The war myth in United States history

by C. H. Hamlin

(5) The popular conception today is that the Stamp Act of 1765 was the principal if not the sole cause of the American Revolution. This fact is greatly exaggerated but it is the easiest to understand, and for that reason has been given the chief place among the many causes of the conflict. The Stamp Act was an act passed by Great Britain requiring the placing on all legal documents of stamps to be sold to the colonies by Great Britain. The usual impression is that this revenue was to go to the mother country and was to be a continual tax upon the colonies for the sole benefit of the crown. This impression is entirely false, however. The revenue from these stamps was to be used to pay one-third of the expense of a colonial army of about 10,000 men to be kept here for the defense of the colonies. Not one penny was to go to Great Britain. Examine any elementary text on United States history. They speak of taxing the colonies, but leave the impression that the money was to go to Great Britain, whereas actually it was all to be spent for the protection of the colonies against possible trouble with the Indians and the French. This colonial army had been proposed before by the colonies. In 1739 colonial leaders under the leadership of the Governor of Pennsylvania had themselves proposed such an army supported by such a tax. But at that time they had felt the danger of the French in Canada. After the defeat of the French in 1763 this danger was no longer so threatening. When this Stamp Act was passed in 1765 its operation was delayed for one year in order to give the colonies an opportunity to agree among themselves upon some other method of raising the money if they objected to the Stamp Act. The act was repealed in 1766 because of the bitter opposition of the colonies, who disliked a tax of any sort. "No Taxation Without Representation" has been greatly over-emphasized. It is only half true, for it implies that taxation with representation would have been accepted.

(6) When the colonies objected to the Stamp Act, calling it an "internal" tax, Great Britain repealed it and in 1767 passed the Townshend Act, which provided for a tariff on imports to the colonies. The imported goods, however, were boycotted and Great Britain was forced to repeal the tariff on imports in 1770. The amount of imported goods in the New England colonies alone dropped from 1,363,000 pounds in 1768 to 504,000 pounds in 1769. After the repeal in 1770 the imports in 1771 were doubled. Thus the boycott was a powerful weapon in the hands of the colonies. With it the colonies were in a position to enforce almost any demand they liked upon Great Britain.

(7) When the Townshend duties were repealed in 1770 a tax was still left on tea, in order to assert the right to levy such a tax. In 1773, Great Britain allowed a tea company known as the East India Company to bring over a large quantity of tea. This company had been given a monopoly of the colonial tea market. When this tea arrived in Boston, on December 16, 1773, a group of men entered the ship and threw overboard the cargo valued at about £15,000. But why was this tea destroyed? Simply because the leaders in this act were tea merchants in Boston, whose trade would have to compete with the newly arrived tea had it been permitted to enter the market. The act was the destruction of private property on the part of the participants. The more moderate element in Boston wanted the tea paid for and the action repudiated.

(8) As a punishment for this performance, Great Britain passed the five punitive or coercive acts of 1774. These five acts were the following: Close the port of Boston until the tea should be paid for. Revise the charter of Massachusetts. Send to England for trial colonial agents accused of violence in the execution of their duties. Station soldiers in Massachusetts to aid in the execution of law. Annex to Quebec the land between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes. These acts were all legal. Great Britain had as much right to demand that Boston pay for the tea destroyed as we have to demand that a foreign power compensate our subjects for property lost there through the mob action of its subjects.

(9) Another cause of the Revolution often overlooked was the general economic depression both in Great Britain and the colonies following the close of the French and Indian War in 1763. This was felt in all industries. Depressions of this sort always create political unrest and a desire for change in government, even though the authorities in power are in no way responsible for the condition. This is especially true in American political history. Presidential elections have been determined by economic conditions having no direct bearing upon the issues involved.

