America’s History Seventh Edition Teach each other about CHAPTER 5 Toward Independence: Years of Decision 1763-1776 Copyright © 2011 by Bedford/St. Martin’s.

America’s HistorySeventh Edition

Teach each other about CHAPTER 5Toward Independence: Years of Decision

1763-1776

Copyright © 2011 by Bedford/St. Martin’s

James A. HenrettaRebecca Edwards

Robert O. Self

CHAPTER FIVE LEARNING OBJECTIVESUpon completion of this chapter, you should be able to answer the following questions:1. Explain how the Great War for Empire changed Britain’s relationship with its colonies.2. Analyze the intellectual, political, and economic rationales colonists offered for their dissatisfaction with British rule between 1763 and 1776.3. Evaluate how tension and disagreement between colonists and British officials became outright resistance and rebellion by 1776.4. Understand why the colonies and Britain failed to achieve a compromise to avert hostilities.

Imperial Reform, 1763-1765•Enormous debt followed Britain’s “Great War for Empire”•salutary neglect replaced with regulation and taxation in the colonies.

A. The Legacy of (French and Indian) War1. Disputes over Trade and Troops• debate within the colonies over the power of the royal governors (shared with

assemblies versus extensive executive powers).• Revenue Act of 1762 meant to tighten control over colonial efforts to trade with

foreign nations.• decision by Britain to keep 10,000 soldiers in colonies during peacetime angered

colonists.• British wanted to maintain control over colonists, Native Americans, and French in

Canada.

2. The National Debt

A. The Legacy of (French and Indian) War2. The National Debt• British debt from £75 million in 1756 to £133 million in 1763.• British raised taxes on the poor and middle classes.

The Cost of Empire, 1690–1790It cost money to build and maintain an empire. As Britain built a great navy, subsidized the armies of European allies, and fought four wars against France and Spain between 1702 and 1783, military expenditures soared. Tax revenues did not keep pace, so the government created a large national debt by issuing bonds for millions of pounds. This policy created a class of wealthy financiers, led to political protests, and eventually prompted attempts to tax the American colonists.

John Wilkes (Whig), British Radical•publicly condemned “rotten boroughs” as districts controlled by the wealthy who did not face these new fiscal measures.Wilkes won fame on both sides of the Atlantic as the author of North Briton, Number 45 which called for major reforms in the British political system. At a dinner in Boston, Radical Whigs raised their wine glasses to Wilkes, toasting him forty-five times! But Wilkes had many enemies in Britain, including the artist who created this image. Wilkes is depicted (in this 1763 caricature by artist William Hogarth) as a cunning demagogue, brandishing the cap of Liberty to curry favor with the mob.

Eurasian Trade and European Colonies, c. 1770By 1770, the Western European nations that had long dominated maritime trade had created vast colonial empires and spheres of influence. Spain controlled the western halves of North and South America, Portugal owned Brazil, and Holland ruled Indonesia. Britain, a newer imperial power, boasted settler societies in North America, rich sugar islands in the West Indies, slave ports in West Africa, and a growing presence on the Indian subcontinent. Only France had failed to acquire and hold on to a significant colonial empire.

1. The Sugar Act (1764) • 3 pence/gallon duty on French molasses in the colonies.• publicly Americans argued that the new tax would destroy the French trade and the American distilling industry.• Americans sought ways to evade this new tax (bribing officials, smuggling).

2. Constitutional Conflict

Why were they upset when it halved the tax?

Why were they upset when it halved the tax?

Remember that salutary neglect was replaced with regulation and taxation in the colonies. Therefore the enforced collection of a lower tax is worse than a greater unenforced tax.

2. Constitutional Conflict• debate began over whether the act was unlawful as the tax did

not “originate with the people”.• fears that the Sugar Act would make colonies “slaves” to Britain.• some English parliamentarians argued that the colonists did not

have the same rights as Englishmen because they were living outside of Britain – “second class subjects of the king.”

Britain’s American Empire in 1763The Treaty of Paris gave Britain control of the eastern half of North America and returned a few captured sugar islands in the West Indies to France. To protect the empire’s new mainland territories, British ministers dispatched troops to Florida and Quebec. They also sent troops to uphold the terms of the Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited Anglo-American settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains.

1. First Imperial Crisis

• required stamps on all court documents, land titles, contracts, newspapers, other printed materials.

• intended to cover at least a portion of the cost of keeping troops in the colonies.

• House of Commons ignored colonial protest of the Act.

