The revolutionaries were the opposite: A majority of the population of unequal standing to those who governed them.
At the time of the Civil War, the U.S. most certainly was a clearly defined nation: A constitution, federal code of laws, recognized borders, international recognition of soveignty, etc.
Are you serious? That’s a truly bizarre question for you to ask. YOU asked ME when war in general is justified, and in the process of answering it I decided it was a useful and insightful question, and that although I don’t expect anyone else to use my criteria, that inviting others to make explicit their own premises and criteria could be helpful in understanding their positions. In any event, the relevance of when a revolution might be justified to the question of whether a particular revolution was justified is so blindingly obvious, I don’t know what to make of your question.
This isn’t an academic or Lincoln–Douglass style debate. It’s a Socratic debate where the object is to understand one another’s position better. I’ve tried to make that goal clear throughout the thread, yet you seem insistant on disputing the validity of every question I ask as if by doing so you might unseat me and win a victory. I apologize sincerely if I’m doing you a disservice, but I really don’t understand why you rebuff my every attempt to gain a better understanding of your case and have now taken this seemingly combative stance.
All “justified” means is that one likes it. So, for you, it appears the Revolution was not justified. Case closed.
You are asking whether or not the Revolutionary War, a seminal event in our history that not only defined us as a nation but continues to influence us to this day, was justified. You might not thing it matters but I think the Revolution is pretty important to our identity as Americans even 236 years later. As for the Socratic method, this is the Great Debates and we’re supposed to win a victory. If you just want to have a discussion about what everyone thinks then you should have opened this in IMHO or MPSIMS.
I gave you several reasons why the colonists were willing to go to war with Britain. That’s hardly what I’d call a rebuffing. Yes, I did ask you when a war was justified. That was after explaining the colonial position and getting a “they still weren’t justified” response. I wanted to see if I was dealing with a pacifist who was against violence in every case.
John Adams once estimated that about a third of the colonists supported independence, a third were loyalists, and a third didn’t care what happened but just wanted all the fighting and trouble to end. Of course there was no polling back then, so we’ll never know for sure.
Another link between the American and the French revolutions was the invaluable and costly assistance the French royal government lent to the American rebels after 1777. Had it not been for that, some historians have suggested, the French treasury would’ve been a good bit better-prepared to respond to the demands of the starving masses.
I think the Declaration of Independence, although a bit hyperbolic, is the clearest statement you’ll find as to why the colonists thought their grievances with Great Britain had reached such a critical mass that they were willing to risk their “lives, fortunes and sacred honor.” These were smart and principled men, all in all, and I submit that they would not have taken the risks they did if they thought it was for no good or strongly-felt reasons.
Sometimes. The current norm is some kind of parliment. Some have parliments that rule the country with a royal figurehead.
Does France have a king? Does Germany have a king or emperor? Does Poland have a king? Does Finland have a king? They all had kings at one point.
Does the British Queen actually have any real power to change the laws of England? Was royalty “forced” to accept the Magna Carta? Was royalty “forced” to accept a parliment?
Royals have pretty much been forced to take a backseat to a popular democratic form of government if they haven’t been ousted all together.
The 99%? Everyone who picked up a rifle had their own personal reasons for fighting the British. Everyone who supplied food to or hid those with riflles had their own personal reasons for doing so.
The “overmountain men” of the Appalachians objected to some pommy British git threatening to march his army over the mountains, hang their leaders, and lay waste the country with fire and sword if they didn’t lay down their arms. The overmountain men responded by coming down from the hills and shooting holes in as many redcoats as they could find. Their reasons, their decision, their response.
The Boston Tea Party was a very polite affair. The “savages” marched past the Bostonians guarding the piers, walked up the gang planks, asked the crew/Captains for the keys to the holds, tossed the tea overboard, swept the decks clean, and replaced a lock that had been broken because the key wasn’t available.
The British Crown simply didn’t understand, or refused to understand, what the colonists were trying to tell them.
You can only push people so far and they will either submit or revolt. If the people revolt, those in power can either give in to the people or they can send soldiers to force the people to submit. Then it becomes a “winner take all” situation.
How about a quote from William Pitt the Elder, British Prime Minister:
One could argue that the state of colonization is a nascent form of war. At some point it begs resistance.
ETA: As for books, I like this one, but listen to these other guys on here.
I believe it most definitely was. Something in Britain by 1770 had changed, and in an ugly way. I think it was because the British were drunk with power by their recent victory in the Seven Years’ War, with the result that the divine right of kings doctrine of Charles I was transformed to a “divine right of Parliament,” that was hardly less despotic than the absolute rule of the king.
In the minds of a certain faction of Parliament, and in the king himself, the colonies were to be ruled as if it were conquered territory, not unlike former New France, which was ceded to Britain in 1763. The colonists would probably have not minded being coequal partners in a great and prosperous empire, or if unequal, to only a small degree. I think the way the British treated the colonists made them feel that they had fought (in the French and Indian War) not as victors, but as the vanquished, and the colonists wanted out of this. They might have wondered, “Hey, we fought the French and helped win the war, but the people over across the sea mean to make us and them the same…who are our real enemies here? It’s not the people whom we fought, but that George III guy.”
I recommend Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly. The book is about more than just the revolutionary period, but deals with it extensively. Tuchman ignores the shooting war entirely, but focusing instead on the actions of the British government and its interactions with the colonists. Tuchman presents a stupefying series of blunders and misjudgments that progressively drove the colonists away. One feature of the book that I found very educational is her focus on friends of the American colonists in the British government – there were plenty of people in England who saw that the King’s chosen course was foolish and would lead to disaster, and they tried for years to head off the crisis.
shrug If the war had been lost, they’d have been hanged, and today be remembered in the same light as Guy Fawkes, if at all. The revolution was justified because it was successful. None of these things can ever be judged on principle.
Sounds excellent. I just requested it from my library.
Among the grievances listed in the declaration of independance is “destroyed the lives of our people.”
Weren’t the British executing innocent colonists without due process prior to the revolution?
Among the grievances listed in the declaration of independance is the claim that king George III had “destroyed the lives of our people.”
Were the British executing innocent colonists without due process?
Were they just taking them out of their beds in the middle of the night, hanging them from the nearest tree, and confiscating their property?
Is there any historical documentation of such British atrocities prior to the revolution?
Prior to, no, not that I know of, other than the Boston Massacre. But remember that there had been more than a year of fighting from Lexington and Concord in April 1775 to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776. Before independence, many colonists still considered themselves Englishmen, entitled to all the rights of Englishmen, and they were deeply offended that their King would wage an offensive war against them rather than reasonably discuss their differences while respecting their liberties.
Here are the reasons. They are very flowery and persuasive, but not nearly as persuasive as the same words after defeating the King’s armies after a protracted war:
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Nothing in the OP comes anywhere near to refuting these points.