CHAPTER 5

Wars for Independence

1764 - 1783

"What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the Revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The

Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years before a drop of

blood was shed at Lexington. The records of thirteen legislature, the pamphlets, newspapers in all the colonies, ought to be consulted during

that period to ascertain the steps by which the public opinion was enlightened and informed concerning the authority of Parliament over the

colonies." John Adams

"Democracy is government 'by the people,' but the responsibility for the survival of democracy rests on the shoulders of elites.  This is the irony of democracy:  Elites must govern wisely if government 'by the people' is to survive.  If the survival of the American system depended upon an active, informed, and enlightened citizenry, then democracy in America would have disappeared long ago; for the masses of America are apathetic and ill-informed about politics and public policy, and they have a surprisingly weak commitment to democratic values - individual dignity, equality of opportunity, the right to dissent, freedom of speech and press, religious toleration, due process of law.  But fortunately for these values and for American democracy, the American masses do not lead, they follow.  They respond to the attitudes, proposals, and behavior of elites."  Dye, Thomas R. and Zeigler, L. Harmon. The Irony of Democracy. [Proponents of the “elite” theory of democracy]

“Republicanism declared that the truly just society provided the greatest possible liberty to individuals. As the power of the state, by its very nature, was antithetical to liberty, it had to be limited. John Locke argued that the authority of a ruler should be conditional rather than absolute and that the people had the inherent right to select their own form of governance and to withdraw their support if the government did not fulfill its trust. The best guarantee of good government, then, was the broad distribution of power to the people, who would not only select their own leaders but vote them out as well. In this view, republican government depended on the virtue of the people, their willingness to make the health and stability of the political community their first priority, and was possible only for an “independent” population that controlled its own affairs.

AS Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “. . . dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares it tools for the designs of ambition.” Individual ownership of property, especially land, he argued, was the foundation of an independent and virtuous people.” The Irony of Democracy

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves. . . .The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance or the most abject submission. We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." George Washington, general orders, July 2, 1776

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the services of their country; but he that stands it NOW deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, Dec. 23, 1776

"I have not yet begun to fight." John Paul Jones (Sept 23, 1779)

"Father Serra, president of the California missions, prescribed a weekly prayer for American victory.

"It is a common observation here [in Paris, France] that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own." Benjamin Franklin, 1777

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." James Madison Federalist #47

"I desired as many as could to join together in fasting and prayer, that God would restore the spirit of love and of a sound mind to the poor deluded rebels in America." John Wesley (Journal, August 1, 1777)

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world."   Ralph Waldo Emerson, Concord Hymn, 1837

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. . . The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is there natural manure." Thomas Jefferson to Col. William S. Smith, 1787

"Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever." Thomas Jefferson

"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." Jefferson's motto found among his papers

"A subject comes into my head. . . . The question whether one generation of men has a right to bind another. . . . I set out on this ground which I suppose to be self evident: 'that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living: that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it'." Thomas Jefferson to Madison, Sept. 6, 1789

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. . . . you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." James Madison

"I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitant or affairs for the last thirty years than Paine." John Adams

"In the end I was convinced that the fear of a comprehensive conspiracy against liberty throughout the English-speaking world -- a conspiracy believed to have been nourished in corruption, and of which, it was felt, oppression in America was only the most immediately visible part -- lay at the heart of the Revolutionary movement." Bernard Bailyn

“In the older, medieval, ‘corporate’ view of society, economic life ideally operated according to what was equitable, not what was profitable. Citizens usually agreed that government should provide for the general welfare by regulating prices and wages, setting quality controls, licensing providers of service. . . and supervising public markets where all food was sold. Such regulation seemed natural because a community was defined not as a collection of individuals, each entitled to pursue separate interests, but as a single body of interrelated parts where individual rights and responsibilities formed a seamless web. . . .”

“According to the new view, if people were allowed to pursue their own material desires competitively, they would collectively form a natural, impersonal market of producers and consumers that would

operate to everyone’s advantage.” Historian Gary Nash

"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitution rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature that such deices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself by the greatest of all reflections on human nature. If men were angels, no government would be necessary." Madison Federalist #51

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. . . . you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." James Madison

“The word republic means the public good of the whole, in contradistinction to the despotic form which makes the good of the sovereign, or of one man, the only object of government.” Thomas Paine

When rotated, Franklin's snake imitated the North American coastline; he omitted Georgia, which was newly founded and inhabited largely by convicts freed from British prisons.

Chapter Review

What were the major campaigns of the Revolutionary War? What were the major turning points of the war? Why did the American colonies begin a war for independence? Describe the various revenue raising methods imposed by Britain

after the French and Indian War, and give the American response. Explain the division within the American colonies regarding resistance

to British taxation policies, and trace the emergence of the Whig and Tory factions.

Describe the major events of the American Revolution, from the beginning at Lexington and Concord to the peace settlement.