An Open Challenge: The Stamp Act

George Grenville, Architect of the Stamp Act•Grenville in Parliament since 1741•became prime minister in 1763 when British taxes were five times American taxes.This 1763 portrait of the British prime minister suggests Grenville’s energy and ambition. As events were to show, he was determined to reform the imperial system and to ensure that the colonists shared the cost of the empire.

1. First Imperial Crisis• Quartering Act (1765) that

directed colonies to provide barracks and food for troops.

• The act forced American colonist to house and feed British forces who were serving in North America.

• The act further inflamed tensions between the colonist and the British.

• The colonist were angered at having their homes forced open.

• The subsequent close contact with British soldiers did not engender good feelings between the sides.

STOP AND THINK: Can you answer the following?

• What were the goals of British imperial reformers?

• Why did the colonists object to the new taxes in 1764 and again in 1765? What arguments did they use? How did these conflicts turn into a constitutional crisis?

II. The Dynamics of Rebellion, 1765-1770(“Patriots”: defenders of Americans’ rights.)

A. Politicians Protest and the Crowd Rebels1. The Stamp Act Congress• in Virginia, Patrick Henry and others

publicly condemned Grenville and George III

• nine assemblies sent delegates to the Congress, New York City, October 1765.

• protested the loss of “rights and liberties”.

• declared that only representatives elected by colonists could tax the people

• petitioned for the repeal of the Act.

A. Politicians Protest and the Crowd Rebels

• after Nov. 1, 1765, mobs began to demand that stamp tax collectors resign

• in Boston “Sons of Liberty” burned a tax collector in effigy and, later, destroyed the home of the Lt. Gov.

• nearly every colony had protests.

The Intensity of Patrick HenryThis portrait, painted when Patrick Henry was in his sixties, captures the Patriot’s enduring seriousness and intensity. As an orator, Henry drew on evangelical Protestantism to create a new mode of political oratory. “His figures of speech…were often borrowed from the Scriptures,” a contemporary noted, and his speeches mirrored “the earnestness depicted in his own features.”

Protesting the Stamp Act in Portsmouth, New HampshireThroughout the colonies, disciplined mobs protesting the Stamp Act forced stamp distributors to resign their offices. In this engraving, protesters in the small city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, stone an effigy of the distributor as other members of the mob carry off a coffin representing the death of American “Liberty.”

A. Politicians Protest and the Crowd Rebels2. The Motives of the Crowd

• some had political motives while others enjoyed the excitement of the action

• protest worked – in most colonies the collectors gave up their positions as a result of public pressure.

Hanging an effigy. How excited would you be to be a tax collector in the colonies?

B. The Ideological Roots of Resistance1. Intellectual Traditions

• protest started in seaports because they had the most direct involvement with British.

• Patriot writers drew on three main influences:

1) English common law

• Patriot writers drew on three main influences:2) Enlightenment rationalism

• Patriot writers drew on three main influences:3) republican and Whig political tradition.

Republicanism• Beyond simply a non-monarchy, early modern thinkers conceived of an ideal

republic, in which mixed government was an important element, and the notion that virtue and the common good were central to good government.

• Republicanism also developed its own distinct view of liberty.• In England a type of republicanism evolved that was not wholly opposed to

monarchy; thinkers such as Thomas More and Sir Thomas Smith saw a monarchy, firmly constrained by law, as compatible with republicanism.

• Patriot writers drew on three main influences:3) republican and Whig political tradition.

Whig Liberal ideals• The Whigs primarily advocated the supremacy of Parliament.• Major influence of the liberal political ideas of John Locke on Whig political

values• borrowed the concepts and language of universal rights employed by political

theorist Locke.• By the 1770s the ideas of Adam Smith, a founder of classical liberalism became

important.

II. The Dynamics of Rebellion, 1765-1770C. Parliament Compromises, 1766

1. Repeal of the Stamp Act• Grenville out as PM because of domestic issues.• three parliamentary factions pushed for repeal1) Old Whigs2) British merchants who feared the continuation of the trade boycott3) former PM Pitt and his allies who argued that Parliament did not have the

authority to tax the colonies

• PM Rockingham repealed the Act but made clear his belief that Parliament had power to make laws to govern the colonies.

