American Revolution

• The American Revolutionary War (1775-83) was a war fought between Great Britain and the 13 British colonies in North America. It was a war against the deteriorating situations of the American colonists under the British rule.
• The factors behind the American Revolution could be traced back to the year 1763. During this the British leaders began to strengthen their imperial desires. This resulted in disruption of once harmonious relations between Britain and its North American colonies. Britain’s land policy prohibiting settlement in the West irritated colonists. The most serious problem was the need for money to support the empire. This led them to pursue harsh taxation policies. Attempts through the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and the Townshend Acts to raise money rather than control trade met with growing resistance in the colonies.
• Tensions increased further after Parliament passed the Coercive Acts and the First Continental Congress took the first steps toward independence from Britain. Before the colonies gained independence, they had to fight a long and bitter war. After a long timeline of political, social and militia fighting, America won its independence in late 18th century, forming the United States of America. But the road ahead was also not simple.
• Further clashes erupted between the Northern and the Southern states of the United States, on the question of slavery and sovereignty of the states. This led to a civil war (1861-65), outcome of which was abolition of slavery and reunification of the United States of America.
• To sum up, it could be said that the revolution had a strong impact on the world. It influenced the liberal thought flow across the globe and gave impetus to the further struggles against repression.

American Revolution

• The American Revolution (1775-83) was also known as the United States War of Independence or American Revolutionary War. This watershed event was an outcome of the repressive and tyrannous policies (like Mercantilism, excessive taxation, etc.) of Britain in its North American colonies mainly after second half of 18th century.
• Thirteen of Great Britain’s colonies (along the eastern seaboard of North America) rebelled in the American Revolutionary War, primarily over representation, local laws and tax issues. These Thirteen colonies (New Hampshire, Massachusetts , Connecticut , Rhode Island, New York , New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland , Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia) came together to establish the United States of America, which was recognized internationally with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on September 03, 1783.

Prelude

• European nations (French, Spanish, Dutch and Russians) came to the Americas to increase their wealth and broaden their influence over the world affairs. The Spanish were among the first Europeans to explore the New World and the first to settle in what is now the United States.

Britain in 16th and 17th Century

• The Sixteenth-century England was a tumultuous place. They could make more money from selling wool than from selling food. Many of the nation’s landowners were converting farmers’ fields into pastures for sheep. This led to a food shortage. At the same time, many agricultural workers lost their jobs .
• Great Britain wanted to establish colonies in the Americas in order to grow the British Empire and to counter the Spanish. The English hoped to find wealth, create new jobs, and establish trade ports along the coast of the Americas.
• The 16th century was also the age of Mercantilism. Mercantilism or Mercantile Capitalism was an extremely competitive economic philosophy that pushed European nations to acquire as many colonies as they could. As a result, for the most part, the English colonies in North America were business ventures. They provided an outlet for England’s surplus population and (in some cases) more religious freedom than England did, but their primary purpose was to make money for their sponsors.

Establishment of British Colonialism in America

• In 1607, the Virginia Company of London, an English trading company, made the first permanent English settlement in North America at Jamestown, Virginia. The Company operated under a royal charter, granted by King James I, which assured the original settlers that they would have all liberties, franchises and immunities as if they had been ‘abiding and born within England’. As the time passed more and more places were colonized.
• These colonies were often divided up into three regions including the New England Colonies (Connecticut, Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Rhode Island), the Middle Colonies (Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania), and the Southern Colonies (Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia).

Relation between Britain and its American Colonies before 1760s

• By 1760, England and Scotland had united into the Kingdom of Great Britain. Their settlements in North America had grown to thirteen thriving colonies.
• These colonies shared strong cultural, economic, and political ties to the mother country. Each colony enjoyed a certain amount of autonomy (i.e., Self -Governance).

