American Revolution

Origins

After the Glorious Revolution in England, the British adopted a policy of "salutary neglect," whereby the Thirteen Colonies were largely left to govern themselves. As a result of this new policy, as well as the ideals of liberty which had been borne out of the Glorious Revolution, there emerged new government systems (as exemplified by William Penn's Frame of Government of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Charter of 1691); religious institutions (as exemplified by the democratic nature of Congregational Protestantism in New England and the First Great Awakening across the colonies); and occasionally, attitudes towards slavery (as exemplified by Massachusetts and, at least initially, Georgia banning the practice), although the latter of these was less common. This British policy reverted significantly after the French and Indian War. The British political establishment, especially after taking massive swathes of land from the former territories of New France, pursued a policy of greater control over colonial affairs, prompting the Thirteen Colonies to seek restoration of greater autonomy from Britain. One Patriot, Capt. Levi Preston of Danvers, Massachusetts, was asked why the Americans rebelled against England, and he responded: "...we always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn't mean we should."

1651–1763: Evolution of colonial policy

The Thirteen Colonies were established in the 17th century as part of the English Empire and became parts of the British Empire after the union of England and Scotland in 1707.

The development of a unique American identity can be traced to the English Civil War (1642–1651) and its aftermath. In that period the Puritan colonies of New England supported the Commonwealth government responsible for the execution of King Charles I. After the Stuart Restoration of 1660, Massachusetts did not recognize Charles II as the legitimate king for more than a year after his coronation. In King Philip's War (1675–1678), the New England colonies fought a coalition of a few Native American tribes without military assistance from England, thereby contributing to the development of a uniquely American identity separate from that of the British people.

In the 1680s, Charles and his brother, James II, attempted to bring New England under direct English control. The colonists fiercely opposed this, and the Crown nullified their colonial charters in response. In 1686, James finalized these efforts by consolidating the separate New England colonies along with New York and New Jersey into the Dominion of New England. Edmund Andros was appointed royal governor and tasked with governing the new Dominion under his direct rule. Colonial assemblies and town meetings were restricted, new local taxes were levied, and rights were abridged. Dominion rule triggered bitter resentment throughout New England. When James tried to rule without Parliament, the English aristocracy removed him from power in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. This was followed by the 1689 Boston revolt, which overthrew Dominion rule. Colonial governments reasserted their control after the revolt. The new monarchs, William and Mary, granted new charters to the individual New England colonies.

After the Glorious Revolution, the British Empire became a constitutional monarchy with sovereignty in the King-in-Parliament. Aristocrats inherited seats in the House of Lords, while the gentry and merchants controlled the elected House of Commons. The king ruled through cabinet ministers who depended on majority support in the Commons to govern effectively. British subjects on both sides of the Atlantic proudly claimed that the unwritten British constitution, with its guarantees of the rights of Englishmen, protected personal liberty better than any other government.

1764–1766: Sugar Act and Stamp Act Crisis leads to organized resistance

According to historian Middlekauff, "the need for money played a part in every important decision made by Prime Minister George Grenville regarding the colonies—and for that matter by the ministries that followed up to 1776." The national debt had grown to £133 million with annual debt payments of £5 million (out of an £8 million annual budget). Stationing troops in North America on a permanent basis would cost another £360,000 a year. On a per capita basis, Grenville claimed Americans paid 1 shilling in taxes directly to the empire (not including local taxes) compared to 26 shillings paid by the English. The enslaved, a near majority of the population in some colonies, did not pay any taxes and therefore skewed this comparison.

On March 9, 1764, Grenville proposed the Sugar Act, which was enacted by Parliament in April. It lowered the duty on foreign molasses from 6 pence to 3 pence per gallon. The Treasury believed it would generate £78,000. To ensure this money could be collected, the act strengthened efforts against smuggling. Customs officials could choose whether to prosecute violators in colonial courts or vice admiralty courts. Unlike colonial courts where there was a presumption of innocence and cases were decided by local juries who frequently acquitted accused smugglers, vice admiralty courts operated on a presumption of guilt and cases were decided by Crown-appointed judges. On the same day he introduced the Sugar Act in Parliament, Grenville stated it might be necessary to levy stamp duties on the colonies to raise additional revenue, but he delayed action to give the colonies time to propose another way to raise the revenue.

Parliament passed the Stamp Act in March 1765, which imposed direct taxes on the colonies for the first time. All official documents, newspapers, almanacs, and pamphlets were required to have the stamps—even decks of playing cards. The colonists did not object that the taxes were high; they were actually low. They objected to their lack of representation in the Parliament, which gave them no voice concerning legislation that affected them, such as the tax, thereby violating the unwritten English constitution. This grievance was overly simplified with the slogan "No taxation without representation". Shortly following adoption of the Stamp Act, factions of the Sons of Liberty formed in each colony, and began using public demonstrations, boycotts, and threats of violence to ensure that the offending British policies became unenforceable. In Boston, the Sons of Liberty burned the records of the vice admiralty court and looted the home of chief justice Thomas Hutchinson. Several legislatures called for united action, and nine colonies sent delegates to the Stamp Act Congress in New York City in October. Moderates led by John Dickinson drew up a Declaration of Rights and Grievances stating in part that the colonists were equal to all other British subjects and that, among other abuses, taxes passed without representation in Parliament violated their rights as Englishmen.