Celebrating RepealThis British cartoon mocking supporters of the Stamp Act—“The Repeal, or the Funeral Procession of Miss Americ-Stamp”—was probably commissioned by merchants trading with America. Preceded by two flag bearers, George Grenville, the author of the legislation, carries a miniature coffin (representing the act) to a tomb, as a dog urinates on the leader of the procession. Two bales on the wharf, labeled “Stamps from America” and “Black cloth return’d from America,” testify to the failure of the act.

II. The Dynamics of Rebellion, 1765-1770D. Charles Townshend Steps In(Held position as “chancellor of the

exchequer” under PM William Pitt)1. Townshend Act of 1767• duties on colonial imports of paper,

paint, glass, tea.• some revenue for cost of military in

America, some for salaries of royal governors, judges, which would make them loyal to the crown.

• followed by other acts that forced the will of parliament on the colonists and punished them for non-compliance.

“A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina,” appeared in a London newspaper on March 25, 1775.

Look closely at the image. What is happening?

“A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina,” appeared in a London newspaper on March 25, 1775.

Look closely at the image. What is happening?

What does the cartoonist think of the Edenton “Tea Party”?

“A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina,” appeared in a London newspaper on March 25, 1775.

Look closely at the image. What is happening?

What does the cartoonist think of the Edenton “Tea Party”?

“A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina,” appeared in a London newspaper on March 25, 1775.

Look closely at the image. What is happening?

Of the Revolutionaries?

“A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina,” appeared in a London newspaper on March 25, 1775.

Look closely at the image. What is happening?

Of the Revolutionaries?

“A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina,” appeared in a London newspaper on March 25, 1775.

Look closely at the image. What is happening?

Of women’s “proper” role?

“A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina,” appeared in a London newspaper on March 25, 1775.

Look closely at the image. What is happening?

Of women’s “proper” role?

Who is watching the kid?

“A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina,” appeared in a London newspaper on March 25, 1775.

This British cartoon satirizes the fifty-one ”patriotic ladies” of Edenton, North Carolina, in their attempt to endorse the nonimportation association resolves of 1774.

II. The Dynamics of Rebellion, 1765-1770

E. America Debates and Resists Again1. A Second Boycott and the Daughters of Liberty

• 1768 Massachusetts assembly condemned the Acts and began a boycott of British goods with New York merchants following suit

• colonists who were not previously politically active felt compelled to participate in the boycott as it spread beyond Massachusetts and New York.

2. Britain Threatens Coercion

F. Lord North Compromises, 17701. Nonimportation Succeeds2. Sovereignty Debated

II. The Dynamics of Rebellion, 1765-1770

• women became valuable producers of “homespun” cloth, enabling the boycott to continue

2. Britain Threatens Coercion

F. Lord North Compromises, 17701. Nonimportation Succeeds2. Sovereignty Debated

• “Daughters of Liberty”: women who produced homespun textiles, drank coffee not tea as acts of patriotism

2. Britain Threatens Coercion

F. Lord North Compromises, 17701. Nonimportation Succeeds2. Sovereignty Debated

II. The Dynamics of Rebellion, 1765-1770E. America

Debates and Resists Again

2. Britain Threatens Coercion

• angry over opposition, British send General Gage and 4,000 troops to Massachusetts.

II. The Dynamics of Rebellion, 1765-1770F. Lord North Compromises, 17701. Nonimportation Succeeds• economic problems in Britain hurt parliamentary resolve• thousands of families migrated to American colonies from England and Scotland after

abandoning farms• merchants and manufacturers blamed the Acts for domestic economic problems, asked

parliament to repeal• 1770 PM Lord North argued for repeal but for a continuation of tax on tea• colonists stopped the boycott• outbreaks of violence continued in New York and Massachusetts• March 1770 “Boston Massacre” after a group of soldiers fired into a crowd of protestors killing

five.

2. Sovereignty Debated

Trade as a Political Weapon, 1763–1776Political upheaval did not affect the mainland colonies’ exports to Britain, which rose slightly over the period, but imports fluctuated greatly. The American boycott of 1765–1766 prompted a dip in imports but the second boycott of 1768–1770 led to a sharp drop in imports of British textiles, metal goods, and ceramics. Imports of manufactures soared after the repeal of the Townshend duties, only to plummet when the First Continental Congress proclaimed a third boycott in 1774.

II. The Dynamics of Rebellion, 1765-1770F. Lord North Compromises, 17702. Sovereignty Debated• most colonists remained loyal, many American leaders believed by

1770 that British wanted to exploit colonies for their own gain• Benjamin Franklin: colonies were now distinct states with “the

same Head, or Sovereign, the King.”