Seven Years Wars (1756-63)

• While the British mercantilism created an environment for resentment among the White Americans, the Seven Years Wars created conditions which became the immediate trigger for the American Revolution.
• The Seven Years Wars (1756-63) were the series of wars going on between Great Britain and its allies against France and its allies. It was a global conflict known in America as the French and Indian War.
• In the early 1750s, French expansion into the Ohio River valley repeatedly brought France into armed conflict with the British colonies. In 1756, British suffered a series of defeats against the French and their broad network of Native American alliances.
• However, in 1757, British Prime Minister William Pitt, in the urge of imperial expansion (feasible after victory against the French), borrowed heavily to fund an expanded war effort. Pitt financed Prussia’s struggle against France and her allies in Europe and reimbursed the colonies for the raising of armies in North America.
• By 1760, the French had been expelled from Canada, and by 1763 all of France ’s allies in Europe had either made a separate peace with Prussia or had been defeated. In addition, Spanish attempts to ‘aid France in the Americas had failed, and France also suffered defeats against British forces in India. France lost to Great Britain most of its North American colonial possessions, known as New France. This included Canada and all of its land east of the Mississippi River, including the Ohio Valley, to Great Britain.

Aftermath of the Seven Years Wars

• Geo-Political and Financial Troubles:
  • At the end of the war, Great Britain faced a number of serious geo-political and financial problems. The first problem was the need to govern and protect vast new areas won during the long conflict.
  • The British now had responsibility for Canada and the areas east of the Mississippi River. These former French colonies included thousands of Indians and many French-speaking Catholics who had no desire to become subjects of the British crown or to live under English common law. Great Britain also had control over East and West Florida which was taken over by Spain, an ally of France, after the war .
  • Financing the administration of these new areas was also a critical problem facing the British government at the end of the war.
• Britain’s Attitudinal Change for its American Colonies:
  • The war’s end also marked a change of attitudes among people in Great Britain and in its American colonies. During the war, the British government was unable to persuade the colonial legislatures to satisfactorily contribute to the expenses of the war. With the French defeat, the British government ignored the need to accommodate the concerns of the colonial legislatures regarding monetary issues.
  • At the same time, the removal of the French threat in North America gave the American colonists a new sense of self-confidence. Many colonists questioned why the British government thought it needed to leave an army in North America to protect its colonies from Indian uprisings.
• Tussle with the Indians Living in ‘New France’:
  • After France and her Indian allies were defeated, British settlers, in order to look for good farm land, started moving towards the other side of the Appalachian Mountain in large numbers. The native Indian tribes viewed these settlers, who wanted to claim the land, differently than the French fur traders with whom they had lived for many years.
  • The British, like the French, had enjoyed the support of a number of Indian tribes and, during the war, the chiefs of these tribes had received generous gifts from the British government. Gift giving was considered by the British and the French to be an integral part of maintaining good relations with the tribes. As military operations in North America successfully concluded, General Amherst, believing that he no longer needed their support, decided to discontinue this gift – giving practice to Indian chiefs. He also made the decision to cut back on trading gunpowder to the Indians. The Indians felt that the British were treating them as a conquered people and not as former allies.
  • In May 1763, Pontiac, an Ottawa leader, led a number of Indian tribes in the area of the Great Lakes in an uprising against British forces and settlers along the frontier. While a few British forts on the frontier held out, over eight were taken. Hundreds of British soldiers were killed, and the settlers who survived the attacks fled from their farms on the frontier to the safe areas in the east. Commonly known as Pontiac ’s Rebellion, the conflict lasted until 1764. Though peace treaties ended the fighting, the possibility of further conflicts with the Indians strongly affected Britain’s decision to leave a standing army in America after the Seven Years War .