1767–1773: Townshend Acts, Tea Act and the escalation of violence

In 1767, the British Parliament passed the Townshend Acts, which placed duties on several staple goods, including paper, glass, and tea, and established a Board of Customs in Boston to more rigorously execute trade regulations. The new taxes were enacted on the belief that Americans only objected to internal taxes and not to external taxes such as custom duties. John Dickinson however, in his widely read pamphlet Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, argued against the constitutionality of the acts because their purpose was to raise revenue and not to regulate trade. Colonists responded to the taxes by organizing new boycotts of British goods. These boycotts were less effective, however, as the goods taxed by the Townshend Acts were widely used.

In February 1768, the Assembly of Massachusetts Bay Colony issued a circular letter to the other colonies urging them to coordinate resistance. The governor dissolved the assembly when it refused to rescind the letter. In June 1768 a riot broke out in Boston over the seizure of the sloop Liberty, owned by John Hancock, for alleged smuggling. Customs officials were forced to flee, prompting the British to deploy troops to Boston. A Boston town meeting declared that no obedience was due to parliamentary laws and called for the convening of a convention. A convention assembled but only issued a mild protest before dissolving itself. In January 1769, Parliament responded to the unrest by reactivating the Treason Act 1543 which called for subjects outside the realm to face trials for treason in England. The governor of Massachusetts was instructed to collect evidence of said treason, and the threat caused widespread outrage, though it was not carried out.

On March 5, 1770, a large crowd gathered around a group of British soldiers on a Boston street. The crowd grew threatening, throwing snowballs, rocks, and debris at them. One soldier was clubbed and fell. There was no order to fire, but the soldiers panicked and fired into the crowd. They hit 11 people; three civilians died of wounds at the scene of the shooting, and two died shortly after. The event quickly came to be called the Boston Massacre. The soldiers were tried and acquitted (defended by American patriot John Adams), but the widespread descriptions soon began to turn colonial sentiment against the British. This accelerated the downward spiral in the relationship between Britain and the province of Massachusetts, and other colonies were becoming increasingly empathetic.

1774–1775: Intolerable Acts and the unifying First Continental Congress

The British government responded by passing four laws that came to be known as the Intolerable Acts, further darkening colonial opinion towards England. The first was the Massachusetts Government Act which altered the Massachusetts charter and restricted town meetings. The second was the Administration of Justice Act which ordered that all British soldiers to be tried were to be arraigned in Britain, not in the colonies. The third was the Boston Port Act, which closed the port of Boston until the British had been compensated for the tea lost in the Boston Tea Party. The fourth was the Quartering Act of 1774, which allowed royal governors to house British troops in the homes of citizens without permission of the owner.

In response, "Starting in August 1774, each time a court was slated to meet in some Massachusetts town, great numbers of angry citizens made sure it did not". The next month Patriots issued the Suffolk Resolves and formed an alternative shadow cabinet known as the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, which began training militia outside British-occupied Boston. In September 1774, the First Continental Congress convened in Pennsylvania, consisting of representatives from each colony, to serve as a vehicle for deliberation and collective action. During secret debates, conservative Joseph Galloway proposed the creation of a colonial Parliament that would be able to approve or disapprove acts of the British Parliament, but his idea was tabled in a vote of 6 to 5 and was subsequently removed from the record. Congress called for a boycott beginning on December 1, 1774, of all British goods; it was enforced by new local committees authorized by the Congress that were largely built upon the earlier Committees of Correspondence. It also began coordinating Patriot resistance by militias in each colony, including many veterans who had gained military experience in the French and Indian War. For the first time, the Patriots were armed and unified against Parliament.

Military hostilities begin

King George III declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion in February 1775 and the British garrison received orders to seize the rebels' weapons and arrest their leaders, resulting in the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. The Patriots assembled a militia 15,000 strong and laid siege to Boston, occupied by 6500 British soldiers. The Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia on June 14, 1775. The congress was divided on the best course of action. They authorized formation of the Continental Army, appointing George Washington as its commander-in-chief, while producing the Olive Branch Petition in which they attempted to come to an accord with King George. The king, however, would issue a Proclamation of Rebellion in August which declared that all the states were "in rebellion" and the members of Congress were traitors. Meanwhile, the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775 was a British victory—but at a great cost: about 1,000 British casualties from a garrison of about 6,000, as compared to 500 American casualties from a much larger force.

As Benjamin Franklin wrote to Joseph Priestley in October 1775: Britain, at the expense of three millions, has killed 150 Yankees this campaign, which is £20,000 a head ... During the same time, 60,000 children have been born in America. From these data his mathematical head will easily calculate the time and expense necessary to kill us all.

In the winter of 1775, the Americans invaded northeastern Quebec under generals Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery. The attack was a failure; many Americans were killed, captured, or died of smallpox.

From rebellion to revolution

Following the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775, the Patriots had control of Massachusetts outside Boston's city limits, and the Loyalists suddenly found themselves on the defensive with no protection from the British army. In each of the Thirteen Colonies, American patriots overthrew their existing governments, closed courts, and drove out British colonial officials. They held elected conventions and established their own legislatures, which existed outside any legal parameters established by the British. New constitutions were drawn up in each state to supersede royal charters. They proclaimed that they were now states, no longer colonies.

Creating new state constitutions

On January 5, 1776, New Hampshire ratified the first state constitution. In May 1776, Congress voted to suppress all forms of Crown authority, to be replaced by locally created authority. New Jersey, South Carolina, and Virginia created their constitutions before July 4. Rhode Island and Connecticut simply took their existing royal charters and deleted all references to the Crown. The new states were all committed to republicanism, with no inherited offices. On May 26, 1776, John Adams wrote James Sullivan from Philadelphia, warning against extending the franchise too far:

Depend upon it, sir, it is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy and altercation, as would be opened by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters. There will be no end of it. New claims will arise. Women will demand a vote. Lads from twelve to twenty one will think their rights not enough attended to, and every man, who has not a farthing, will demand an equal voice with any other in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks, to one common level[.]