Ben Franklin on the status of the colonies…

• Benjamin Franklin: colonies were now distinct states with “the same Head, or Sovereign, the King.”

British Troop Deployments, 1763 and 1775As the imperial crisis deepened, British military priorities changed. In 1763, most British battalions were stationed in Canada to deter Indian uprisings and French Canadian revolts. After the Stamp Act riots of 1765, the British placed large garrisons in New York and Philadelphia. By 1775, eleven battalions of British regulars occupied Boston, the center of the Patriot movement.

Describe the action depicted here by silversmith and Patriot Paul Revere in his engraving of the “Boston Massacre,” March 1770.

What did Revere hope to convey to his audience through about the presence of the British Army in Boston?

What did Revere hope to convey to his audience through about the presence of the British Army in Boston?

Answer: depiction of armed soldiers firing on a seemingly-innocent, unarmed crowd of colonists, some bleeding, illustrates the perspective of Patriots that the Army was there not to maintain peace but to enact tyranny and terror on the people of Boston.

Examine the Redcoats. What does their posture say to the viewing audience about their actions?

Examine the Redcoats. What does their posture say to the viewing audience about their actions?

Answer: right hand side of the engraving shows a Redcoat with sword raised, encouraging the others in their offensive action. the soldiers’ guns are aimed at the crowd despite the obviously injured colonists on the ground. the Redcoats are not being fired upon and their weapons remain raised.

Imagine you are a Virginian seeing Revere’s engraving in your newspaper in the days and weeks following the events in Boston. How might this image impact your perspective of colonial relations with England? Of the presence of the British Army in North America?

Imagine you are a Virginian seeing Revere’s engraving in your newspaper in the days and weeks following the events in Boston. How might this image impact your perspective of colonial relations with England? Of the presence of the British Army in North America?

Answers: Revere’s depiction of the Massacre confirmed what Patriots throughout the colonies perceived as tyrannical actions of the British in North America. With the presence of a standing army in the colonies, economic and political disputes could lead to violence.

III. The Road to Independence,

1771-1776A. A Compromise Repudiated

1. The East India Company and the Tea Act

• despite repeal of Townshend Acts animosity continued

• in Massachusetts radical patriots organized “committees of correspondence” in 1772 to “state the Rights of the Colonists of this Province”

• Tea Act passed 1773 to provide relief for the East India Co.’s debt (government loan and canceled English import duty on tea)

A. A Compromise Repudiated• Tea Act passed 1773 to provide relief for the East India Co.’s debt

(government loan and canceled English import duty on tea)• The Tea Act would launch the final spark to the revolutionary movement

in Boston. • The act was not intended to raise revenue in the American colonies, and

in fact imposed no new taxes.• It was designed to prop up the East India Company which was floundering

financially and burdened with eighteen million pounds of unsold tea.

• This tea was to be shipped directly to the colonies, and sold at a bargain price. The Townshend Duties were still in place, however, and the radical leaders in America found reason to believe that this act was a maneuver to buy popular support for the taxes already in force. The direct sale of tea, via British agents, would also have undercut the business of local merchants.

• Colonists in Philadelphia and New York turned the tea ships back to Britain. In Charleston the cargo was left to rot on the docks. In Boston the Royal Governor was stubborn & held the ships in port, where the colonists would not allow them to unload. Cargoes of tea filled the harbor, and the British ship's crews were stalled in Boston looking for work and often finding trouble. This situation led to the Boston Tea Party.

A. A Compromise Repudiated• This tea was to be shipped directly to the colonies, and sold at a bargain

price.• The direct sale of tea, via British agents, would also have undercut the

business of local merchants.• Colonists in Philadelphia and New York turned the tea ships back to

Britain. • In Charleston the cargo was left to rot on the docks. • In Boston the Royal Governor was stubborn & held the ships in port,

where the colonists would not allow them to unload. • Cargoes of tea filled the harbor, and the British ship's crews were

stalled in Boston looking for work and often finding trouble.

•This situation led to the Boston Tea Party.

A. A Compromise Repudiated2. The Tea Party and the Coercive Act• committees of correspondence organized resistance to Tea Act.• December 1773 artisans and laborers dressed as Indians threw tea into the harbor.

• anger in Britain over this action (The Tea Party)• four Coercive Acts (called “Intolerable Acts” by patriots) passed:

1) Port Bill closed the Harbor2) Government Act annulled Massachusetts charter/no town meetings3) Quartering Act with mandatory new barracks4) Justice Act with trials for capital crimes transferred to other colonies or Britain• 1774 Quebec Act allowing Roman Catholicism in Quebec and extending the provinces boundary into

the Ohio River Valley.

