolated by the mother country due to the policy of salutary neglect in which the king argued that colonies should take care of their own affairs, as the British were busy fighting foreign wars. In 1763 the foreign wars ended in British victory, now the mother country has the time to focus on the colonies and restored its empire by taxing the colonies. Over 150 years of self - rule, yet loyal to the mother country, the English colonist will be imposed to follow laws and policies that violates the principles of their natural rights, and the principle of no taxation without representation The Proclamation Act of 1763 marked the beginning of the American Revolution as