The resulting constitutions in states, including those of Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia featured:

Property qualifications for voting and even more substantial requirements for elected positions (though New York and Maryland lowered property qualifications)

Bicameral legislatures, with the upper house as a check on the lower

Strong governors with veto power over the legislature and substantial appointment authority

Few or no restraints on individuals holding multiple positions in government

The continuation of state-established religion

In Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New Hampshire, the resulting constitutions embodied:

Declaration of Independence

In March 1776, aided by the fortification of Dorchester Heights with cannons recently captured at Fort Ticonderoga, the Continental Army led by George Washington forced the British to evacuate Boston. The revolutionaries now fully controlled all thirteen states and ready to declare joint independence. There still were many Loyalists, but they were no longer in control anywhere by July 1776, and all of the royal officials had fled.

In April 1776, the North Carolina Provincial Congress issued the Halifax Resolves explicitly authorizing its delegates to vote for independence. By June, nine state legislatures supported independence from Britain, and Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New York followed. Richard Henry Lee was instructed by the Virginia legislature to propose independence, and he did so on June 7, 1776.

Gathered at Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, later renamed Independence Hall, 56 of the nation's Founding Fathers representing the United Colonies adopted and issued to King George III the Declaration of Independence. It had been drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, and was edited and presented by the Committee of Five which was charged with authoring it. The Congress struck several provisions of the Committee's draft, and then adopted it unanimously on July 4. The Declaration embodied universal rights expressed through the political philosophies of liberalism and republicanism, rejected monarchy and aristocracy, and famously proclaimed that "all men are created equal". What had begun as a rebellion demanding the rights of Englishmen had now evolved into a revolution to overthrow and replace the political and social order in America based on universal rights.

“Perpetual Union”

With the new state constitutions and the issuance of the Declaration of Independence, each former colony began operating as an independent and sovereign state. The next step was to form a union to facilitate international relations and alliances.

On November 5, 1777, the Congress approved the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union and sent it to each state for ratification. The Congress immediately began operating under the Articles' terms, providing a structure of shared sovereignty during prosecution of the Revolutionary War. The Articles were fully ratified on March 1, 1781. At that point, the Continental Congress was dissolved and a new government of the United States in Congress Assembled took its place the following day, with Samuel Huntington leading the Congress as presiding officer. It remained a unicameral body, where each state retained one vote.

Defending the revolution

British return: 1776–1777

According to British historian Jeremy Black, the British had significant advantages, including a highly trained army, the world's largest navy, and an efficient system of public finance that could easily fund the war. However, they seriously misunderstood the depth of support for the American Patriot position, misinterpreting the situation as merely a large-scale riot. The British government believed that they could overawe the Americans by sending a large military and naval force:

“Convinced that the Revolution was the work of a full few miscreants who had rallied an armed rabble to their cause, they expected that the revolutionaries would be intimidated .... Then the vast majority of Americans, who were loyal but cowed by the terroristic tactics ... would rise up, kick out the rebels, and restore loyal government in each colony.”

In the Siege of Boston, Washington forced the British out of the city in the spring of 1776, and neither the British nor the Loyalists controlled any significant areas. The British, however, were amassing forces at their naval base at Halifax, Nova Scotia. They returned in force in July 1776, landing in New York and defeating Washington's Continental Army toe-to-toe in August at the Battle of Brooklyn, the largest battle of the war. Following that victory, and poised to take New York City, they requested a meeting with representatives from Congress to negotiate an end to hostilities.

A delegation including John Adams and Benjamin Franklin met British admiral Richard Howe on Staten Island in New York Harbor on September 11 in what became known as the Staten Island Peace Conference. Howe demanded that the Americans retract the Declaration of Independence, which they refused to do, and negotiations ended. The British then seized New York City and nearly captured Washington's army. They made the city their main political and military base of operations, holding the strategic harbor and port until November 1783. The city became the destination for Loyalist refugees and a focal point of Washington's intelligence network.

The British also took New Jersey, pushing the Continental Army into Pennsylvania. Washington crossed the Delaware River back into New Jersey in a surprise attack in late December 1776 and defeated the Hessian and British garrisons at Trenton and Princeton, thereby regaining control of most of New Jersey. The victories gave an important boost to Patriots at a time when morale was flagging and enlistments were ending, and they have become iconic events of the war.

Prisoners

On August 23, 1775, George III declared Americans to be traitors to the Crown if they took up arms against royal authority. There were thousands of British and Hessian soldiers in American hands following their surrender at the Battles of Saratoga. Lord Germain took a hard line, but the British generals on American soil never held treason trials, and instead treated captured American soldiers as prisoners of war. The dilemma was that tens of thousands of Loyalists were under American control and American retaliation would have been easy. The British built much of their strategy around using these Loyalists. The British maltreated the prisoners whom they held, resulting in more American deaths in the prisons than all the American battlefield mortalities, combined. At the end of the war, both sides released their surviving prisoners.

American alliances after 1778

The capture of a British army at Saratoga encouraged the French to formally enter the war in support of Congress, and Benjamin Franklin negotiated a permanent military alliance in early 1778; France thus became the first foreign nation to officially recognize the Declaration of Independence. On February 6, 1778, the United States and France signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance. William Pitt spoke out in Parliament urging Britain to make peace with the Americans and to unite against France, while British politicians who had sympathized with colonial grievances now turned against the Americans for allying with Britain's rival and enemy.