1. Describe the appearance of the men involved in this political protest.

1. Describe the appearance of the men involved in this political protest. Answer: some are dressed in traditional Englishmen’s clothing, including jackets and hats, while others

appear disguised as Native Americans.

2. In your opinion, was the destruction of British tea a useful form of political protest? Why or why not?

2. In your opinion, was the destruction of British tea a useful form of political protest? Why or why not?Answer: You might speculate that destroying British property hurt them economically and could have resulted in their recognition of the seriousness of colonial anger at taxation. OR you might discuss the anger that resulted from the Tea Party and led to Parliament enacting the Coercive Acts against Massachusetts.

“An Attempt to Land a Bishop in America” 1768

A Political Cartoonist Sounds Off on the Crisis in the Colonies

Britain’s colonial policy between 1763 and 1775 created controversy in Britain as well as in America. George Grenville’s ministry enacted the Stamp Act in 1765 only for it to be repealed the next year by Lord Rockingham’s government. The conflict over colonial policy split hard-liners who favored coercing the colonies into paying taxes and quartering troops from Old Whigs who favored compromise. The debates roiled the halls of Parliament and spilled onto the pages of London’s newspapers, where they took the form of controversial essays and political cartoons, like the one shown here. People of the time immediately understood the meaning – and the political bias – of these cartoons. more than two centuries later, we have to work a bit harder to understand what they are “saying.”

1. Decipher as many as the slogans written on the men’s signage as are readable.

I’ll zoom in for you. Go ahead to the next slides.

haven't you always wanted a monkey?

2. What are the men protesting? On what theoretical grounds are basing their dissent?

2. What are the men protesting? On what theoretical grounds are basing their dissent?

Answers: protesting the attempt by the British to put a Bishop in the North American colonies. These men want no “Lords,” religious or secular rulers, in the colonies. demand for freedom of religion. Reference to the teachings of John Locke, government coming from “natural rights” of life, liberty, and property.

3. What political viewpoint or bias is being expressed by this cartoon?

3. What political viewpoint or bias is being expressed by this cartoon?

Answer: at the bottom of the cartoon: “Should they be obliged to maintain Bishops that cannot maintain themselves” indicates an anti-colonial perspective.

B. The Continental Congress Responds1. Meeting in Philadelphia• 12 mainland colonies met in Philadelphia September 1774.• advocated a boycott• New Englanders wanted political union and defensive military plans• Middle Atlantic colonists wanted political compromise• suggestions for a new system in which each colony would have an assembly plus

representation in a continent-wide political body, king would appoint a president• majority wanted “Declaration of Rights and Grievances”• called for an end to the Coercive Acts and gave British only limited control of trade• threatened to cut off all trade to Britain, Ireland, and British West Indies if the acts

were not repealed by September 1775• Lord North imposed a naval blockade and ordered Gage to end resistance in

Massachusetts.

Carpenters' Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,

STOP AND THINK: Can you answer the following?

• If Grenville’s and Townshend’s initiatives had succeeded, how might the character of the British imperial system have changed?

• Weigh the relative importance of economic and ideological motives in promoting the colonial resistance movement. Which was more important? Why?

British Western Policy, 1763–1774The Proclamation of 1763 prohibited white settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. Nonetheless, Anglo-American settlers and land speculators proposed the new colonies of Vandalia and Transylvania to the west of Virginia and North Carolina. When the Quebec Act of 1774 designated most western lands as Indian reserves and vastly enlarged the boundaries of Quebec, this dashed speculators’ hopes and eliminated the old sea-to-sea land claims of many seaboard colonies. The act especially angered New England Protestants, who condemned it for allowing French residents to practice Catholicism, and colonial political leaders, who protested its failure to provide Quebec with a representative assembly.

Go back and look at that last slide as it summarizes the chapter very well. It shows why Colonists were upset and what they did in reaction.

C. The Rising of the Countryside1. Rural Americans

• farm families’ concerns rested on the issues of increasing taxes and their sons having to serve the British military

• 80% of male heads of household in rural Concord, MA, supported nonimportation• patriots tried to convince farmers that British efforts in the colonies would hurt

individual landownership (already becoming increasingly difficult)• southern slaveowners feared British limitations on land west of the Appalachian

Mountains• fear that legislation like the Coercive Acts would be used on other colonies.

