Posted on 11/09/2017 1:30:07 PM PST by davikkm
With the current political environment deteriorating at an alarming rate, it is important to gain a historical perspective to determine where we are headed as a nation. Each century, the social fabric of nations unravels, unrest ensues, old institutions are destroyed and new institutions are built. This is a process as old as civilization. The American Revolution signifies possibly the most significant turning point in American history, but the true reason for the war is usually misunderstood.
We are often taught that the primary reason behind the American Revolution was for a British tax imposed on the colonists. The colonists felt that this was wrong because no one in Britain represented the colonists in government matters. “No Taxation Without Representation” was a popular slogan leading up to the war. Although this was indeed an important reason behind the colonist’s decision to go to war, it was not the main reason.
(Excerpt) Read more at investmentwatchblog.com ...
bump
To prove this, you'd have to show that there were popular protests in the colonies against Britain's not accepting scrip, or speeches against Britain's policy in local assemblies, or irate articles in newspapers about the change.
Otherwise, it's hard to make the case.
The limeys tried to tax us to death.
Ok, so in the 1980s I was doing renovation work on the Capt. Gardner house in Nantucket. Built in 1766 and partially destroyed in a 1984(?) fire, it’s second. So I’m pulling up floor boards in the front of the house and under the seams between the boards is newspaper strips from 1766. Not only that but whoever cut them in strips made sure each strip was the exact width of a print column. So I read the strips. Many were of odd, local things like what ships were arriving, when, what the current ships holds were, etc. but one column stuck out. It was a letter to the editor from, I think, a reverend regarding the 1765 Stamp Act. Well, I tell you my eyes were just about burning by the end of the editorial. Without any use of profanity the author put out the most profane, damning article I have ever read, all directed against the English government. Let’s just say in 1766 some colonials were SERIOUSLY pissed off at the Crown.
Oddly enough, there’s nothing about banks in the Declaration of Independence which lays out the grievances of the colonies. The author of the article forgot about one issue that was absolutely detested by the people of the colonies - The quartering of troops in homes.
Would you photocopy it and post it? Sounds like interesting reading.
Nice try.
There isn’t a main reason.
Like any relationship they end for a variety of reasons and usually there is a cause that’s takes that dry tinder and lights a match to it...
Nice article though....
Very interesting story, thanks for sharing it. I’m surprised the paper wasn’t turning to powder after 200+ years under the floor boards. I hope you saved it if that was possible.
They laid out all their reasons in the Declaration - doesn’t seem like a huge mystery to me.
It is amazing how many of those items in the list are still present (and worse?) today.
The war was fought for freedom. Mercantilism was keeping the colonies in 3rd world status. We fought the British so the USA could flourish behind protectionist tariffs and build and industrial powerhouse.
The entire AMERICAN REVOLUTION 10-part series is on Youtube. Back when PBS wasn’t a super left network and there were some unusual finds on the series. It was noted that Benjamin Franklin was humiliated and embarrassed by the snotty British politicians at Parliament, which factored in accelerating Independence. Just for drama, there was an arrest warrant for Franklin and if Franklin didnt board the ship at the same time, he would have been arrested.
Calling the revolution as being triggered by the banking industry of England, is not far from wrong. But it was the actions of their government that started the actual aggression because of their mishandling of their funds.
Benjamin Franklin was able to write:
“There was abundance in the Colonies, and peace was reigning on every border. It was difficult, and even impossible, to find a happier and more prosperous nation on all the surface of the globe. Comfort was prevailing in every home. The people, in general, kept the highest moral standards, and education was widely spread.”
When Benjamin Franklin went over to England to represent the interests of the Colonies, he saw a completely different situation: the working population of this country was gnawed by hunger and poverty. “The streets are covered with beggars and tramps,” he wrote. He asked his English friends how England, with all its wealth, could have so much poverty among its working classes.
His friends replied that England was a prey to a terrible condition: it had too many workers! The rich said they were already overburdened with taxes, and could not pay more to relieve the needs and poverty of this mass of workers. Several rich Englishmen of that time actually believed, along with Mathus, that wars and plague were necessary to rid the country from man-power surpluses.