Causes of Revolt Against British

• While no one event could be pointed to as the actual cause of the revolution, the war began as a disagreement over the way in which Great Britain treated the colonies versus the way the colonies felt they should be treated.
• The British wanted to squeeze out as much money as possible out of its Thirteen North American Colonies. The British enacted various laws which were like a ‘one-way street’ i.e., the Acts of Parliament benefited only the British but not the colonies.
• The Americans were neither given the same rights as the British people, nor did they have any representation in the British Parliament to present their points of view. Americans felt they deserved all the rights of Englishmen. The British, on the other hand, felt that the colonies were created to be used in the way that best suited the crown and parliament. This conflict is embodied in one of the rallying cries of the American Revolution: ‘No Taxation Without Representation’. The colonists protested and their protests led them to the American Road to Revolution and were responsible for some of the causes of the American Revolutionary War.
• The specific events instigating the war Proclamation of 1763, Intolerable acts, Stamp acts, etc. , would be discussed in detail later on.
• The general causes that engendered the Revolutionary war could be summed up under the following heads:
  • Vexatious Taxation without Parliamentary Representation:
    • No representation of the American colonists in the British Parliament, coupled with the burdensome taxation of the British ( like that on Molasses, Paper, Sugar and Tea) urged the colonists to raise their voices, against the British, under the banner of ‘No Taxation nwithout Representation’.
  • No Free Trade for Colonies:
    • The Americans were prevented from developing their indigenous industry. The colonies were barred by British law from using non-British ship for trade. The export of certain raw material goods from American colonies could only be made to Britain.
    • Further, a very heavy duty was levied on import of non- British goods into America. Even if some trade ships were allowed to go to somewhere else they were mandated to take their route via England (policy of Mercantile Capitalism or Mercantilism).
  • Unlimited Search and Seizure:
    • The British officers in the colonies were endowed with the ‘Writs of Assistance’ to help discourage smuggling. These writs gave officers the power to search any residence or building without warning or supervision. This widely abused policy would ultimately inspire the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
  • Direct Control of Criminal Justice System:
    • As distrust of colonial authorities grew over a period of decades, the British government began to deny colonists jury trials and placed both verdicts and punishments in the hands of judges.
    • Later on, the British government also took measures to ensure that those judges would be selected, paid and supervised by British, not colonial authorities.
  • Destruction of Local Self-government(s):
    • There were several locally elected governments in the American colonies. The British ensured that these locally elected governments by the colonists didn’t gain autonomy. Attempts were made to thwart the autonomy even in those arenas which had no direct bearing on the colonial government.
  • Extraneous Executive Powers to the British Parliament over the Colonies:
    • The British Parliament came up with a draconian tool in its hand called ‘Bills of Attainder’. Using this Parliament could declare any person (by law or fiat ) to be “tainted” imprisoning or even executing him and confiscating all of his property without trial.
  • Immunity and Impunity to the Corrupt and Cruel British Officers:
    • Since its colonial inception Britain followed an unjust and covert policy of fig leafing their corrupt and abusive officials as against their colonial subjects. But several instances revealed that this prejudiced policy of the British, one among them was the Boston Massacre trial. Eight British soldiers stood accused, but they were defended by the future president John Adams who won acquittal for six of them and the equivalent of a dishonorable discharge for the other two. British leaders were concerned to pass a law mandating that any British officers accused of an offense be tried in England, where witnesses would be hard to find, rather than in the colonies.
  • Forced Quartering of Soldiers:
    • As per the colonial policy of the British, hosting facilities for the British soldiers were to be looked after by the colonies, but the British government mandated a new requirement as colonial dissent began to grow. Individual colonists would be required to let British soldiers live in their private homes. This was as traumatic as it was inconvenient in the wake of the Boston Massacre, and given the particular sense of conflict in the pre-Revolutionary years. The Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was written to prohibit the forced quartering of soldiers. Closing up of the Boston Port, 1773.

