# Convince me to support American independence **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 10, 2012, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441 "2012-02-10T18:37:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/21 "2012-02-11T20:06:35Z")
Reading that over it’s not really clear why the French casualty figures were so lopsided. After the surrender the Iroquois accompanying Washington fell on the wounded. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/22 "2012-02-11T23:13:39Z")
You can argue over the battle, but it might be wiser to take it to another thread, though I don’t find it interesting enough to keep up any debate. In case, it’s a rather complicated issue and I’d prefer not to deal with it here lest it overwhelm the thread. The important thing is to dispel the nonsense that Washington “started” the war. ---
**Author:** ![Scholar\_Beardpig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de053/32.png) [@Scholar\_Beardpig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scholar_Beardpig)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/23 "2012-02-12T06:11:14Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > (So how did I do?) This is perhaps the best post I’ve ever seen on this message board. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/24 "2012-02-12T06:34:42Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Relying on Cracked for your history… or for anything at all, is no different than using John Stewart for your daily news. Are you implying that the people who wrote > [@](#): > > …which is really about a drink away from just coming out and saying that Quebec is a self-arming death-ray that shoots popes. Paul Revere drew a cartoon showing the writers of the Quebec Act in cahoots with the Devil, and the Catholics for being one bishop short of Captain Planet. are not peer-reviewed historians? ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/25 "2012-02-12T06:52:50Z")
Captain Planet was involved in the French and Indian War? Golly, the things you learn here. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/26 "2012-02-12T07:37:04Z")
> [@Gedd](#): > > Besides, the [Bill of Rights 1689](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689)said there would be no standing army during a time of peace **without the consent of parliament.** (Bolding mine). Who do you think passed the Quartering Act? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/27 "2012-02-12T07:51:29Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > \*OK, a few Scots, too, but this was still a time when England very much dominated Britain. It was mostly Englishmen making the decisions, not colonists. Now and then the governers appointed were colonists though. Ben Franklin’s son was serving as Royal Governer of New Jersey at the time of Revolution, to which post he was appointed in order to shut up his dad. (Didn’t work, but it created a crushing family feud that completely broke the Franklin family.) In 1774, of the 12 Royal governors in the colonies (Delware and Pennsylvania shared a governor), half were of colonial birth, and one more (the governor of Pennsylvania) was born in England to parents who had moved there from Pennsylvania not long before his birth. Further, in almost all the colonies, decisions were made by a combination of the Governors’ Councils and the Colonial legislatures, and they were pretty much entirely made up of colonists. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/28 "2012-02-12T16:13:55Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Are you implying that the people who wrote [snip] are not peer-reviewed historians? All snark aside, you’d be anmazed at the number of poeple I’ve met who had some ridiculous notion culled from a humor book, website, or worse yet, the History Channel. > [@Captain Amazing](#): > > In 1774, of the 12 Royal governors in the colonies (Delware and Pennsylvania shared a governor), half were of colonial birth, and one more (the governor of Pennsylvania) was born in England to parents who had moved there from Pennsylvania not long before his birth. Further, in almost all the colonies, decisions were made by a combination of the Governors’ Councils and the Colonial legislatures, and they were pretty much entirely made up of colonists. I believe you made a mistake there, in that not all of them were appointed by the crown. Of those who were actually put into office by the British monarchy, six were not colonials and two were. The fact that the British in Britain had not (yet, at least) taken control of the whole of the Americas should not be held against me, because they had indeed cemented a record of appointing non-colonials. While I forgot to write down which were Scottish, IIRC there were two. Rhode Island - not appointed by royals New Jersey - William Franklin, colonial New York - William Tryon, non colonial New Hampshire - Sir John Wentworth, 1st Baronet, not colonial Maryland - not appointed by royals Virginia - John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, non-colonial Massachusetts - Gen. Gage, non-colonial Pennsylvania - non Crown (Delware - see Penn.) Connecticut - non Crown Georgia - James Wright - born England, moved as a teen, so I do call him colonial SOuth Carolina - Lord William Campbell, non-colonial North Carolina - Josiah