D. Loyalist Americans1. Supporters of the King

• fears of anarchy.• both wealthy and poor

could be loyal for varying reasons

• pacifist Quakers tried to remain neutral

• tenant farmers disliked landlords and supported the king

• fear of slave insurrection in support of the British.

E. Armed Resistance Begins1. Minutemen

• General Gage ordered British troops in Boston to seize Patriot armories in Charlestown and Cambridge

• 20,000 militiamen mobilized to guard other locations. in Concord town meeting raised the “Minutemen”

• to the British Massachusetts was in “open rebellion.”

British Troops Occupy Concord, 1775On the night of April 18, 1775, hundreds of British troops marched out of Boston in search of Patriot arms and munitions, and by morning they had reached the nearby towns of Lexington and Concord. The raid led to violent and deadly confrontations with the Patriot militia, an outcome indicated by the unknown artist’s depiction of a graveyard in the foreground of this painting.

F. The Second Continental Congress Organizes for War

1. Congress versus King George•moderates hoped for peace and reconciliation with the king. asked for repeal of oppressive measures.•radical Patriots (Sam Adams, Patrick Henry) called for taking up arms•radicals gained support for an invasion of Canada•merchants cut off exports to Britain and her West Indies colonies. Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

George III, 1771King George III was a young man of twenty-seven when the American troubles began in 1765. Six years later, as this portrait by Johann Zoffany suggests, the king had aged. Initially, George had been headstrong and tried to impose his will on Parliament, but he succeeded only in generating political confusion and inept policy. He strongly supported Parliament’s attempts to tax the colonies and continued the war in America long after most of his ministers agreed that it had been lost.

III. The Road to Independence, 1771-1776F. The Second Continental Congress Organizes for War

2. Fighting in the South•local skirmishes between Loyalists and Patriots•Nov. 1775 Lord Dunmore in Virginia promised freedom to slaves and indentured servants who joined Britain in the war•fears grew that the lower class would rebel against the Patriots•Patriots planned to meeting in 1776 Continental Congress to support independence.

Lord Dunmore

3. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense• Americans were increasingly turning against the

king• January 1776 Paine published the pamphlet calling

for independence and a republican government• an assault on the monarchy.

4. Independence Declared• Patriot conventions called for independence• July 4, 1776, Declaration approved. authored by Thomas

Jefferson and others• the king vilified• used Enlightenment thinking to proclaim the rights of men• linked individual liberty, popular sovereignty, and

republican government.

Thomas PaineTom Paine was many things: a failed husband, businessman, and customs agent. a creative inventor and bridge designer. and, most important, a lifelong radical and the author of provocative works that helped change the course of history. In 1776, his pamphlet Common Sense sparked Americans to declare independence from Britain. Paine’s defense of the French Revolution and attack on monarchy, The Rights of Man (1791), won him election to the National Convention, which created the First French Republic. And his Age of Reason (1794, 1796), a defense of deism and rational inquiry and a sustained assault on “revealed” religion and Christianity, won him the enmity of devout believers and political conservatives.

4. Independence Declared• Patriot conventions called for independence• July 4, 1776, Declaration approved. authored by Thomas Jefferson and others• the king vilified• used Enlightenment thinking to proclaim the rights of men• linked individual liberty, popular sovereignty, and republican government.

Independence DeclaredIn this painting by John Trumbull, Thomas Jefferson and the other drafters of the Declaration (John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Robert Livingston of New York, and Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania) present the document to John Hancock, the president of the Second Continental Congress. One Patriot observer reported that when the Declaration was read at a public meeting in New York City on July 10, a massive statue of George III was “pulled down by the Populace” and its four thousand pounds of lead melted down to make “Musquet balls” for use against the British troops massed on Staten Island.

STOP AND THINK: Can you answer the following?

• Why did the Patriot movement wane in the early 1770s? Why did the Tea Act reignite colonial resistance?

• Why did colonial and British leaders fail to reach a political compromise to save the empire?

CHAPTER REVIEW QUESTIONS• Trace the key events in both Britain and America from 1763 to 1776

that forged the Patriot movement. Why did those in Parliament believe that the arguments of the rebellious colonists were not justified? How did the Patriots gain the widespread support of the colonists?

• The narrative suggests that the war for American independence was not inevitable, that the British empire could have been saved. Do you agree? Was there a point during the imperial crisis at which peaceful compromise was possible?