Role of Enlightenment Thinkers

• Be it French Revolution or American Revolution, direct or indirect influences of the Enlightenment and its thinkers’ ideals could easily be sensed. Enlightenment thinkers questioned traditional authority and embraced the notion that humanity could be improved through rational change.
• The roots of Enlightenment could easily be traced in many of the ideas of the American Revolution. It was a movement that focused mostly on freedom of speech, equality, freedom of press, and religious tolerance. Concepts such as freedom from oppression, natural rights, and new ways of thinking about governmental structure were derived directly from the Enlightenment philosophers such as Locke and laid the foundations for both colonial and modern America.
• All aspects of life, even religion, were affected by the Enlightenment and many key figures from American history such as Thomas Jefferson were greatly influenced by the movement . The early Americans wished to have their own government that was based on Enlightenment principles.
• Both during and after the American Revolution many of the core ideals of the Enlightenment were the basis for monumental tracts such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

John Locke

• John Locke gave the idea of ‘Enlightened Self-Interest’ , according to which man is rational enough to think about the larger good. Although he agreed with Hobbes regarding the self-interested nature of humans, he was much more optimistic about man’s ability to use reason to avoid tyranny.
• According to Locke, a ruler gains authority through the consent of the governed. In any society, people are endowed with certain natural rights to life, liberty, and property. The duty of that government is to protect the natural rights of the people.
• If the government fails to protect these rights, its citizens would have the right to overthrow that government. This idea deeply influenced Thomas Jefferson as he drafted the ‘Declaration of Independence’.
• In his enormously renowned political theory, Locke presented the idea of governmental checks and balances, which became a foundation for the U.S. Constitution .

Thomas Paine

• In January 1776 , Thomas Paine published Common Sense, the first pamphlet to advocate American independence. Here he made a persuasive and passionate argument to the colonists that the cause of independence was just and urgent. It outlined ideas like: superiority of republican government over a monarchical system, equality of rights among all citizens, etc . Central to his ideas was the message that to understand the nature of politics, all it takes is just common sense.
• As the author of these influential pamphlets, he aimed to inspire the colonists to declare independence from Britain. He had a greater impact on the common people, who, after reading his works, became much more supportive of the Revolutionary cause.

Benjamin Franklin

• Benjamin Franklin traveled frequently between the American colonies and Europe during the Enlightenment and facilitated an exchange of ideas between them. Franklin exerted profound influence on the formation the new government of the United states.
• During the American Revolution, he served in the Second Continental Congress and helped draft the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He also negotiated the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War (1775- 83). In 1787, in his final significant act of public service, he was a delegate to the convention that produced the U. S. Constitution.

Montesquieu

• Philosophers like Voltaire Montesquieu, and Rousseau were optimistic about democracy. Their ideas encouraged the questioning of absolute monarchs, like the Bourbon family that ruled France.
• In one of his most influential books, The Spirit of Laws’, Montesquieu expanded John Locke’s political study. He incorporated the ideas of division of state and separation of powers.

Major Events

• Starting as a political upheaval of the thirteen colonies against the British Empire, the American Revolution led to the creation of the United States as an independent state. Numerous important landmarks were part of the whole tenure of the American Revolution.
• They could be elaborated as under:

Proclamation of 1763

• The Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III in October 1763, following Great Britain’s acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the Seven Years War. This Proclamation forbade all settlements past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. It also required settlers who had moved west of the Appalachians to return to the eastern side of the mountains. It rendered worthless land grants given by the British government to Americans who fought for the crown against France.
• Great Britain recognized that one of the factors contributing to Pontiac’s Rebellion had been the unchecked movement of land-hungry settlers into the area west of the Appalachian Mountains. Britain also realized that a plan was needed to develop the large areas won during the war in an orderly way.
• While the division line established by the proclamation was never meant to be permanent, the decree angered the colonists.
• The Proclamation of 1763 also troubled many of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the colonies, because many of these men had invested heavily in speculative land companies. These companies hoped to make money by obtaining title to large tracts of western land from the British government and reselling the land to settlers as they moved across the Appalachian Mountains . While new treaties between the Indians and British agents opened up large tracts for development fairly quickly after the war , the land companies did not recover. The wealthy men who had invested in these companies suffered significant financial losses.