Martin, non-colonial ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/29 "2012-02-12T16:48:21Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > The things is, though, that most of this was actually fairly reasonable stuff. The Quartering Act made good sense in the wake of the French and Indian war - British troop presence in the colonies had been bulked up, and troop housing hadn’t necessarily kept up. I very much doubt that anyone in the government viewed quartering troops with civilians as a _desirable_ thing - but it was sometimes necessary, and the troops were charged with protecting the colonists, after all. There were two Quartering Acts. The first, in 1765, occurred after the end of the war with France (1763), when there were no longer large armies in North America from whom the colonists needed to be defended. It also went much farther than the British army actually requested, imposing duties and fines that were neither desired nor needed. The second act, in 1774, was pretty much punitive. The only people who were going to need the British Army, at that point, were British tax collectors. The issue had never been disputed during the actual war with France when it had been employed with no protest; it was only the peacetime quartering that the colonies found offensive. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/30 "2012-02-12T17:06:29Z")
General Gage didn’t become the Governor of Massachusetts until the middle of 1774, when the Crown was trying to appease the colony by putting him in. I was counting Thomas Hutchinson as governor, and he was colonial. And Sir John Wentworth, the governor of New Hampshire, was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire to a leading New Hampshire family. And, regarding South Carolina, while Lord Campbell was governor in 1775, in 1774, the acting governor was William Bull II, who was colonial. As for Josiah Martin, he was born in Antigua, I believe, which makes him colonial, or at least was born into an Antigua plantation family (it’s possible that he was himself born while his father was in Ireland.) ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/31 "2012-02-12T17:31:25Z")
I’ll also point out, regarding General Gage, that rather than his appointment being seen as an example of English domination over colonial affairs, it was seen as a hopeful sign by colonials. Hutchinson, who had been governor before him was corrupt, venal, and unpopular, and Gage had been living in America (first as an officer against the French, then as military governor of Montreal and finally as commander in chief of the forces in America) for the past 20 years, and was married to a New Yorker. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/32 "2012-02-12T18:16:17Z")
One should read the chapter on the colonies relations with England in Barbara Tuchman’s ‘The March of Folly’. It wasn’t just quartering acts and the like, it was England’s constant efforts to mess with trade, and tax randomly rather than see what could be properly done. Just when you’d think they worked things out they went and did a bunch of petty crap just to show who was boss. The colonists actually understood that they might have to pay for some of the F&I war, but the impression England gave was that they were going to pay for all of it (including the continental part of the war). ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2012, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/33 "2012-02-15T15:00:57Z")
I was just going to mention Tuchman’s March of Folly. She emphasizes how the condescending attitude through which Britain’s policies were implemented, more than the details of the acts themsel es, were a major factor…including the refusal of almost all Britain-based policymakers to deign to even visit America (it wasn’t THAT hard to cross the pond). ---
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2012, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/34 "2012-02-15T15:38:01Z")
I’d encourage your good selves to read [The Radicalism of the American Revolution](http://www.amazon.com/Radicalism-American-Revolution-Gordon-Wood/dp/0679736883) by Gordon Wood. He argues that the rich Americans felt there was essentially a glass ceiling of achievement in the colonies, and that Britain was holding them back. They believed that a republic with universal male suffrage would allow the most able to come to the fore and govern - and naturally these would be the native aristocracy. The remaining third of the book explains how that was proven false by the first thirty years of American Independence, and the rise of Andrew Jackson. Fascinating book 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2012, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/35 "2012-02-15T22:31:03Z")
Mosier: > [@](#): > > I think you have the wrong idea of what an absolute monarchy is. How so? ---
