FREE ESSAY ON CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

The haphazard and disorganized British rule of the American colonies in the decade prior
to the outbreak led to the Revolutionary War. The mismanagement of the colonies, the
taxation policies that violated the colonist right's, the distractions of foreign wars
and politics in England and mercantilist policies that benefited the English to a much
greater degree then the colonists all show the British incompetence in their rule over
the colonies. These policies and distractions were some of the causes of the
Revolutionary War.
The interests of England within the colonies were self-centered. The English were
exploiting were trying to govern the colonies by using the mercantilist system.
Mercantilism is when the state directs all the economic activities within it's
borders(Blum 31). England was not attempting to make any changes that would help the
colonists. They limited the colonies commerce to internal trade only(Miller 9). The
English were exploiting the colonies by demanding that the colonies import more from
England then they exported to the colonies. They were importing raw materials from the
colonies and making them into exportable goods in England. They would then ship these
goods to foreign markets all around the world including the colonies(America Online ).
Throughout the seventeenth century the English saw America as a place to get materials
they didn't have at home and a market to sell finished products at after the goods had
been manufactured. This was detrimental to the colonies because it prevented them from
manufacturing any of the raw materials they produced and made them more dependent upon
England. 
In addition to the unrest caused by their mercantilist policies, domestic political
issues distracted them from the activities of the colonies. Throughout the sixteen
hundreds, Great Britain was more involved in solving the Constitutional issue of who was
to have more power in English government, the king or parliament. When this complex issue
was finally resolved in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, England turned its attention
back to the colonies and found that colonists had developed their own identity as
American. 
There was no central office in England to control what was happening in the colonies. The
executive authority in England was divided among several ministers and commissioners that
did not act quickly or in unison. Also, the Board of Trade, the branch of government that
knew more about the colonies than any other governing body in England, did not have the
power to make decisions or to enforce decrees. Due to the distractions from the complex
constitutional issues and ineffective governmental organization the colonists felt
further separated from England(Blum 51).
The political scene in England was laced with corruption. Officers of the government sent
to the colonies were often bribe-taking politicians that were not smart enough to hold
government positions in England. After Grenville and Townshend the most incompetent was
Lord North, who became Prime Minister in 1770 after the death of Charles Townshend. North
was the kind of politician George had been looking for ----a plodding, dogged,
industrious man, neither a fool nor a genius, much like the king himself. For the next
twelve years, despite the opposition of abler men, he remained at the head of the
government(Blum 104). Corruption and incompetence among governing politicians often made
their rule over the colonies ineffective.
In the years leading up to the final decade before the American Revolution, the
relationship between Great Britain and her colonies in North America continued to
deteriorate. Relations began to worsen with the great victory over the French and Indians
in the Seven Years War. Unwelcome British troops had remained in the colonies. Debts from
this war caused the Prime Minister at the time, Lord Grenville, to enforce Mercantilism
in an effort to get the colonists to pay their share of the national debt that had
doubled since 1754(Blum 95). 
England passed many Acts that were ill conceived and had long term effects on the
relationship between England and the colonies. The most controversial of these were
direct taxes. The last time Parliament had tried a direct tax was as recent as 1765, when
Lord Grenville enacted the Stamp Act which forced the colonists to pay for stamps on
printed documents, the Stamp Act(Higginbotham 34). The Americans had felt the taxes of
Lord Grenville were a deliberate aim to disinherit the colonists by denying them the
rights of the English(Blum 96). The first of these acts were the Townshend Acts. The
Townshend Acts were passed in 1767 and placed new taxes on paper, paints, tea, lead and,
glass. The new taxes would be used to pay for British officials in the American service.
These acts infuriated the colonists because they believed that Parliament had the right
to put taxes on the trade of the colonies but could not place taxes directly on the
colonists to raise revenue(America Online). 
The spokesperson of the colonies, John Dickinson, wrote in his Letters of a Pennsylvania
Farmer, on the issue of direct taxes. He distinguished between taxes that were imposed to
regulate trade and those that were intended solely to raise revenue. If the tax was used
to promote commerce it was justifiable, but if the tax was used only to gain revenue it
was not viewed as a legitimate tax(America Online). The colonists believed that this new
tax was not legitimate and therefore there was strong opposition to it throughout the
colonies. 
By 1766 England backed off in their efforts to tax their colonies. Following a year of
opposition from the colonists England revoked the Stamp Act and the first Quartering Act,
but they still passed the Declaratory Act (History Place). In 1766 the Declaratory Act
was passed. It was passed the same day that the Stamp Act was repealed. The Declaratory
Act gave the English government total power to pass laws to govern the colonies. The
British claimed that the colonies had always been and should always be subject to the
British crown(Blum 99). 
In 1773 the Tea Act was passed. The Tea Act not only put a three penny per pound tax on
tea but it also gave the British East India Company a near monopoly because it allowed
the company to sell directly to the colonial agents avoiding any middlemen. In Boston the
colonists held a town meeting to try to get their Tea Agents to resign. The Tea Agents
would not resign and a few months later angered Bostonians dressed as Indians boarded
three tea ships and dumped it all into Boston Harbor(Blum 106). 
In 1774 the intolerable Acts were passed. They were passed as a way to reprimand the
Bostonians for the Boston Tea Party. This didn't go over well in Boston because both the
innocent and the guilty were being punished equally(America Online). There were five acts
within the Intolerable Acts. The Massachusetts Government Act, a new Quartering Act, the
Administration of Justice Act the Quebec Act and the closing of the port of Boston. The
Massachusetts Government Act said that the Governor's council had to be appointed by the
King and limited town meetings to one per year. The new Quartering Act, authorized the
quartering of troops within a town (instead of in the barracks provided by the colony)
whenever their commanding officers thought it desirable. The Administration of Justice
Act stated that, any government or customs officer indicted for murder could be tried in
England, beyond the control of local juries. The Quebec Act was not intended to be used
as a punishment of the colonists, rather to extend the boundaries of the province of
Quebec to the Ohio River and give the Roman Catholics in that province religious liberty
and the double protection of French and English law. But the Quebec Act actually angered
the colonists because the colonists living in Quebec were getting rights that the
Americans felt were being taken away from them(Blum 106). 
During these years of ineffective rule, the causes of the Revolutionary War emerged. Laws
and policies enacted were self-serving, causing the colonists to vigorously resist and
try to avoid British authority. The colonists moves toward religious and commercial
self-determination were overlooked while England dealt with the Seven years war and a
domestic political crisis. All these factors highlighted the differences and
miscalculations of the British and were the beginnings of the Revolutionary War.
Bibliography
Blum, John M. The National Experience. Fort Worth: Hartcourt Brace College Publishers,
1993.
Higginbotham, Don. The War of American Independence. New York: The Macmillan Company,
1971.
Miller, John C. Origins of the American Revolution. London: Oxford University Press,
1943.
America Online, Research and Learn, History, American History, Revolutionary War Forum,
Rev War Archives, Part 1. 
Prelude to Revolution 1763 to 1775. The History Place.