(10) The tenth and last cause we shall give of the American Revolution was the religious cause. There was a movement on foot to locate an Episcopal bishop in the colonies. At that time all the clergy of the Episcopal Church were ordained in England as there was no bishop here. Consequently, all the Episcopal ministers came from abroad and they were often mediocre, for the more efficient among them were kept in England. In 1770 there were about two hundred and fifty Episcopal clergy in the colonies, most of whom were in Virginia. The rumor of locating a bishop here aroused resentment in the other denominations who unanimously opposed the plan. But the most effective religious cause of the Revolution came from still another source. When Great Britain extended Quebec down between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, the Catholic Church was made the established church of these regions, as it was in Quebec. This greatly incensed all Protestants and "no pope no king" became one of the slogans of the Revolution. John Adams considered this religious animosity "as much as any other a cause" of the war for independence. Both these attitudes on the part of the colonies were unwise. An Episcopal bishop was badly needed here to elevate the Episcopal clergy and remove the unworthy ministers. The prejudice against Catholics was simply folly. The Catholic priests in the colonies unanimously supported the Revolution.

If we examine the acts of Great Britain which brought on the Revolution we find that they were all legal. They were all in harmony with the spirit of the age. There was simply a general breakdown of mercantilism. Patrick Henry especially talked about "rights as British subjects," but there were no such rights of which the colonies were being deprived. Had they remained in England they would have enjoyed no privileges of which they were deprived by coming to America. Talk of this sort made effective oratory, but was false when examined. "No Taxation without Representation" is not a legal matter but commonplace political philosophy. We have many other examples of taxation without representation. The great majority of people in England were then disfranchised yet taxed. Women were taxed before they were given the ballot. Many people are now taxed even in those states where they are deprived of the ballot. Phrases, as this regarding taxation, were merely effective generalities without real meaning. The mistake of Great Britain was not in the passage of any illegal or unusual laws for governing the colonies, but it was in trying to rule a group of people against their will. Such a policy invariably invites trouble.

Instead of thirteen units, as we usually regard the thirteen colonies, there were three units differing in economic and political ideals. The coastal plains extending from New Hampshire to Pennsylvania constituted one, which was dominated by commercial interests. The second was the tidewater section from Maryland to Georgia, which was primarily agricultural and was dominated by the planters. The third unit or section was the frontier with extreme ideas about political democracy. The first unit was commercial and interested in trade and shipbuilding. Great mercantile families had grown up there accumulating their wealth largely through smuggling with the West Indies. To them the navigation laws were especially offensive. Their chief desire was to restore the commercial conditions before 1763, yet they bitterly opposed a withdrawal from the British Empire, for they wanted its protection. They dominated Boston, Newport, New York, and Philadelphia. They were Whig in opposing trade restrictions, but Tory in opposing separation. They had no sympathy with the political radicalism of Jefferson, Henry, and such leaders. The second region was the tidewater region of the South. It was dominated by the planters, many of whom were heavily in debt to British creditors. They secured the passage of lax bankruptcy laws detrimental to non-resident creditors. These laws, however, were vetoed by the king as were the laws providing for colonial bills of credit. These planters felt themselves aristocrats. Although they opposed British financial policy, they likewise objected to the democracy of Jefferson. The third section was the frontier. This section had often been discriminated against by the older sections in matters of representation in the colonial assemblies, administration of justice, and taxation. Its inhabitants were zealous for popular rights and had no economic interests to the contrary. In domestic politics they were out of harmony with the commercial and planter sections. Their zeal for imaginary "rights of man" gave great impetus to the movement for independence. Henry and Jefferson were the leaders of this section and their point of view prevailed when the Declaration of Independence was written, the ideas of which were shocking to the other sections.

These three sections reacted differently to the various British Acts. In Georgia, the frontier people were pro-British because they were dependent upon Great Britain for subsidies and protection from the Indians. The frontier people of North Carolina were also Tory because they had a sharp difference with the eastern part of the state. Had the frontier of all the colonies had a similar sharp difference with the coastal plains they would no doubt have been Tory and defeated the Revolution. The frontier of Virginia got possession of the state and furnished such leaders as Henry and Jefferson.

The Revolution was the American phase of an English civil war. It was not so much a conflict between England and the colonies as between different classes of the English people. It was struggle between liberals and conservatives. The liberals were in control in the colonies while the conservatives were in control in England. In both countries there was a large and influential minority group. The thirteen colonies were a part of the British Empire and simply seceded, as the South did in 1860.