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/36 "2012-02-16T12:26:46Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Mosier: > > How so? Are you implying the British monarchy was in place against the will of the British people, or that it ran along the lines of the absolute monarchy of Louis XVI of France? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/37 "2012-02-16T12:59:03Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > The things is, though, that most of this was actually fairly reasonable stuff. The Quartering Act made good sense in the wake of the French and Indian war - British troop presence in the colonies had been bulked up, and troop housing hadn’t necessarily kept up. I very much doubt that anyone in the government viewed quartering troops with civilians as a _desirable_ thing - but it was sometimes necessary, and the troops were charged with protecting the colonists, after all. Beside which, it’s not as if this would have led to troops in every home, or anywhere remotely near. The Quartering Act wasn’t precisely pleasant, but I’m not seeing it as a causus belli. Ditto, the Stamp Act just wasn’t that onerous - it’s not as if people were being driven into poverty by light taxation intended to pay for colonial defense. > > The Boston Massacre was unfortunate, certainly - but everyone agreed on that, including the British government officials. And it was a jury of American colonists that acquitted the soldiers involved. > > I agree that, eventually, the British crackdown in response to treason and conspiracy grew so harsh that it might have driven me towards vile rebellion in itself; that was poorly managed. But that crackdown was a response to pro-rebel sentiment; it’s this sentiment that I can’t really understand. The Quartering Act was a considerable thorn in the side of American colonists – so much so that it’s included in the list of grievances in the Declaration of Independence, and they explicitly included a prohibition against the new Colonial government doing it in the Constitution. This one clearly rankled. And it wasn’t necessary – troops are traditionally housed in barracks intended for that purpose, and can live in tents and improvised housing when those aren’t yet available. It makes more sense for the army to keep their troops in one place, rather than scattered about individual households. Nor were they needed for immediate defense in the area. To the colonists, this provision felt like Britain unnecessarily throwuing its weight around. Similarly, the taxes on tea and sugar and publications (the Stamp act) were intrusive acts that they saw every day, and felt. Even after protests, and the lifting of some acts, the British government kept some in place to prove that they had the power to enforce such acts. There’s a reason they called these the Intolerable Acts. As for paying for the French and Indian War, colonists (like Washingtobn) served in the war, and I’m sure they didn’t see justice in havi ng to pay for it as well. Certainly land speculators such as Washington felt the injustice of having to fight a war with the French over North American territory, then be denied the right to that territory by a far-off British government (which wanted to honor Indian claims both to keep the peace and to provide an Indian buffer between British territory and French) – and be required to pay taxes enforcing that prohibition. This part probably didn’t affect your average colonist, but it certainly impelled the upper classes toward war. In Boston during the Bicentennial, while they were fixing up Quincy Marketpolace to become the tourist mecca it now is, they had a temporary exhibit up that did a pretty good job of explaining why colonists went to war, and gave visitors a chance to vote which way they themselves would go. It tilted heavbilt towards revolt. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/38 "2012-02-16T23:33:57Z")
The truth is, it’s no different than a lot other places that revolted agaisnt the British. Whether you’re talking about South Africa, India, or America, Britain has a way of rubbing people the wrong way. Especially other Britons. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/39 "2012-02-17T08:23:26Z")
Certainly Members of Parliament did look down on colonials and certainly no one enjoys being on the end of that but while that rankled the colonial elite they were the colonial elite because they had people below them to look down on in turn. The equality spoken of in the Declaration of Independence was an equality before the law (and only conferred upon some). It wasn’t social equality. While they have learned the importance of pretending otherwise publicly American elites continue to look down on the masses to this day. Really the main problem was that the masters of the Empire were going to treat the colonies as colonies while taking a firmer hand in their administration. Their incompetence and impatience in doing so expedited matters but things were heading for a confrontation. If we are giving out book recommendations I would suggest _A Leap in the Dark_ by John Ferling as the best full treatment I’ve found. (Though I don’t have _March of Folly_.) So is OP going to return to let us know if our efforts were excellent enough or not? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441/40 "2012-02-17T17:42:42Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > (Though I don’t have _March of Folly_.) Oh, it’s worth it if only for Tuchman’s explanation for what led up to the Protestant Reformation. > [@](#): > > So is OP going to return to let us know if our efforts were excellent enough or not? Feeling a little needy today? 😉 Trust me: you guys done good. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-to-support-american-independence/612441.md?page=3)