Unorthodox Causes For The American Revolution

Perhaps the most common thing said of the American Revolution is that it was started over a dinky tax, that was justly imposed seeing as it went to pay for colonial protection; which of course, paints the early American as blood thirsty and flaming, irrational patriots. We compare the taxes imposed now to then and declare that the taxes that the the colonists were forced to bare were but a light burden compared to the bloated government the modern American is forced to support. Although the lesson should be that we need to reduce taxation, we somehow come away with the impression that we are refined, good, and obedient but that the former generations were corse, seditious, and rebellious to the last measure. Our understanding of the American Revolution, however seems to stop with the History Channel explanation, which is primitive at best. Our forefathers were not so vile as to rebel against their English heritage and their king, whom they supposed to be appointed by divine sanction. They did not jump the gun with the American Revolution, for it was not a palsied tax, that they rebelled against alone, but many other abuses, much more grave. 

One of these offenses worthy of rebellion were the early British Colonial trade regulations, which given time and heavy handed enforcement would completely scuttle the American economy, and transform the Colonies into something less than British satellites and something more than British principalities. The Navigation Act of 1651 was one of  the first real laws to threaten the American Colonist, Requiring all crews of ships to be at least 1/2 English in nationality and that most goods be carried on English or Colonial ships, which by itself is not to terrible to bare unless one realizes the consequences of such an act of mercantile protectionism, one of which is the bulk of unnecessary costs that such a law is bound to pile up by eliminating Dutch, French, or Spanish workers, sailers, and ships. Thus a major sector of the American economy, foreign shipping, was reduced from a legal enterprise to the business of smugglers. 

Nothing got any better when in 1660, the British Parliament refined the Navigation Act to require ALL Colonial trade to be conducted on English Ships with 3/4 English crews and English masters. The Staple Act, instead of hampering exports as the Navigation Act did, was written to manipulate every colonial import, requiring that all trade goods to be imported from across the known world be first shipped to England before America, which as you can imagine, is a gross injustice, and the expenses of such a law would have been catastrophic. Imagine that if your business ordered Brazilian sugar, you would have to send a ship to South America, then to Europe, then back turning what would have been perhaps a 15 week journey there and back, into somewhere around 35 weeks, which is a little less than 9 months, given the wind speeds. The prices to do this, would be inhibitive. 

1673 saw new developments in the regulation and enforcement of the previous acts when the Plantation Duty Act was passed, not only placing a tax on sugar and tobacco, but also establishing an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for the British Crown, which as we know from direct experience is a bur in one's sock at best. Furthermore and like today, this law was overly complex and inspired confusion, miscommunication, and accidental breaking of the law in Colonial merchant and English alike. The Plantation Duty Act was yet another legislative measure that still further reduced the colonies from satellites to principalities. The 1996 Navigation Act was how Britain really began to force the matter, creating admiralty courts designed to enforce the earlier regulations and allowed English customs officers to invade the hulls of ships in search for contraband and smuggled goods, which practically mirrors many of the institutions we have today.

Then, the British decided it prudent to further engage in their crony capitalism by protecting their inferior textile industry from colonial competitors by instituting the 1699 Woolens Act, declaring that the colonies were prohibited from selling and exporting woolen cloth away from the colonies to Britain or otherwise, crippling another American industry. In 1732, the Hat Act eliminated the export of American hats. The Molasses Act, a year after the Hat Act, heavily taxed all molasses that was not imported from the British West Indies, in order to favor the West Indian trade. Because of American evasion of these acts, further measures were taken to actually collect the taxes imposed by the Molasses Act by implementing stricter enforcement. At this point, Britain's economic policy of mercantilism combined with their various wars including the French and Indian, has spoiled the Empire and incurred a hefty national debt, of which parliament was hopping to find some repayment by taxing the colonies' sugar and molasses.

The American Colonies, being free according to natural law, began to seriously question the intentions of parliament, as they well should for if allowed to continue the British parliament was en route to establishing a world empire of which America would have been reduced from a British brother and equal, to a British bondsman and provincial. The fact that America's fate was being decided without American approval attests to this fact seeing that America had no representation within British politics. A slave has no say over his destiny, and thus has no vote nor political power of any kind. It was against this fate that America decided it must dissolve the political bands with England and start an independent government which would allow America to regrow her former economy by reducing taxes and enable America to trade with any foreign powers. America could then work in her interests instead of England's ambitions.

When people start to spout out the grade school conditioned response that Americans fought a war because of taxation without representation" I begin to feel that our forefathers were like dumb little kids who fought with their parents to stay up an hour later than their bedtime. It's like saying that a nation, after being protected, bit the hand that protected them. Then I remember that "No taxation without representation" is just a stupid slogan that does not reflect the actual facts of the matter and that the grade school explanation is abridged and faulty. The orthodox explanation for American independence is false. America rebelled not against a king, but against a legislature. America was not homicidal patriots, but they were shrewd business men and knew how to follow the money trail, finding that America would end up like a Roman province, doomed to the mercantilism of the capital which was interested only in subsisting at the expense of her provinces. America fought a war because she had to, not because she wanted to;  it was either to fight and remain free, or become a principality of Britain.