The Spanish and the Dutch became allies of the French in 1779 and 1780 respectively, forcing the British to fight a global war without major allies, and requiring it to slip through a combined blockade of the Atlantic. The Dutch Republic, also at war with Britain, was the next country after France to sign a treaty with the United States, on October 8, 1782. On April 3, 1783, Ambassador Extraordinary Gustaf Philip Creutz, representing King Gustav III of Sweden, and Benjamin Franklin, signed a Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the U.S.

1778–1783: the British move south

Britain began to view the American Revolutionary War as merely one front in a wider war, and the British chose to withdraw troops from America to reinforce the British colonies in the Caribbean, which were under threat of Spanish or French invasion. British commander Sir Henry Clinton evacuated Philadelphia and returned to New York City. Washington intercepted him in the Battle of Monmouth Court House, the last major battle fought in the north. After an inconclusive engagement, the British retreated to New York City. The northern war subsequently became a stalemate, as the focus of attention shifted to the smaller southern theater.

The British Royal Navy blockaded ports and held New York City for the duration of the war, and other cities for brief periods, but failed in their effort to destroy Washington's forces. The British strategy now concentrated on a campaign in the southern states. Due to a lack of regular troops at their disposal compared to the Americans, the British commanders saw the "southern strategy" as a more viable plan. They perceived the Southern Colonies as strongly Loyalist, with a large population of recent British immigrants, and large numbers of slaves who might be tempted to run away from their Patriot masters to join the British and gain their freedom.

Beginning in late December 1778, the British captured Savannah and controlled the Georgia coastline. In 1780, they launched a fresh invasion and took Charleston. A significant victory at the Battle of Camden meant that royal forces soon controlled most of Georgia and South Carolina. The British set up a network of forts inland, hoping that the Loyalists would rally to the flag. Not enough Loyalists turned out, however, and the British had to fight their way north into North Carolina and Virginia with a severely weakened army. Behind them, much of the territory that they had already captured dissolved into a chaotic guerrilla war, fought predominantly between bands of Loyalists and American militia, which negated many of the gains that the British had previously made.

The British army under Cornwallis marched to Yorktown, Virginia, where they expected to be rescued by a British fleet. The fleet did arrive, but so did a larger French fleet. The French were victorious in the Battle of the Chesapeake, and the British fleet returned to New York for reinforcements, leaving Cornwallis trapped. In October 1781, the British surrendered their second invading army of the war under a siege by the combined French and Continental armies commanded by Washington.

End of the war

Washington did not know if or when the British might reopen hostilities after Yorktown. They still had 26,000 troops occupying New York City, Charleston, and Savannah, together with a powerful fleet. The French army and navy departed, so the Americans were on their own in 1782–83. The American treasury was empty, and the unpaid soldiers were growing restive, almost to the point of mutiny or possible coup d'etat. Washington dispelled the unrest among officers of the Newburgh Conspiracy in 1783, and Congress subsequently created the promise of a five years bonus for all officers.

Historians continue to debate whether the odds were long or short for American victory. John E. Ferling says that the odds were so long that the American victory was "almost a miracle". On the other hand, Joseph Ellis says that the odds favored the Americans, and asks whether there ever was any realistic chance for the British to win. He argues that this opportunity came only once, in the summer of 1776, where Admiral Howe and his brother General Howe "missed several opportunities to destroy the Continental Army .... Chance, luck, and even the vagaries of the weather played crucial roles." Ellis's point is that the strategic and tactical decisions of the Howes were fatally flawed because they underestimated the challenges posed by the Patriots. Ellis concludes that, once the Howe brothers failed, the opportunity "would never come again" for a British victory.

Public support for the conflict had never been strong in Britain, where many sympathized with the Americans, but now it reached a new low. King George wanted to fight on, but his supporters lost control of Parliament and the British launched no further offensives in America on the eastern seaboard.

Paris peace treaty

During negotiations in Paris, the American delegation discovered that France supported American independence but no territorial gains, hoping to confine the new nation to the area east of the Appalachian Mountains. The Americans opened direct secret negotiations with London, cutting out the French. British Prime Minister Lord Shelburne was in charge of the British negotiations, and he saw a chance to make the United States a valuable economic partner, facilitating trade and investment opportunities. The US obtained all the land east of the Mississippi River, including southern Canada below the Great Lakes, but Spain took control of Florida from the British. It gained fishing rights off Canadian coasts, and agreed to allow British merchants and Loyalists to recover their property. Prime Minister Shelburne foresaw highly profitable two-way trade between Britain and the rapidly growing United States, which did come to pass. The blockade was lifted and American merchants were free to trade with any nation anywhere in the world.

The British largely abandoned their Indigenous allies, who were not a party to this treaty and did not recognize it until they were defeated militarily by the United States. However, the British did sell them munitions and maintained forts in American territory until the Jay Treaty of 1795.

Finance

Britain's war against the Americans, the French, and the Spanish cost about £100 million. The Treasury borrowed 40 percent of the money that it needed. Britain had a sophisticated financial system based on the wealth of thousands of landowners who supported the government, together with banks and financiers in London. In London the British had relatively little difficulty financing their war, keeping their suppliers and soldiers paid, and hiring tens of thousands of German soldiers.

In sharp contrast, Congress and the American states had no end of difficulty financing the war. In 1775, there was at most 12 million dollars in gold in the colonies, not nearly enough to cover current transactions, let alone finance a major war. The British made the situation much worse by imposing a tight blockade on every American port, which cut off almost all trade. One partial solution was to rely on volunteer support from militiamen and donations from patriotic citizens. Another was to delay actual payments, pay soldiers and suppliers in depreciated currency, and promise that it would be made good after the war. Indeed, the soldiers and officers were given land grants in 1783 to cover the wages that they had earned but had not been paid during the war.