Stamp Act, 1765

• The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament in 1765. It was the first direct tax imposed on the British colonies in North America.
• In search of more money to pay the costs of maintaining an army in North America, the then Prime Minister George Grenville proposed a Stamp Act for the colonies. The new tax required all legal documents including commercial contracts, newspapers, wills, marriage licenses, diplomas , pamphlets, and playing cards in the American colonies to carry a tax stamp.
• The aim of the tax was to help finance for the British troops in the colonies. But the British also sought to reduce their debt which increased dramatically after the Seven Years Wars.
• The colonists were outraged because they had no say in the taxes that were to be imposed on them and how the raised money was to be spent .
• Under the severe violence and intense pressure, Britain repealed the Act in 1766. The news of its repeal gave the American colonists confidence that the British government understood and respected their position regarding taxes.

Rockingham Declaration and Townshend Duties, 1767

• As imposition of new taxes irked the people in American colonies, people refused to pay taxes, hurting British trade. Hence, the Rockingham declaration stated that the British Parliament’s authority was same in America as in Britain and asserted Parliament’s authority to pass laws that were binding on the American colonies.
  • Also, the Townshend Acts were introduced by the British Parliament. These Acts were a number of British acts passed since 1767. The purpose of the Townshend Acts was:
    • To increase revenue in the colonies in order to pay the salaries of governors and judges. This was to ensure their loyalty to Great Britain .
    • To create a more effective means of enforcing compliance with trade regulations.
    • To punish the province of New York for failing to comply with the Quartering Act of 1765 .
    • To establish the precedent that the British Parliament has the right to tax the colonies.
• In July 1766, new duties were proposed, they are: the Revenue Act, 1767, the Indemnity Act, 1767, the Commissioners of Customs Act, 1767, the Vice Admiralty Court Act, 1768, and the New York Restraining Act, 1767.
• The colonies, in North America, immediately protested the Townshend duties. As already used in the move against the Stamp Act, the colonies again started non- importation of British goods as an effective tool of protest. This resistance prompted the occupation of Boston by British troops in 1768, which eventually resulted in the Boston Massacre of 1770.
• But, lastly the colonists again succeeded in their petitions. In 1770, the Parliament repealed all of the Townshend duties except The Tea Tax which was maintained to demonstrate Parliament ’ s supremacy over the colonies.

Tea Act of 1773

• In 1770, the British Parliament repealed most of the Townshend duties. The American merchants began trading again with the British merchants .
• The British government passed the Tea Act in May 1773 so as to help the financial conditions of the ailing East India Company (faced economic collapse after the Seven Years War). The act eliminated the customs duty on company’s tea and permitted its direct export to America. Dropping the customs duty would allow the East India Company to sell its tea for a cost less than smuggled Dutch tea. Some of the colonists saw the act as a cunning way to get the Americans to pay the hated Townshend duty on tea by undercutting the price of smuggled Dutch tea.

Boston Tea Party, 1773

• The Boston Tea Party was an iconic event of the American history. In this incident entire shipment of tea belonging to the British East India Company were thrown into Boston Harbor by American patriots disguised as Native Indians. It was a political protest against both: a tax on tea (taxation without representation) and the perceived monopoly of the East India Company.
• Angry mobs and the Sons of Liberty forced ships carrying company’s tea to return to England without unloading. In Massachusetts, however, the Royal Governor was determined to let the ships deposit their cargoes and appropriate duties to be honored. On the night of December 16, 1773, Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty boarded these ships in the Boston harbor and threw the chests of tea overboard.
• The British government reacted harshly to the incident of Boston Tea Party. The British government decided to punish Boston and the people of Massachusetts with a series of acts which came to be known as the Intolerable Acts or the Coercive Acts of 1774.