Franklin’s friends then asked him how the American Colonies managed to collect enough money to support their poor houses, and how they could overcome this plague of pauperism. Franklin replied:
“We have no poor houses in the Colonies; and if we had some, there would be nobody to put in them, since there is, in the Colonies, not a single unemployed person, neither beggars nor tramps.”
His friends could not believe their ears, and even less understand this fact, since when the English poor houses and jails became too cluttered, England shipped these poor wretches and down-and- outs, like cattle, and discharged, on the quays of the Colonies, those who had survived the poverty, dirtiness and privations of the journey. At that time, England was throwing into jail those who could not pay their debts. They therefore asked Franklin how he could explain the remarkable prosperity of the New England Colonies.
Franklin replied:
“That is simple. In the Colonies, we issue our own paper money. It is called ‘Colonial Scrip.’ We issue it in proper proportion to make the goods pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power and we have no interest to pay to no one.”
The information came to the knowledge of the English Bankers, and held their attention. They immediately took the necessary steps to have the British Parliament to pass a law that prohibited the Colonies from using their scrip money, and then ordered them to use only the gold and silver money that was provided in sufficient quantity by the English bankers. Then began in America the plague of debt-money, which has never since brought so many curses to the American people.
The first law was passed in 1751, and then completed by a more restrictive law in 1763. Franklin reported that one year after the implementation of this prohibition on Colonial money, the streets of the Colonies were filled with unemployment and beggars, just like in England, because there was not enough money to pay for the goods and work. The circulating medium of exchange had been reduced by half.
Franklin, who was one of the chief architects of the American independence, wrote it clearly:
“The Colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been the poverty caused by the bad influence of the English bankers on the Parliament, which has caused in the Colonies hatred of England and the Revolutionary War.”
This point of view of Franklin was confirmed by great statesmen of his era: John Adams, Jefferson, and several others.
A remarkable English historian, John Twells, wrote, speaking of the money of the Colonies, the Colonial Scrip:
“It was the monetary system under which America’s Colonies flourished to such an extent that Edmund Burke was able to write about them: ‘Nothing in the history of the world resembles their progress. It was a sound and beneficial system, and its effects led to the happiness of the people.’
Peter Cooper, expresses himself along the same lines. After having said how Franklin had explained to the London Parliament the cause of the prosperity of the Colonies, he wrote:
“After Franklin gave explanations on the true cause of the prosperity of the Colonies, the Parliament exacted laws forbidding the use of this money in the payment of taxes. This decision brought so many drawbacks and so much poverty to the people that it was the main cause of the Revolution. The suppression of the Colonial money was a much more important reason for the general uprising than the Tea and Stamp Act.”
So it was foreign applied money, not our own that caused the war..
rwood
If you are talking about “Liberty! The American Revolution”, great series!
My sister`s house cellar was being renovated when she found 1812 newspapers lining the wall used as wallpaper.
“If you are talking about “Liberty! The American Revolution”, great series!”
Yes. Actually, there’s 2 of them. Liberty is by PBS while the other was called The American Revolution from A & E with Bill Curtis as the host. My Dad had Liberty but the American Revolution I used Youtube Downloader to grab. I thought the American revolution from 1994 was at par with Liberty!.
In reading Paul Revere’s Ride, I was struck with the fanaticism of the opposition to the British in New England. People barricading themselves in houses by the side of the road to get a shot at a redcoat, knowing they would be bayonetted after getting off one shot.And the head of the militia which opposed the Lexington & Concord expedition, for example, had been lying awake nights for years on end thinking about how the redcoats could be defeated.
My conclusion is that the culture of “British” America had diverged from the culture of Britain. That is, colonists from a country - even emigrants from a country - try to freeze their culture in amber rather than adopt the mores of the country they immigrated to. And the forefathers of the “British” Americans emigrated from England, not Britain, and consequently their descendants had a different culture from that of the changed country from which their forefathers had emigrated.
Newspaper was used as insulation and wind barriers for a long time. I worked on a remodel in the ‘80s and found newspaper from the ‘20s or ‘30s. The only interesting thing I found in them were the grocery ads though.
“The only interesting thing I found in them were the grocery ads though.”
-
If you didn’t find anything interesting in newspapers from the 30s I guess you found none from the late 30s.
.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.