Starting in 1776, the Congress sought to raise money by loans from wealthy individuals, promising to redeem the bonds after the war. The bonds were redeemed in 1791 at face value, but the scheme raised little money because Americans had little specie, and many of the richest merchants were supporters of the Crown. Beginning in 1777, Congress repeatedly asked the states to provide money, but it had no system of taxation to require funds, and the states were of little help. By 1780, Congress was making requisitions for specific supplies of corn, beef, pork, and other necessities, an inefficient system which barely kept the army alive.

Congress used four main methods to cover the cost of the war, which cost about 66 million dollars in specie (gold and silver). Significantly, the French secretly supplied the Americans with money, gunpowder, and munitions to weaken Great Britain; the subsidies continued when France entered the war in 1778, and the French government and Paris bankers lent large sums to the American war effort. Congress also made issues of paper money, known colloquially as "Continental Dollars", in 1775–1780 and in 1780–1781. The first issue amounted to 242 million dollars. This paper money would supposedly be redeemed for state taxes, but the holders were eventually paid off in 1791 at the rate of one cent on the dollar. By 1780, the paper money was so devalued that the phrase "not worth a Continental" became synonymous with valueless. The skyrocketing inflation was a hardship on the few people who had fixed incomes, but 90 percent of the people were farmers and were not directly affected by it. Debtors benefited by paying off their debts with depreciated paper. The greatest burden was borne by the soldiers of the Continental Army whose wages were usually paid late and depreciated in value every month, weakening their morale and adding to the hardships of their families.

"A more perfect union"

The war ended in 1783 and was followed by a period of slow economic recovery that accompanied the end of mercantilism and the resumption and expansion of worldwide trade. The national government was still operating under the Articles of Confederation and settled the issue of the western territories, which the states ceded to Congress. American settlers moved rapidly into those areas, with Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee becoming states in the 1790s.

However, the national government had no authority to tax, no money either to pay the war debts owed to European nations and the private banks, or to pay Americans who had been given millions of dollars of promissory notes for supplies during the war. Nationalists led by Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and other veterans feared that the new nation was too fragile to withstand an international war, or even the repetition of internal revolts such as the Shays's Rebellion of 1786 in Massachusetts. They convinced the Congress of the Confederation to call the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. The Convention adopted a new Constitution which provided for a republic with authority to tax and a much stronger national government in a federal framework, including an effective executive in a check-and-balance system with the judiciary and legislature. The Constitution was ratified in 1788, after a fierce debate in the states over the proposed new government. The new administration under President George Washington took office in New York in March 1789 and the new bicameral Congress of the United States was seated. James Madison spearheaded Congressional legislation proposing amendments to the Constitution as assurances to those cautious about federal power, guaranteeing many of the inalienable rights that formed a foundation for the revolution. Rhode Island was the final state to ratify the Constitution in 1790, the first ten amendments were ratified in 1791 and became known as the United States Bill of Rights.

National debt

The national debt fell into three categories after the Revolutionary War. The first was the $12 million owed to foreigners, mostly money borrowed from France. There was general agreement to pay the foreign debts at full value. The national government owed $40 million and state governments owed $25 million to Americans who had sold food, horses, and supplies to the Patriot forces. There were also other debts which consisted of promissory notes issued during the war to soldiers, merchants, and farmers who accepted these payments on the premise that the new nation would create a government that would pay these debts eventually.

The Americans struggled to pay off the French loans; they ceased making interest payments to France in 1785 and defaulted on installments due in 1787. In 1790, however, they resumed regular payments on their debts to the French. The war expenses of the individual states added up to $114 million, compared to $37 million by the central government. In 1790, Congress combined the remaining state debts with the foreign and domestic debts into one national debt totaling $80 million at the recommendation of first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. Everyone received face value for wartime certificates, so that the national honor would be sustained and the national credit established.

Accounts with the French government were settled in 1795 when James Swan, an American banker acting as agent for France, helped refinance the United States’ remaining debt to France. The American government issued bonds in the amount of the remaining debt and sold them publicly, with the proceeds going to France through Swan. The United States no longer owed money to foreign governments, although it continued to owe money to private investors both in the United States and in Europe.. This allowed the young United States to place itself on a sound financial footing.

Ideology and factions

The population of the Thirteen States was not homogeneous in political views and attitudes. Loyalties and allegiances varied widely within regions and communities and even within families, and sometimes shifted during the Revolution.

Ideology behind the revolution

The American Enlightenment was a critical precursor of the American Revolution. Chief among the ideas of the American Enlightenment were the concepts of natural law, natural rights, consent of the governed, self-determination, equality under the law,

liberalism, republicanism, and intolerance of political corruption. A growing number of American colonists embraced these views and fostered an intellectual environment which led to a new sense of political and social identity.

John Locke is often referred to as "the philosopher of the American Revolution" due to his work in the Social Contract and Natural Rights theories that underpinned the Revolution's political ideology. Locke's Two Treatises of Government published in 1689 was especially influential. He argued that all humans were created equally free, and governments therefore needed the "consent of the governed". This contrasted and conflicted sharply with the British system of inherited political power and hierarchy. In late eighteenth-century America, belief was still widespread in "equality by creation" and "rights by creation". Locke's ideas on liberty influenced the political thinking of English writers such as John Trenchard, Thomas Gordon, and Benjamin Hoadly, whose political ideas in turn also had a strong influence on the American Patriots. His work also inspired symbols used in the American Revolution such as the "Appeal to Heaven" found on the Pine Tree Flag, which alludes to Locke's concept of the right of revolution.

