The American Revolution

For the most part, the American colonists had come to the "New World" seeking political, religious and economic liberty. Consequently, when King George III and the British parliament began encroaching on these new-found freedoms, the colonists were greatly alarmed. There was no single act or event which led the colonists to commence a war against the British Crown. Rather, there was a litany of abuses and insults which, taken together, convinced the colonists that revolution was their only acceptable course of action.

The colonists were perhaps the most likely of people in the history of the world to commence a revolution against a tyrannical government. Generally well-read, the colonists had "devoured" the writings of 17th Century English Civil War writers and their successors, such as Milton, Neville, Trenchard and Gordon. From these authors, the colonists acquired a powerful sense of moral indignation toward political corruption of any kind.1 Moreover, while recognizing that government is necessary to save man from the "state of nature" depicted by Hobbes and Locke, they also believed that their liberty rested on their ability to maintain superiority, i.e. physical military power, over their government. As the British government continually pressed itself and its authority on the colonists, they concluded that England's dominion over the colonies was essentially the power to destroy their liberty.2 Together, these beliefs laid the philosophical foundations for the Revolution.

1. Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1967), 47.
2. Ibid., 55-66.