Intolerable Acts of 1774

• The Intolerable Acts were five laws that were passed, in 1774, by the British Parliament , against the American colonies. These laws were enacted in order to punish the port of Boston and the people of Massachusetts for the Boston Tea party. The British Parliament, under the leadership of Lord North , passed the first of these laws, the Boston Port Act, in March 1774. These four laws were:
  • Boston Port Act, 1774: This act closed the port of Boston until the price of the dumped tea was recovered.
  • Administration of Justice Act, 1774: This act allowed the royal governor of a colony to move trials to other colonies or even to England if he feared that juries in those colonies wouldn’t judge a case fairly.
  • Massachusetts Government Act, 1774: It abolished the popularly elected upper council of the colony and replaced them with council appointed by the King . The act also gave the Massachusetts royal governor broad powers to remove various judges, marshals, and justices of the peace . Additionally , many civil offices that had previously been chosen by election were now to be appointed by the royal governor . Town meetings were forbidden without consent of the governor .
  • Quartering Act, 1774: This law allowed a colonial governor to house British soldiers in unoccupied houses and barns . The colonists protested against these Intolerable acts. The closing of the port of Boston indiscriminately punished the people. This further instigated the feeling of patriotism in the minds and hearts of many colonists. The number of loyalists, people who supported the British government , declined dramatically.

First Philadelphia Convention, 1774

• The First Continental Congress, also known as the First Philadelphia Convention, was held in 1774 to consider ways of redressing colonial grievances.
  • It was a meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies. It was held in response to the passage of the Intolerable acts.
• The Congress created the Continental Association, a system for implementing a trade boycott of British goods. The Congress also agreed to a broad Declaration of Rights which strongly stated that only the American colonies had the right to tax themselves. Before adjourning, the Congress also agreed to reconvene in May 1775 to decide if further action was necessary.

American War of Independence

• The American Revolutionary War, also known as the American War of Independence, was fought between 1775 to 1783. The Revolutionary War began with the confrontation between British troops and local militia (or Minutemen) at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, on 19 April 1775.
• By late 1774, provisional governments, few known as Committees of Safety, acquired control over government duties in numerous colonies. These provisional governments urged local militias to get armed and trained .
• In September 1774, British General Thomas Gage, the new military governor of Massachusetts, seized the munitions stored at Charles Town and Cambridge. He also began to fortify his position in the city of Boston.
• In retaliation, some of the colonists seized gunpowder from Fort William and Mary at New Castle, New Hampshire, in December 1774. Hence, Parliament, in February 1775, declared Massachusetts in a state of rebellion. It authorized General Gage to use force to cow down the rebellion and orders were passed to disarm and arrest rebel leaders.
• British troops left Boston to seize the munitions stored by the colonists in Concord. Some of the colonists who were spying on the movements of British troops sent warnings to the fellow colonists. As a result, local militia ( or Minutemen) assembled along the road from Boston to Lexington.
• This led to a conflict between the British soldiers and the minutemen in Lexington. This incident proved as a spark which led to general war.
• Coincidentally, the day after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Royal Governor of Virginia seized the gunpowder stored in the magazine in Williamsburg. An angry mob, demanding the return of the gunpowder, descended on the Governor’s Palace. Although, with several efforts, violence was averted. The British government had decided it was time to take decisive step(s) to end the growing rebellion.

Second Philadelphia Convention, 1775

• The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies. It was reconvened shortly after the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the gunpowder incident in Williamsburg. This Congress authorized the creation of the Continental Army. In June 1775, George Washington was appointed commander of the American forces.
• The second Congress led to the Declaration of American Independence on July 4, 1775. In this, the thirteen colonies accepted common agenda of unity which led to the birth of the United States of America. Thomas Jefferson declared that humanism and welfare are parameters of government.

Treaty of Paris, 1783

• The Treaty of Paris of 1783 formally ended the American War of independence. The British formally recognized American independence and ceded most of its territory east of the Mississippi River to the United States, doubling the size of the new nation and paving the way for westward expansion.
• Terms of the Treaty
  • Secured fishing rights to the Grand Banks and other waters off the British-Canadian coastline for American boats.
  • Opened up the Mississippi River to navigation by citizens of both the United States and Great Britain. Resolved issues with American debts owed to British creditors.
  • Provided for fair treatment of American citizens who had remained loyal to Great Britain during the war.
• Consequence of the Treaty
  • Though the Treaty of Paris, 1783 formally ended the war for independence between America and Great Britain, tensions continued to rise between the two nations over issues that remained unresolved by the treaty.
  • The British, for instance, refused to relinquish several of its forts in the former Northwest Territory, while the Americans, for their part, continued to confiscate property from citizens that had remained loyal to the British Crown during the war.