The theory of the social contract influenced the belief among many of the Founders that the right of the people to overthrow their leaders, should those leaders betray the historic rights of Englishmen, was one of the "natural rights" of man. The Americans heavily relied on Montesquieu's analysis of the wisdom of the "balanced" British Constitution (mixed government) in writing the state and national constitutions.

The American interpretation of republicanism was inspired by the Whig party in Great Britain which openly criticized the corruption within the British government. Americans were increasingly embracing republican values, seeing Britain as corrupt and hostile to American interests. Radical Whig ideology profoundly influenced colonial American political philosophy with its love of liberty and opposition to tyrannical government. The American revolutionaries associated political corruption with ostentatious luxury and inherited aristocracy.

Class and psychology of the factions

Historians in the early 20th century such as J. Franklin Jameson examined the class composition of the Patriot cause, looking for evidence of a class war inside the revolution. More recent historians have largely abandoned that interpretation, emphasizing instead the high level of ideological unity. Both Loyalists and Patriots were a "mixed lot", but ideological demands always came first.

The revolution became a personal issue for the king, fueled by his growing belief that British leniency would be taken as weakness by the Americans. He also sincerely believed that he was defending Britain's constitution against usurpers, rather than opposing patriots fighting for their natural rights. King George III is often accused of obstinately trying to keep Great Britain at war with the revolutionaries in America, despite the opinions of his own ministers. In the words of the British historian George Otto Trevelyan, the King was determined "never to acknowledge the independence of the Americans, and to punish their contumacy by the indefinite prolongation of a war which promised to be eternal." The king wanted to "keep the rebels harassed, anxious, and poor, until the day when, by a natural and inevitable process, discontent and disappointment were converted into penitence and remorse". Later historians defend George by saying in the context of the times no king would willingly surrender such a large territory, and his conduct was far less ruthless than contemporary monarchs in Europe. After the surrender of a British army at Saratoga, both Parliament and the British people were largely in favor of the war; recruitment ran at high levels and although political opponents were vocal, they remained a small minority.

With the early setbacks in America, Lord North asked to transfer power to Lord Chatham, whom he thought more capable, but George refused to do so; he suggested instead that Chatham serve as a subordinate minister in North's administration, but Chatham refused. He died later in the same year. Lord North was allied to the "King's Friends" faction in Parliament and believed George III had the right to exercise extensive powers. In early 1778, Britain's chief rival France signed a treaty of alliance with the United States, and the confrontation soon escalated from a "rebellion" to something that has been characterized as "world war". The French fleet was able to outrun the British naval blockade of the Mediterranean and sailed to North America. The conflict now affected North America, Europe and India. The United States and France were joined by Spain in 1779 and the Dutch Republic, while Britain had no major allies of its own, except for the Loyalist minority in America and German auxiliaries (i.e. Hessians). Lord Gower and Lord Weymouth both resigned from the government. Lord North again requested that he also be allowed to resign, but he stayed in office at George III's insistence. Opposition to the costly war was increasing, and in June 1780 contributed to disturbances in London known as the Gordon riots.

Other participants

In early 1776, France set up a major program of aid to the Americans, and the Spanish secretly added funds. Each country spent one million "livres tournaises" to buy munitions. A dummy corporation run by Pierre Beaumarchais concealed their activities. American Patriots obtained some munitions from the Dutch Republic as well, through the French and Spanish ports in the West Indies. Heavy expenditures and a weak taxation system pushed France toward bankruptcy.

In 1777, Charles François Adrien le Paulmier, Chevalier d'Annemours, acting as a secret agent for France, made sure General George Washington was privy to his mission. He followed Congress around for the next two years, reporting what he observed back to France. The Treaty of Alliance between the French and the Americans followed in 1778, which led to more French money, matériel and troops being sent to the United States.

Spain did not officially recognize the United States, but it was a French ally and it separately declared war on Britain on June 21, 1779. Bernardo de Gálvez, general of the Spanish forces in New Spain bordering the Americans, also served as governor of Louisiana. He led an expedition of colonial troops to capture Florida from the British and to keep open a vital conduit for supplies going to the Americans.

Ethnic Germans served on both sides of the American Revolutionary War. As George III was also the Elector of Hanover, many supported the Loyalist cause and served as allies of the Kingdom of Great Britain; most notably rented auxiliary troops from German states such as the Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel.

American Patriots tended to represent such troops as mercenaries in propaganda against the British Crown. Even American historians followed suit, in spite of Colonial-era jurists drawing a distinction between auxiliaries and mercenaries, with auxiliaries serving their prince when sent to the aid of another prince, and mercenaries serving a foreign prince as individuals. By this distinction the troops which served in the American Revolution were auxiliaries.

Other German individuals came to assist the American revolutionaries, most notably Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who served as a general in the Continental Army and is credited with professionalizing that force, but most Germans who served were already colonists. Von Steuben's native Prussia joined the League of Armed Neutrality, and King Frederick II of Prussia was well appreciated in the United States for his support early in the war. He expressed interest in opening trade with the United States and bypassing English ports, and allowed an American agent to buy arms in Prussia. Frederick predicted American success, and promised to recognize the United States and American diplomats once France did the same. Prussia also interfered in the recruiting efforts of Russia and neighboring German states when they raised armies to send to the Americas, and Frederick II forbade enlistment for the American war within Prussia. All Prussian roads were denied to troops from Anhalt-Zerbst, which delayed reinforcements that Howe had hoped to receive during the winter of 1777–1778.

