Holland

= = =American Revolution: Causes, America's Advantages, and Effect =

The Causes of the Revolution:

The 3 most prevalent causes of the American Revolution are imperialism, social tradition, and the Age of Enlightenment.

Imperialism Imperialism is the theory that any given colony (in this context America) exists for the sole purpose of bettering, helping, and enhancing the “mother” country, or country of origin (Britain). This idea  was the most important cause of the American Revolution because it created a political and economic rift between Britain and the American colonists. Imperialism creates a political rift because to the people of England, the colonists in America are not considered people and  have no voting rights or any form of influence on British parliament. As a result of having no voting rights and having no influence on the ﻿ rulers (tyranny, as John Locke would say) the Americans felt they did not have to pay taxes, and so did not have to for a while with English approval. The Americans were also angered by the British returning the Ohio Valley (which the Americans just won a seven year long war to gain) to the French and the Native Americans . T <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">his brings up the issue of the Americans having no representation or opinion on the British parliment <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">and their decisions <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">The major economic rift between America and Britain stems from Britain’s economic crisis. Britain was severely in debt <span style="color: #808080; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">from war <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">and they turned to America for tax money. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">At this time the Americans were not paying taxes, <span style="color: #808080; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">so <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> after the British instilled taxes <span style="color: #808080; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">( <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">beginning with the stamp act <span style="color: #808080; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">) <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> Americans were irritated to the point of some radicals tarring and feathering the tax collectors, leading to the idea of “no taxation without representation”. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The entire declaration of Independence was based around the lack of representation. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The idea of “No taxation without representation.” was a central rallying point in the Declaration of Independence, as was the idea of no representation at all, specifically around the laws imposed on the colonies. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">These ideas led to anger and talk of revolution. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Sons of Liberty was formed by and for the angry colonists to share ideas and to discuss matters about the rebellion against Britain, their mother country.

<span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Social Tradition

<span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The social tradition in America was one of general dislike for Britain, as all of the colonists were disaffected British people. The colonists were mostly, Irish, Scottish, Puritan, or simply people that did not want to live in Britain. <span style="color: #808080; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Stamp Act further angered the colonists, as now they were taxed to help pay for the wars they had fought (in vain, as now the Ohio valley was once again the Natives and French). <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Proclamation Act of 1763 returned the Ohio Valley to the Natives and the French, the same Ohio Valley that was fought over in the Seven Years war. By giving the Ohio Valley away to the French and the Natives, the British alienated the colonists even more. This also brings about the lack of representation as seen in imperialism. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Through all of the colonists being disaffected British, the absence of taxation, and the return of the Ohio Valley to the Natives and the French, the British broke the colonial social tradition and this resulted in anger and talk of revolution. Tarring and Feathering, what the Americans did to the tax collectors

<span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Enlightenment

<span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">The Enlightenment was a significant cause of the American Revolution because it gave the colonists the ideas and theories necessary to the revolution. The two most important of these ideas were Montesquieu’s social contract and John Locke’s idea of liberty <span style="color: #808080; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">with <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">a government’s responsibility to its people. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The American colonists agreed with Montesquieu’s social contract because it gave everyone (specifically the government) responsibility to do operate effectively, which the Americans thought the British were not doing. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">This idea is further explored in John Locke’s idea of tyranny and government <span style="color: #808080; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">al <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">responsibility, namely that the British imposed taxes on the Americans without giving them representation in government. According to Locke’s idea, this is considered tyranny and should be rebelled against. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Another concept of Locke’s was the idea of liberty, life, and property, Locke believed that these were all fundamental rights to all people. These ideas were a large part of informing the Americans of some of the rights that they did not have, despite the fact that the social contract applies to all people, colonial or European.

<span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">These three reasons, imperialism, social tradition, and The Enlightenment, are the three most important causes of the American Revolution, in that order. <span style="color: #808080; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">These ideas started the <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">anger and <span style="color: #808080; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">interest in <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">the Americans to the supposed injustice, and also alerted the colonists that these injustices must be rebelled against.

American Advantages:

<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Americans ﻿had many advantages to why they had won the war for their freedom and liberty. The battle was fought on their soil so they saved time on <span style="color: #808080; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">transferring <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> information throughout the troops and shipping of resources. It may seem that the British will win the war since they went up against ameteurs but the Americans sneakiily used their advantages of being a new nation to their advantage which the British never used. The Americans used heavy propaganda to capture hearts and mind of its people ever since the beginning up until now and it will do so into the future.

<span style="color: #808080; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">One of the other main reasons that the Colonists won the war in North America is because they had help from France and Spain back in Europe. The Battle of Saratoga is a turning point <span style="color: #ff6600; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">in the war <span style="color: #808080; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">. It provided the colonists the chance to prove that they were able to win a battle against the English, allowing them to convince France and Spain to join the war on their side. Now, England not only had to fight in North America, but in Europe too – and of course, England itself was more important than the colonies in America. The attention focused on the colonists was then lesse <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">﻿ <span style="color: #808080; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">ned, and with the French now on their side, it provided them with arms, naval force, and artillery.