Third Philadelphia Convention, 1787

• In May 1787, delegates representing states gathered at Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania State House for the Constitutional Convention. Drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the signing of the Articles of Confederation also took place in the same building. This building is now known as Independence Hall. Rather than amending the Articles of Confederation the assembly took the task of drawing up a new scheme of government. George Washington was elected convention president.
• During three months of debate, the delegates devised a brilliant federal system characterized by an intricate system of checks and balances.
• A bicameral legislature with proportional representation in the lower house (House of Representatives) and equal representation of the states in the upper house (Senate) was setup.
• And on September 17, 1787, the Constitution of the United States of America was signed by 38 of the 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the convention. It was also dictated by Article VII that the document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states .

American Civil War (1861-65)

• The American Civil war was a four-year war between the United States and 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. It resulted from long-standing differences and unresolved questions in the United States Constitution. The war resolved two fundamental questions:
  • Whether the United States was to be a dissolvable confederation of sovereign states or an indivisible nation with a sovereign national government; and,
  • Whether this nation, born of a declaration that all men were created with an equal right to liberty , would continue to exist as the largest slave holding country in the world.
• The Civil War was a watershed landmark in America’s historical consciousness. Northern victory in the war preserved the United States as one nation and ended the institution of slavery that had divided the country from its beginning.
• Between 1815 and 1861 the economy of the Northern states was rapidly modernizing and diversifying. Although agriculture remained the dominant sector in the North, industrialization had taken root there. They invested heavily in expanding their transportation system like canals, roads, steamboats, and railroads. Investments had also been done in banking and insurance, communications networks like newspapers, magazines, books, and telegraph. In contrast, the Southern economy was based primarily on plantation producing commercial crops such as cotton. They relied on slaves as the main labor force. They invested their money mainly in slaves.
• In 1860, Abraham Lincoln won election as the first Republican president on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories. Following this, seven slave states in the South (as indicated in map above) seceded and formed a new nation , the Confederate States of America. The Lincoln administration and most of the Northern people refused to recognize the legitimacy of secession. They feared that it would discredit democracy and create a wrong precedent that would eventually lead to the balkanization of the United States.
• Another incident happened, in April 1861, at Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay. The Confederate army opened fire on the federal garrison and forced it to lower the American flag in surrender. Lincoln called out the militia to suppress this insurrection. Four more slave states seceded and joined the Confederacy. By the end of 1861, numerous armed men confronted each other along a line stretching from Virginia to Missouri. Several battles had already taken place like in Virginia, Missouri , and North Carolina. The Union Navy established a base in South Carolina for a blockade to shut off the Confederacy ’ s access to the outside world.
• With a long tenure of disastrous war since 1861, all the principal Confederate armies surrendered by the spring of 1865. Finally, with the capture of the fleeing Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Georgia on May 10, 1865, resistance collapsed and the war ended.

Consequences of American Revolution

The American War of Independence is regarded as one of the greatest landmarks in the history of the world since it had far-reaching results:

Political Changes

• It gave birth to a new nation, that is, the United States of America. Under the Treaty of Paris (1783) England acknowledged the independence of her American colonies.
• A few years after the Revolution, the old Federal Constitution, that is the Articles of Confederations that the Continental Congress had drawn up during the war, was changed. It was replaced by a new constitution that a special body of delegates framed at Philadelphia. It is referred to as the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
• The new American State had many features. It was a republic and not a monarchy. Instead of being a unitary state it was a federation. It was a democracy rather than a dictatorship. It could be regarded as the world’s first democratic federal republic.
• The world also received the example of a written constitution. Further, another praiseworthy achievement was the separation of the church and the state.
• The government was divided into three branches instead of one. The new government had a
  • Congress, the legislative body ;
  • an executive branch, with the President at its head,
  • and a judicial branch, at the head of which was the Supreme Court.
    • The three branches of the national government, under the constitution of 1787, which came into effect in 1789 , were expected to ’check and balance’ one another .
• Owing to their experience under the old constitution, the framers of the new one in 1787, gave the federal government greater powers such as taxation and regulation of commerce.