Effects of the revolution

After the Revolution, genuinely democratic politics became possible in the former American colonies. The rights of the people were incorporated into state constitutions. Concepts of liberty, consent of the governed, individual rights, equality and due process under the law, and intolerance of corruption became incorporated as core values of liberal republicanism. The new United States government was empowered to undertake its own project of territorial expansion and settler colonialism. The greatest challenge to the old order in Europe was the challenge to inherited political power and the democratic idea that government rests on the consent of the governed. The example of the first successful revolution against a European empire, and the first successful establishment of a republican form of democratically elected government without monarchy or any inherited political authority, provided a model for many other colonial peoples who realized that they too could break away and become self-governing nations with directly elected representative government.

Losing the war and the Thirteen Colonies was a shock to Britain. The war revealed the limitations of Britain's fiscal-military state when they discovered that they suddenly faced powerful enemies with no allies, and they were dependent on extended and vulnerable transatlantic lines of communication. The defeat heightened dissension and escalated political antagonism to the king's ministers. The king went so far as to draft letters of abdication, although they were never delivered. Inside Parliament, the primary concern changed from fears of an over-mighty monarch to the issues of representation, parliamentary reform, and government retrenchment. Unable to accept loss of the war and the colonies as possibly due to anything else but widespread institutional corruption, reformers sought to root it out, and the result was a crisis from 1776 to 1783. The crisis ended after 1784 confidence in the British constitution was restored during the administration of Prime Minister William Pitt.

Interpretations

John Adams concluded in 1818:

The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people .... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.

The American Revolution ended an age of monarchy, and it began a new age of freedom. As a result of the growing wave started by the Revolution, there are now more people around the world living in freedom than ever before, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the world's population. Interpretations vary concerning the effect of the Revolution. Historians such as Bernard Bailyn, Gordon Wood, and Edmund Morgan view it as a unique and radical event which produced deep changes and had a profound effect on world affairs, such as an increasing belief in the principles of the Enlightenment. These were demonstrated by a leadership and government that espoused protection of natural rights, and a system of laws chosen by the people. John Murrin, by contrast, argues that the definition of "the people" at that time was mostly restricted to free men who passed a property qualification.

Gordon Wood states:

The American Revolution was integral to the changes occurring in American society, politics and culture .... These changes were radical, and they were extensive .... The Revolution not only radically changed the personal and social relationships of people, including the position of women, but also destroyed aristocracy as it'd been understood in the Western world for at least two millennia.

Edmund Morgan has argued that, in terms of long-term impact on American society and values:

The Revolution did revolutionize social relations. It did displace the deference, the patronage, the social divisions that had determined the way people viewed one another for centuries and still view one another in much of the world. It did give to ordinary people a pride and power, not to say an arrogance, that have continued to shock visitors from less favored lands. It may have left standing a host of inequalities that have troubled us ever since. But it generated the egalitarian view of human society that makes them troubling and makes our world so different from the one in which the revolutionists had grown up.

Inspiring other independence movements and revolutions

The first shot of the American Revolution at the Battle of Lexington and Concord is referred to as the "shot heard 'round the world". The Revolutionary War victory not only established the United States as the first nation founded on the consent of the governed, equality under the law, and modern constitutional republic, but marked the transition from an age of monarchy to a new age of freedom by inspiring similar movements worldwide. The American Revolution was the first of the Atlantic Revolutions: followed most notably by the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, and the Latin American wars of independence. Aftershocks contributed to rebellions in Ireland, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Netherlands.

The U.S. Constitution, drafted shortly after independence, remains the world's oldest written constitution, and has been emulated by other countries, in some cases verbatim. Some historians and scholars argue that the subsequent wave of independence and revolutionary movements has contributed to the continued expansion of democratic government; 144 countries, representing two-third of the world's population, are full or partially democracies of some form.

The Revolution had a strong, immediate influence in Great Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, and France. Many British and Irish Whigs in Parliament spoke glowingly in favor of the American cause. In Ireland, the Protestant minority who controlled Ireland demanded self-rule. Under the leadership of Henry Grattan, the Irish Patriot Party forced the reversal of mercantilist prohibitions against trade with other British colonies. The King and his cabinet in London could not risk another rebellion, and so made a series of concessions to the Patriot faction in Dublin. Armed volunteer units of the Protestant Ascendancy were set up ostensibly to protect against an invasion from France. As had been in colonial America, so too in Ireland now the King no longer had a monopoly of lethal force. By 1798, the Irish were ready for a republican uprising.

For many Europeans, such as the Marquis de Lafayette, who later were active during the era of the French Revolution, the American case along with the Dutch Revolt (end of the 16th century) and the 17th century English Civil War, was among the examples of overthrowing an old regime. The American Declaration of Independence influenced the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789. The spirit of the Declaration of Independence led to laws ending slavery in all the Northern states and the Northwest Territory, with New Jersey the last in 1804. States such as New Jersey and New York adopted gradual emancipation, which kept some people as slaves for more than two decades longer.

Status of African Americans

During the revolution, the contradiction between the Patriots' professed ideals of liberty and the institution of slavery generated increased scrutiny of the latter. As early as 1764, the Boston Patriot leader James Otis, Jr. declared that all men, "white or black", were "by the law of nature" born free. Anti-slavery calls became more common in the early 1770s. In 1773, Benjamin Rush, the future signer of the Declaration of Independence, called on "advocates for American liberty" to oppose slavery. Slavery became an issue that had to be addressed. As historian Christopher L. Brown put it, slavery "had never been on the agenda in a serious way before," but the Revolution "forced it to be a public question from there forward."