Explain the impact of the American Revolution on the status of women, African Americans and Native Americans.

Battles in Eastern Massachusetts

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Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill

The War in the North, 1776–1777

Most of the fighting between the British and Americans during the first part of the war occurred in the North, partly because British authorities assumed that the New England colonies were the most rebellious.

The War on the Frontier, 1778–1779

Significant battles in the Mississippi Valley and the frontiers of the seaboard states added to the ferocity of the fighting and strengthened some American claims to western lands.

The War in the South, 1778–1781

During the latter part of the war, most of the major engagements occurred in the South. British forces won most of the early ones but could not control the immense territory involved and eventually surrendered at Yorktown. here Tahoma 18 pt

Bibliography

Bailyn, Bernard. Faces of Revolution: Personalities and Themes in the Struggle for American Independence [1990]

Dershowitz, Alan, America Declares Independence [2003]

Fischer, David Hackett. Liberty and Freedom [2005]

Mary Beth Norton, Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women (1980)

Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (1961)

Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic (1969)

Alfred Young, ed., The American Revolution: Explorations in American Radicalism (1976)

Concepts

Battles of Lexington and Concord, 1775Committee of SafetyContinental ArmyContract theory of governmentDeclaration of IndependenceMinute MenOlive Branch PetitionPeace of ParisRepublicanismValley ForgeSaratogaStamp Act, Sugar ActBenedict ArnoldYorktownunitary, confederation, federal1/3 Patriots, 1/3 Loyalists, 1/3 not involvedPhyllis Wheatley

George Washington's Revolutionary War Account Book

George Washington received no salary, but did have his expenses reimbursed, while Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. This image shows page 49 of his original account book, submitted in 1783 to the Continental Congress.

When Washington submitted his expenses to Congress, he left the door open to future claims: ''July 1, 1783: Amount of the Expenditures for the Years 1777, 8 + 9, and 1780, 1 + 2, and to the pres't date[:] 160,074 [dollars] [;] 7070 [pounds sterling], 15 [shillings], 4 [pence]''

Yorktown 1781

American soldiers at Yorktown in 1781 as drawn by a young officer in the French army, Jean-Baptiste-Antoine de Verger. The African American on the left is an infantryman of the First Rhode Island Regiment; the next, a musketeer; the third, with the fringed jacket, a rifleman. The man on the right is a Continental artilleryman, holding a lighted match used to fire cannons.

North America after the Peace of Paris, 1783

The results of the American Revolution redrew the map of North America, confining Britain to Canada and giving the United States most of the area east of the Mississippi River, though Spain controlled its mouth for most of the next twenty years.

I. Realignments in the Spanish Borderlands

Britain gains Florida after Seven Years’ War, but Spain retains Louisiana and port city of New Orleans

Spanish forts in Southwest grow in number, as Spain faces more threats from Apaches and Comanches

II. The British Colonies Resist Imperial Reform

Sugar Act attempts to end smuggling by lowering tariffs, and Currency Act forbids colonists from producing paper money

Stamp Act angers colonists and leads to formation of Sons of Liberty

Colonists in lower South are unhappy with both Parliament and their own colonial elite

Townshend Revenue Act worsens feelings Raises revenue without representation Results in Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, uniting

colonists Result is series of non-importation agreements

Boston becomes center of conflict – 1770 “Boston Massacre” and Paul Revere

Burning of Gaspée and formation of Committees of Correspondence show colonial unrest

Boston Tea Party of 1773 demonstrates colonial defiance Tea Act designed to protect British East India Company by

removing duties on its tea Bostonians dump tea to protest manipulation Britain responds with Coercive Acts, designed to get

Boston under control

First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia in fall of 1774

III. Resistance Becomes a War for Independence

First shots fired in April 1775, at Lexington and Concord

Second Continental Congress meets in May, selecting George Washington to command the new Continental Army

Battle of Bunker Hill leads George III to declare colonies in rebellion

Colonists find themselves having to choose sides Loyalists usually wealthy Patriots resort to conscription Women support cause in many ways

Continental Congress declares independence in July 1776 and begins forming Articles of Confederation

IV. War in the North, 1776-1779

Britain invades New York and achieves victories until loss at Saratoga in October

British occupy Philadelphia during winter of 1777-78, but Washington turns troops into effective army at Valley Forge

Battle of Saratoga brings French into war on side of colonists

Patriots continue to suffer from economic problems

Northern Campaigns, 1776-1778

V. The War Moves West and SouthV. The War Moves West and South

Fighting intensifies on frontier Britain invades South, hoping to enlist Loyalist support

there, but plan backfires Southerners fight mainly for Patriots Lord Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown, October 1781

Southern Campaigns, 1778-1781

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Treaty of Paris ends hostilities but leaves problems New nation extends from Atlantic coast to Mississippi

River, and from Canada to 31st parallel Britain agrees to remove troops promptly, then fail to do so Loyalists are assured of protection, but many face

discrimination and leave country