Geopolitical Changes

• France regained two small colonies, Tobago in the West Indies and Senegal in West Africa. Spain recovered Minorca and Florida.
• England lost her colonies in America and her national debt increased to a great extent. Flowever England could defeat and destroy the Spanish and French fleets , and thus retain her naval supremacy.
• France lost heavily during the American Revolution. Owing to her heavy naval and military expenditures, the royal treasury in France grew bankrupt . Further bankruptcy soon led to the fall of the French monarchy, since the Frenchmen had helped the Americans in their revolt against a King. They were now prepared to revolt against their own king.

Significance of American Revolution

• The American Revolution had a tremendous effect on Europe. It not only served as an inspiration for France , but also demonstrated that the liberal political ideas of the Enlightenment were more than mere utterances of intellectuals.
• Three major events of the American Revolution had great influence on Europe :
  • Signing the Declaration of Independence
  • Implementing the ideas of Enlightenment
  • Forming the U. S constitution
    • By declaring independence, America demonstrated that it was possible to overthrow “old regimes ”. This was the first time a colony had rebelled and successfully asserted its rights to self-government and nationhood . This inspired many European nations and colonies to revolt.
    • The United States had created a new social contract in the form of its Constitution, in which they realized the ideas of Enlightenment. The natural rights of man, and the ideas of liberty , equality, and freedom of religion , were no longer unrealistic Utopian ideals .
    • The framers of U. S Constitution rejected the Greek model of civic republicanism. They distinguished between the notion of “ democracy” and their own proposed system of representative democracy . This made the bourgeoisie of Europe reconsider their own government and monarchic systems.
• The culmination of all these factors was seen in the French Revolution, where the revolutionaries formed their own slogan, “Liberty , Equality , Fraternity”. Europeans obtained information about the American Revolution from soldiers returning from America. French soldiers returned to France with ideas of individual liberty , popular sovereignty and the notion of republicanism.
• The American Revolution helped to strengthen the idea of the ‘ right of revolution’, the right of a people to overthrow an oppressive government. Thus it expressed more fully , the principles of the English revolutions of the 17 th century.
• The American revolutionaries served as a source of great inspiration to the French and others who were being oppressed by autocrats or imperialists. The countries of the east , which were under the control of the imperialists , regarded the Revolution as a good lesson for them. Thus the spirit of nationalism began to spread with the birth of the United States of America.
  • The principles of freedom and democracy were upheld through slogans such as ‘ No taxation without representation’ and ’Give me liberty or give me death’, which highly influenced the minds of people all over the world. The rulers of all the countries also learnt that they would not be permitted to rule , unless they served the needs of the people. Thus kings attempted to improve their administration.
  • America gave rise to great leaders such as Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton. The hero of the War of Independence , namely George Washington, was honored by being made the first President born in a farmer ’s family.
  • The impact of the American Revolution was a different story for women, African Americans and Native Americans . The women did not have any legal rights and political representation. Similarly , many African Americans had fully believed the new government would defend their rights as well. Unfortunately, it would be 80 years before the Civil War and the Constitution prohibited slavery outright , but the seeds of change had been planted.
• The American Revolution produced a new outlook among its people that would have ramifications long into the future. Groups excluded from immediate equality such as slaves and women would draw their later inspirations from revolutionary sentiments. Americans began to feel that their fight for liberty was a global fight . Future democracies would model their governments on ours. There are few events that would shake the world order like the success of the American patriotic cause .