Causes and Effects of the American Revolution

Ideological Arguments Rationalize Independence from Britain

Dec 25, 2008

The Publication of Thomas Paine's Common Sense may have been the pivotal event that galvanized colonial Englishmen into opposing the Crown and demanding independence.

Perhaps the greatest single cause of the American Revolution was the ability of certain patriots like Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine in galvanizing colonial Englishmen into a rebellion against the home country. British historian Christopher Hibbert maintains that Paine’s Common Sense, published in 1776, not only gave a rationale for revolution, but took the idea of independence from private conversations “into public debate.” [1] Although history texts give many long term and immediate causes of the war, none of them played as significant a role as Paine’s well reasoned treatise.

The Revolutionary War was the effect of the actual “Revolution,” the point at which a significant number of Americans concluded that independence from Britain was both necessary and logical. Common Sense provided that and, as Hibbert writes, “…it was straightforward, easy to comprehend, written in clear yet striking prose which all men, the Philadelphian mechanic as well as the Boston lawyer, could readily understand.” [2] Yet what of the other causes?

In his detailed discussion of the British Navigation Acts and their impact on the American Revolution, Oliver Dickerson downplays the role of Parliamentary tax measures. [3] In fact, Dickerson argues convincingly that the Navigation Acts enhanced colonial prosperity. “The colonies were prosperous,” Dickerson writes, “and wages of labor were admittedly higher in the continental colonies than elsewhere in the world.” [4] His conclusion is that, “no case can be made out for the Navigation Acts as a cause of the Revolution…”

History texts highlight the dilemma of Britain’s Lord Grenville following the defeat of France in the Seven Years’ War (French and Indian War) in terms of retiring the enormous national deficit resulting from William Pitt’s plan of empire. Robert Harvey discusses the dilemma from the British perspective, demonstrating that the amounts requested of the colonies to pay for their own protection after 1763 were relatively small. [5]

Some of the pre-Revolution Parliamentary Acts were ill-conceived. The Stamp Act, for example, was unenforceable and only led to widespread colonial anger, this despite the fact that a Stamp Tax had been in force in Britain for several years. The Declaratory Act merely reminded the colonists that, as Englishmen fully protected by English law, they were still under Parliamentary jurisdiction.

King George III as a Tyrant

Every effort was made by American patriots to portray King George III as a tyrant and this formed the basis of Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, giving a rationale for separating from Britain by asserting that the king no longer served by the consent of the governed. Thomas Jefferson even included a clause blaming the king for slavery, quickly removed by delegates from South Carolina and Georgia. Many of the Founding Fathers, including the wealthy Virginia planter Jefferson, were slave owners. Including the charge was hypocritical.

But the king was a convenient scapegoat for the list of grievances advanced by those that advocated Revolution. It was the reason Thomas Paine’s Common Sense compelled the readers of his 150,000 copies to confront the realty of independence. The Revolution, as Howard Zinn has pointed out, was purely political, not social. The only changes – the effects of the ordeal, were in the leadership.

Good History and Good Facts

The causes of the American War for Independence have been discussed and debated in thousands of books and articles. In many cases, new “twists” add to the debate. Yet, as John Adams pointed out, only one third of the colonists were actively treasonous. Was it a combination of events? – The Boston Massacre, the revenue acts of Parliament, the salutary neglect of Britain that led to the final break? These questions form the arguments that keep historians busy.

[1] Christopher Hibbert, Redcoats and Rebels: The American Revolution Through British Eyes (New York: Avon Books, 1990) p. 114.

[3] Oliver M. Dickerson, The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1951) pp. 52-57.

[5] Robert Harvey, “A Few Bloody Noses” The Realities and Mythologies of the American Revolution (Woodstock & New York: The Overlook Press, 2001)

See Also Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States (chapter 5) available on-line.

The copyright of the article Causes and Effects of the American Revolution in Colonial America is owned by Michael Streich. Permission to republish Causes and Effects of the American Revolution in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.