<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;">One of the main reasons why the Americans won the Revolution was because they had used Guerrilla warfare tactics. <span style="color: #808080; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;">Because of the unorganized ways of the Americans, they could not use <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;">the battle plans and formation the British, <span style="color: #808080; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;">and <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;"> so they resorted to the unpolished way of fighting which led to their victory.A few of the most influential tactics that American army used to win the war were shooting down the British general first, <span style="color: #808080; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;">to keep <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;">hidden and surprise attack the opposing army, arming the civilians whom the opposing army trusted, and using the 2 hit and run tactics.

<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The main reason why the American army aimed for the British general was beacause everything that a ordinary foot-soldier does comes from the command of the top general and without the general the troop will fall out of formation and become an easy target. It took the British longer to choose an approriate general candidate since England was far away and it took time for the information of a fallen general to arrive and it took even longer to choose the right noble with the right age and experience in war to ship over to the Americas.

<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The main tactics that the American army used was surprise attack. They have demonstrated that being hidden and suprising the opposing army could bring quicker and much easier earned victories. They armed the cilvilians with weapons to surprise attack the opposing army and they kept their troops hidden in the forrest so they can snipe from a safe distance without being realized that they were there.

<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Americans could never have won without the Guerilla tactics.

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<span style="color: #ff6600; line-height: 0px; margin: 0px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding: 0px;"> The American Revolution was a war that the British should have and could have won with ease. The colonists prevailed though, and one of the main reasons was England's lack of funds. England ruled the colonies from across the Atlantic ocean; a great distane between them. In war, whenever the British wanted to ship over weapons, artillery, or new troops, their ships would have to travel approximately 4000 kilometres, and by the end of their journey, many of the soldiers would be diseased and dying. The once powerful British navy was now deteriorating and the ships were in poor condition, even further affe﻿cting the state of it's cargo. Many soldiers were lost both on the trips over, and in the battles in North America (guerrilla warfare tactics gave for many deaths in the English army), giving more need to replace them and make expensive trips along the supply lines. The soldiers that did make it well enough to fight did not have the numbers to properly participate in a two-front war against France and Spain. The French and Spanish gave the colonists power over the British, because they had to avoid the two powers as they could not enter war with them as well. The British also tried to speed up war before the colonists could convince either nations to help them. These efforts were in vain, because both France and Spain had entered the war by 1778, tipping the scale for the Americans.

The Effects of the Revolution:



During the American Revolution, the colonists had tried to enlist the people living in Quebec to help them fight for their cause. However, the French did not want to join the revolution because at that time, they had just been allowed adequate freedom by the English - they were allowed to have their own laws, their own religion - and they had no reason to want to revolt against England. The Loyalists in the 13 colonies would move to Upper Canada (present southern Ontario) to remain faithful to England. This also shows why Canada is "more" British than America, not only because Canada was not independent, but also because many Brits moved to Canada following the American Revolution.

The American Revolution also resulted in the Jay Treaty, a treaty that allowed the Native Americans, French, British and the Americans to trade freely between each other. It gave the Native Americans more rights, such as the rights to immigrate, work and study in America, and helped increase trade while avoiding war (until 1812). <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">﻿This was a large improvement from the rights that the natives previously had, it started Canada and America on a more tolerant society.

Today, America is the 3rd most populated country in the world. They are known as a world super power and are not only confined to land in North America. They have soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and have armies based all over the world. America is constantly building upon itself and expanding to be the best. This idea that is key to the United States has sprouted over 200 years ago, in the American Revolution. They fought for freedom (how often do we hear that America's soldiers are 'fighting for freedom' in Afghanistan?) and independence. The Americans search for powerful allies, that would be helpful in war (NATO in Afghanistan) and take their military very seriously. The American Revolution started traditions that are still strong in modern day United States. Not only did it start the tradition of American pride and military vigilance, but it provided a proper governmental system to guide these traditions along through hundreds of years to today.

The American revolutionary wars showed separation from any British rule in America, and a new government was required to follow suit. During the wars, the second constitutional congress was called and the need for a document to outline the guidelines of the the governing system in war was decided upon A committee was appointed to draft such a document, and it became the first constitution of America, describing a government separate from the one used when England was in control. Eventually, the people of America became dissatisfied with this Constitution, so the constitutional convention was called (originally, to fix kinks of the old government system and touch up articles of confederation). The end product of this constitutional convention was the United States Constitution. This new constitution was the supreme law of all Americans, and the basis of America's federal system today. The end of the American revolution seriously affected America because it provided the world with the superpower we have today (they would not have been able to remain powerful without a self-sufficient government). The remaining United States Constitution today is still used. It is also a guiding light for emerging nations, regarding rights and freedoms.

Without the revolution in America, the world would be missing this guiding light and inspiration. Many governmental systems would be lost without a constitution to follow. The American Revolution supplied not only America, but many other countries, with a form of government and set of laws to support today's ever changing society.

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