In the late 1760s and early 1770s, several colonies, including Massachusetts and Virginia, attempted to restrict the slave trade, but were prevented from doing so by royally appointed governors. In 1774, as part of a broader non-importation movement aimed at Britain, the Continental Congress called on all the colonies to ban the importation of enslaved people, and the colonies passed acts doing so.

In the first two decades after the American Revolution, state legislatures and individuals took actions to free the enslaved, in part based on Revolutionary ideals. Northern states passed new constitutions that contained language about equal rights or specifically abolished slavery; some states, such as New York and New Jersey, where slavery was more widespread, passed laws by the end of the 18th century to abolish slavery by a gradual method. By 1804, all the northern states had passed laws outlawing slavery, either immediately or over time.

No southern state abolished slavery. However, enslavers could grant freedom to individuals they enslaved. Numerous slaveholders who freed their enslaved cited Revolutionary ideals in their documents; others freed their enslaved as a reward for service. Records also suggest that some slaveholders were freeing their own mixed-race children, born to enslaved mothers. The number of free Blacks as a proportion of the Black population in the upper South increased from less than 1 percent to nearly 10 percent between 1790 and 1810 as a result of these actions. Nevertheless, slavery continued in the South, where it was protected as a "peculiar institution", setting the stage for future sectional conflict between North and South over the issue.

Status of American women

While women were entering a period in which they found themselves gaining more identity within society, they were still very much considered to be subordinate to men, as their role remained being a good wife and mother. Having a woman who was dressed well for her role as a good wife and mother, as well as fitting the social role, was a symbol of not only status, but a family devoted to the republic. As they continued to nurture social and political partnerships, their role in enabling the success of the revolution emphasized their changing role in society – leading to the post-revolutionary reconstruction of gender ideology.

In addition, the democratic ideals of the Revolution inspired changes in the roles of women. Patriot women married to Loyalists who left the state could get a divorce and obtain control of the ex-husband's property. Abigail Adams expressed to her husband, the president, the desire of women to have a place in the new republic: I desire you would remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands.

As discussions rose regarding the rights of man post-Revolutionary war, women began pushing for the rights of women as well. Mary Wollstonecraft pioneered the discussion regarding women's rights, and pushed those like Abigail Adams to begin expressing the desire to want a larger place in society. Wollstonecraft was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate for women's rights who published the Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) – challenging the idea that rights should only be granted to men. She was one of the first major advocates and foundational figures for women's rights and gender equality in a time when women were considered inferior to men. Wollstonecraft focused on equal education and social opportunities for women – believing that if women were educated the same as men, they would gain autonomy over their own lives and better contribute to society. Her ideas contributed to the conversation in allowing women to be bearers of rights alongside men. Inspired by the radical feminism in her work, women in the early republic would change their views on marriage, education, participation in public life, and autonomy. This laid the groundwork for the later women's suffrage movement, education opportunities, property rights, and more.

However, a gender hierarchy would continue to bind women's rights after the Revolution. Women in the early republic could not vote, hold political office, or earn fair wages. They also lacked opportunities for higher education and certain professions, as well as the right to own property independently of their husbands. In addition, they held little legal powers in subjects such as divorce, property rights, and child custody. A central legal concept that reinforced these restrictions was coverture, a central legal doctrine that limited women's lives in all aspects – making a woman's legal identity a part of their husband's. The early national period of America would continue to struggle with the concept of rights and equality.

Loyalist expatriation

Tens of thousands of Loyalists left the United States following the war; Philip Ranlet estimates 20,000, while Maya Jasanoff estimates as many as 70,000. Some migrated to Britain, but the great majority received land and subsidies for resettlement in British colonies in North America, especially Quebec (concentrating in the Eastern Townships), Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. Britain created the colonies of Upper Canada (Ontario) and New Brunswick expressly for their benefit, and the Crown awarded land to Loyalists as compensation for losses in the United States. Nevertheless, approximately eighty-five percent of the Loyalists stayed in the United States as American citizens, and some of the exiles later returned to the U.S. Patrick Henry spoke of the issue of allowing Loyalists to return as such: "Shall we, who have laid the proud British lion at our feet, be frightened of its whelps?" His actions helped secure return of the Loyalists to American soil.

Commemorations

The American Revolution has a central place in the American memory as the story of the nation's founding. It is covered in the schools, memorialized by two national holidays, Washington's Birthday in February and Independence Day in July, and commemorated in innumerable monuments. George Washington's estate at Mount Vernon was one of the first national pilgrimages for tourists and attracted 10,000 visitors a year by the 1850s.

The Revolution became a matter of contention in the 1850s in the debates leading to the American Civil War (1861–1865), as spokesmen of both the Northern United States and the Southern United States claimed that their region was the true custodian of the legacy of 1776. The United States Bicentennial in 1976 came a year after the American withdrawal from the Vietnam War, and speakers stressed the themes of renewal and rebirth based on a restoration of traditional values.

Today, more than 100 battlefields and historic sites of the American Revolution are protected and maintained by the government. The National Park Service alone manages and maintains more than 50 battlefield parks and many other sites such as Independence Hall that are related to the Revolution. The private American Battlefield Trust uses government grants and other funds to preserve almost 700 acres of battlefield land in six states, and the ambitious private recreation/restoration/preservation/interpretation of over 300 acres of pre-1790 Colonial Williamsburg was created in the first half of the 20th century for public visitation.