Causes of the Revolutionary War

Essay submitted by Anonymous

The haphazard and disorganized British rule of the American colonies in the decade prior

to the outbreak led to the Revolutionary War. The mismanagement of the colonies, the

taxation policies that violated the colonist right's, the distractions of foreign wars and

politics in England and mercantilist policies that benefited the English to a much greater

degree then the colonists all show the British incompetence in their rule over the

colonies. These policies and distractions were some of the causes of the Revolutionary

War.

The interests of England within the colonies were self-centered. The English were

exploiting were trying to govern the colonies by using the mercantilist system.

Mercantilism is when the state directs all the economic activities within it's

borders(Blum 31). England was not attempting to make any changes that would help

the colonists. They limited the colonies commerce to internal trade only(Miller 9). The

English were exploiting the colonies by demanding that the colonies import more from

England then they exported to the colonies. They were importing raw materials from

the colonies and making them into exportable goods in England. They would then ship

these goods to foreign markets all around the world including the colonies(America

Online ). Throughout the seventeenth century the English saw America as a place to

get materials they didn't have at home and a market to sell finished products at after

the goods had been manufactured. This was detrimental to the colonies because it

prevented them from manufacturing any of the raw materials they produced and made

them more dependent upon England.

In addition to the unrest caused by their mercantilist policies, domestic political issues

distracted them from the activities of the colonies. Throughout the sixteen hundreds,

Great Britain was more involved in solving the Constitutional issue of who was to have

more power in English government, the king or parliament. When this complex issue was

finally resolved in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, England turned its attention back to

the colonies and found that colonists had developed their own identity as American.

There was no central office in England to control what was happening in the colonies.

The executive authority in England was divided among several ministers and

commissioners that did not act quickly or in unison. Also, the Board of Trade, the

branch of government that knew more about the colonies than any other governing

body in England, did not have the power to make decisions or to enforce decrees. Due

to the distractions from the complex constitutional issues and ineffective governmental

organization the colonists felt further separated from England(Blum 51).

The political scene in England was laced with corruption. Officers of the government

sent to the colonies were often bribe-taking politicians that were not smart enough to

hold government positions in England. After Grenville and Townshend the most

incompetent was Lord North, who became Prime Minister in 1770 after the death of

Charles Townshend. "North was the kind of politician George had been looking for ----a

plodding, dogged, industrious man, neither a fool nor a genius, much like the king

himself. For the next twelve years, despite the opposition of abler men, he remained at

the head of the government(Blum 104)." Corruption and incompetence among governing

politicians often made their rule over the colonies ineffective.

In the years leading up to the final decade before the American Revolution, the

relationship between Great Britain and her colonies in North America continued to

deteriorate. Relations began to worsen with the great victory over the French and

Indians in the Seven Years War. Unwelcome British troops had remained in the colonies.

Debts from this war caused the Prime Minister at the time, Lord Grenville, to enforce

Mercantilism in an effort to get the colonists to pay their share of the national debt

that had doubled since 1754(Blum 95).

England passed many Acts that were ill conceived and had long term effects on the

relationship between England and the colonies. The most controversial of these were

direct taxes. The last time Parliament had tried a direct tax was as recent as 1765,

when Lord Grenville enacted the Stamp Act which forced the colonists to pay for

stamps on printed documents, the Stamp Act(Higginbotham 34). The Americans had

felt the taxes of Lord Grenville were "a deliberate aim to disinherit the colonists by

denying them the rights of the English(Blum 96)." The first of these acts were the

Townshend Acts. The Townshend Acts were passed in 1767 and placed new taxes on

paper, paints, tea, lead and, glass. The new taxes would be used to pay for British

officials in the American service. These acts infuriated the colonists because they

believed that Parliament had the right to put taxes on the trade of the colonies but

could not place taxes directly on the colonists to raise revenue(America Online).

The spokesperson of the colonies, John Dickinson, wrote in his "Letters of a

Pennsylvania Farmer," on the issue of direct taxes. He distinguished between taxes that

were imposed to regulate trade and those that were intended solely to raise revenue. If

the tax was used to promote commerce it was justifiable, but if the tax was used only

to gain revenue it was not viewed as a legitimate tax(America Online). The colonists

believed that this new tax was not legitimate and therefore there was strong opposition

to it throughout the colonies.

By 1766 England backed off in their efforts to tax their colonies. Following a year of

opposition from the colonists England revoked the Stamp Act and the first Quartering

Act, but they still passed the Declaratory Act (History Place). In 1766 the Declaratory

Act was passed. It was passed the same day that the Stamp Act was repealed. The

Declaratory Act gave the English government total power to pass laws to govern the

colonies. The British claimed that the colonies had always been and should always be

subject to the British crown(Blum 99)."

In 1773 the Tea Act was passed. The Tea Act not only put a three penny per pound

tax on tea but it also gave the British East India Company a near monopoly because it

allowed the company to sell directly to the colonial agents avoiding any middlemen. In

Boston the colonists held a town meeting to try to get their Tea Agents to resign. The

Tea Agents would not resign and a few months later angered Bostonians dressed as

Indians boarded three tea ships and dumped it all into Boston Harbor(Blum 106).

In 1774 the intolerable Acts were passed. They were passed as a way to reprimand the

Bostonians for the Boston Tea Party. This didn't go over well in Boston because both

the innocent and the guilty were being punished equally(America Online). There were

five acts within the Intolerable Acts. The Massachusetts Government Act, a new

Quartering Act, the Administration of Justice Act the Quebec Act and the closing of the

port of Boston. The Massachusetts Government Act said that the Governor's council

had to be appointed by the King and limited town meetings to one per year. The new

Quartering Act, "authorized the quartering of troops within a town (instead of in the

barracks provided by the colony) whenever their commanding officers thought it

desirable." The Administration of Justice Act stated that, "any government or customs

officer indicted for murder could be tried in England, beyond the control of local juries."

The Quebec Act was not intended to be used as a punishment of the colonists, rather

to extend the boundaries of the province of Quebec to the Ohio River and give the

Roman Catholics in that province religious liberty and the double protection of French

and English law. But the Quebec Act actually angered the colonists because the

colonists living in Quebec were getting rights that the Americans felt were being taken

away from them(Blum 106).

During these years of ineffective rule, the causes of the Revolutionary War emerged.

Laws and policies enacted were self-serving, causing the colonists to vigorously resist

and try to avoid British authority. The colonists moves toward religious and commercial

self-determination were overlooked while England dealt with the Seven years war and a

domestic political crisis. All these factors highlighted the differences and miscalculations

of the British and were the beginnings of the Revolutionary War.

Works Cited

Blum, John M. The National Experience. Fort Worth: Hartcourt Brace College

Publishers, 1993.

Higginbotham, Don. The War of American Independence. New York: The Macmillan

Company, 1971.

Miller, John C. Origins of the American Revolution. London: Oxford University Press,

1943.

America Online, Research and Learn, History, American History, Revolutionary War

Forum, Rev War Archives, Part 1.

Prelude to Revolution 1763 to 1775." The History Place.

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/revolution/rev-prel.htm