Economic Reasons for American Independence
Economic Reasons for American Independence Eleven years before America had declared its independence there was 1,450,000 white and 400,000 Negro subjects of the crown. ... To the present day American this is quite difficult to believe. ... Many historians have pondered upon the events and forces that drove the American people to rebellion against their mother country. ... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution." Adams, in a sense, argued that even before the first shot of war, there had existed a collective outlook called the American mind, whose chief characteristics were self-reliance, patriotism, practicality, and the love of liberty, with liberty defined as freedom from alien dictation. It was the dictation of shortsighted ministers of an equally shortsighted king that pushed the American mind to assert itself boldly for the first time. ... In his speech on conciliation with the colonies, Burke singles out "six capital sources" to account for the American "love of freedom," and strong sense of liberty. ... He revealed the unique nature of the American Republic: "The great advantage of the Americans is that they have arrived at a state of democracy without having to endure a democratic revolution" or to stare the thesis in terms of 1776, the Americans already enjoyed the liberty they were fighting for. The first ingredient of American Liberty was the peoples heritage from England. ... The American was a special brand of Englishman: he was more English than the English. ... The colonists were not uniform in their views on their place in the imperial structure, ranging from the arrogant independence asserted by Massachusetts to the abject dependence argued by the Troy apologists. ... If Parliament had not decided to intrude its authority into colonial affairs, the imperial views of the English and the self-governing claims of the American colonists might have coexisted for decades without breaking violently. ... Three thousand miles of ocean lay in between England and the American colonies. ... "American democracy is fundamentally the outcome of the experiences of the American people in the dealing with the west." The significance of the frontier in early American history. ... The frontier also produced some of the raw materials of American democracy - self reliance, social fluidity, simplicity, equality, dislike of privilege, optimism, and devotion to liberty. The economic conditions were also a cause in the advance of liberty, the wages in the colonies were generally higher and the working conditions were better than in England.