2. The Independence

2.1　The Struggle for the Constitution （1763-1877）

By the middle of the eighteenth century there existed 13 colonies on the Atlantic seaboard of the North American continent all nominally under British rule. They had been established for a range of reasons in the seventeenth century, except for Georgia which was created in 1733 as a colony for deported debtors. Trade and profit had been the motivation for the setting up of New York, New Jersey and South Carolina, for example, while many of those who set up home in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Pennsylvania did so in order to practise their religious beliefs freely. The colonies each had different customs, currencies and laws, as well as varying climates, which all contributed to economic differences—including the use of African slaves in the southern colonies—and the possibility that one day they might unite to break the shackles of their mother country seemed highly unlikely.

The Treaty of Paris in 1763 has been a convenient event for historians who wish to study the birth of an independent United States of America, given that it formalised the end of the Seven Years War, but there were signs before 1763 that relations between the British and their American cousins were not exactly cordial. In the summer of 1754 a force of the Virginia militia was despatched under the command of a young colonel called George Washington to limit French expansion into the Ohio Valley. Washington’s surrender of Fort Necessity marked the beginning of what colonists called the French and Indian War though it was not until 1756 that the British became formally involved in military action against the French and their Indian allies. Many Americans had hoped the British might get involved sooner, but when they did finally appear, great offence was caused to the very colonists they were supposed to be protecting. The requisition of supplies, impressment of troops and reimposition of Crown authority caused a great deal of friction, and Prime Minister Pitt acted swiftly: reimbursing colonists for supplies; allowing the colonial assemblies to take control of recruitment; and sending greater numbers of soldiers from Britain. There is no doubt that the cessation of the struggle between France and Great Britain for global dominance marked a turning point, and in the aftermath of the war, relations between the 13 colonies and their mother country began to decline markedly. For the British, the defeat of the French was expected to give the Crown greater power in America; whereas for the American colonists, the French defeat seemed toreduce their dependence on Britain for protection.

2.2　The Road to Independence

By the terms of the Treaty of Paris, the French ceded all of Canada and the land east of the Mississippi to the British, who established the Proclamation Line near the crest of the Allegheny Mountains and declared all land to the west to be Indian territory. This was partly in response to the uprising led by Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa, against frontiersmen who had crossed into tribal lands, but served merely to annoy the independent-minded colonists who sought to move west. In addition the exertions of war had more than doubled the national debt of Britain and it was felt that the American colonists should contribute more towards paying off the debt for a war from which they had clearly benefited, as well as to the upkeep of a standing army to guard the frontier. Increasing tax demands, trade controls to reduce manufactures that competed with British goods, clamping down on smuggling, and maintaining a standing army that might even be used against them, all served to further aggravate anti-British feeling among the colonists.

The most notorious of the measures designed to increase revenue from the under-taxed Americans was the Stamp Act of 1765, which levied a tax on all printed documents and thereby offended a range of influential colonials. It led to the calling of the Stamp Act Congress in New York to which nine colonies sent representatives who agreed that they should only be taxed if their own assemblies approved. This was significant in that it was the first formal attempt the colonists had made to organise themselves. The Stamp Act was repealed by the British, but soon the colonists were paying perhaps ten times as much as they had done before 1763. Despite the revision of the Proclamation Line in 1768 to open areas for colonisation, Americans were not satisfied. Even worse, the 1774 Quebec Act seemed designed to cause offence, for as well as recognising Roman Catholics, leaving French civil law in force, giving authority to a governor of Quebec without an elected assembly, and limiting trial by jury, it re-expanded the boundaries of the Canadian province as far south as the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, which was regarded as damaging to the western ambitions of Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The colonies had faced their fair share of internal unrest in the past. In 1763 the Paxton Boys had marched on Philadelphia to demand tax relief and financial support, while in 1771 a small-scale civil war had erupted in North Carolina, but the actions of the mother country gradually brought the squabbling colonists together. The British refused to give way, andrelations gradually deteriorated with such events as the Boston Massacre³and the Boston Tea Party⁴, followed by the Intolerable Acts which further increased tensions. Americans called the First Continental Congress at Philadelphia in September 1774, petitioned King George III for a return to their 1763 status, demanded no taxation without representation and boycotted British goods. In April 1775 the first military skirmishes of the War of Independence took place at Lexington and Concord, persuading undecided colonists to join the radicals. Englishman Thomas Paine’s pamphlet “Common Sense” —considered widely to have been a great inspiration to revolutionaries—went through an astonishing 25 editions in 1776, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. Although it actually worried revolutionaries such as John Adams of Massachusetts in case it encouraged too much democratic thought.

On 2 July 1776 Congress approved Virginian Richard Henry Lee’s resolution that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states”. This vote formally marked the birth of the United States, but it is 4 July that is remembered for the Declaration of Independence （only a full declaration of independence would have won over French support）, which was mainly the work of another Virginian, Thomas Jefferson. It proclaimed the existence of 13 free and independent states and drew on English philosopher John Locke’s belief that a government could be overthrown when it ceased to preserve the lives, liberty and happiness of its people. However, of those who signed the document, 69 per cent had held colonial office under the Crown. And in Boston, within a week of the Declaration, it was decided that the rich could avoid the military draft by paying for substitutes, whereas the poor had no choice （a similar system would operate years later during the Civil War）. It was therefore clear from an early stage that there would be no great social changes to match the political ones.