Now, you remember last time or last week, anyway, we put a graph up here showing the result you probably get if you went around and asked everybody in the colonies at 25year intervals do you want to be independent of britain . And if you remember the graph shot up kind of like like this. Over the years. In other words, as the colonies move along from jamestown to 1776, more and more people, as time passes, decide that they are able to handle this on their own. They dont need to be ruled from westminster and eventually of course enough of them decide that to produce a declaration of independence. So that graph would make the revolution pretty easy to understand, right, its just like you growing up. You know, when youre 2, the last thing you want is your parents to dump you out the door and say, okay, now youve got to run your own life. By the time youre 12, you can see it might look pretty good. By the time youre 18 here you are. So if this graph is right then the colonies are just going through the normal process of maturing. And a smart parent, of course, will keep an eye on things. And as the child gets more competent and more confident ease up on the strings. In that case separation can come about reasonably nicely. If the parent doesnt see whats happening and doesnt accommodate the changing competence and confidence of the child then theres likely to be argument and eventually maybe some kind of explosion. So this graph would make the revolution pretty easy to explain. Its just one case of what normally happens with people and with societies. Unfortunately thats not the way the graph looks at all. The graph looks more like this. Nobody wants to be independent until almost the very winter of 1775 and 76. After the firing at lexington and concord, after tom paynes pamphlet common sense comes out and spreads around the colonies. This makes the revolution much harder to figure out because the colonists are probably never happier and more glad to be british than at any time before or after 1776. They just won this great war. The french are gone. The indians temporarily are quelled. These people are celebrating. They are glad to be part of the most powerful and freest country in the western world. So what we have to explain then is not how a society gradually gets more and more interested in breaking away from the Apron Strings and being independent. What we have to figure out is how did these proud and happy englishmen in 1763, how did so many of them turn out to be traitors and rebels ten or twelve years later against a government they would have said a few years before was the best and freest in the world . Now, there are some longterm trends in colonial history that if you think about it make independence more possible as the years go by. Doesnt mean people want to be independent. But population, for instance, you start out with a few hundred people. In a couple of spots on the coast. By the 1790s youre looking at 250,000 people, maybe, about double the population of Lebanon County stretched out over 1,500 miles of coast. By 1776, a couple of Million People. A fourth of the population of england herself. More people than you have in some european countries. Now, if you had to do it, you can certainly imagine you could make a go of it as your own nation. And along with growing population comes a growing sense of what would we call it . Political competence. The local elite people like ben franklin, people like william bird who we talked about a couple weeks ago these are the folks who dominate the local elected assemblies. And if you remember the assemblies are getting more and more powerful and the governors that were appointed from overseas are having less and Less Authority as the years go by. By the time you get to the middle of the 1700s youve got pretty much local selfgovernance in every colony. Not is population reaching the left here, you can imagine an independent country could work. A governing class that thinks by george if theyve been running their colony last few decades they ought to be able to run a country. The economy has also, of course, been growing. As population increases, as people push the indians out and occupy more land, as they exploit the labor of more slaves, the pros perity of the colonies grows, by the time of the revolution a third of the ships built on the shores, a fifth or sixth of all the iron in the whole world is produced in the american colonies. So while you might have a city like london, or a really fancy dukes mansion and estate in england, if you average people out the white population of the colonies is probably the most prosperous part of the whole empire. So growing population, growing political competence, improving economy, all of these things mean if you had for some unforeseen reason to go off on your own, you really might be able to do it. But again it doesnt mean you want to be independent. These people are intensely proud of being british. And theyre even trying to at least people at the upper levels are trying to imitate how the British Population of their class lives. So, again, it becomes tough to figure why do so many of these people a dozen years later take up arms against their own government . Now, there are probably three fairly new developments in the colonies that, again, dont make independence likely. Or even desirable. But at least lay the groundwork for something. Great awakening, remember, for a hundred years people in the colonies from the very beginning had been thinking of themselves as provincials, looking back across the ocean with admiration and envy at this glittering metropolis over there. Here they are with it on the edge of civilization, staring out at an endless forest and back home theres london which by itself has more people than all the colonies for many decades. There are universities, other than harvard where are the great universities in the colonies . Where are the shakespeare plays . Where are the philosophers . And even a guy like william bird who can feel good because his mansion has 15 or 20 houses even he knows perfectly well the really snazzy people in britain have mansions of 100 or more houses. Theres this sense that youre country bumpkins really looking at your betters over in england. Always trying to be like them, always striving to more and more match the english pattern but never, of course, quite coming close. Youre definitely second class citizens in your own minds in the empire. And then here comes the great awakening. This huge surge of evangelical religion sweeping through the colonies. It pretty well faded out by the 1750s. But its left behind it a whole lot of evangelical christians who have been told by their faith that britain is not necessarily the best model for them. What matters in this world is not how educated you are, how cultured you are, how good your family is, how much wine you have in your basement, how well you can read philosophy. What matters in this world is how well are you getting ready for the next world . How do you live this life, but how are you going to live the next one . And so the example these people are told to follow, the people theyre told to admire, arent so much the local elite. Or the entire country of england back home. What theyre supposed to model themselves on is who is the most godly person. It isnt necessarily going to be the merchant with the fancy house. It isnt necessarily going to be the guy like william bird with his plantation and his slaves and his wine and his fancy clothes. It could be it could be your husband or your wife, it could be the slave out in william birds tobacco field, the carpenter in town. It isnt very likely to be one of those people you used to admire. And the same is true when you look at your place within the empire. You can look across the ocean to britain and you can see, at least in your mind, here is a group of people who arent as godly as we are. Here are people who do put the focus of the good things of this life, on the luxuries, on the corruptions that eat away at your morality. And maybe were not so bad then, compared to them. In fact, what the great awakening is telling you, is you people on this side of the atlantic should stop being embarrassed and ashamed of who you are and stop being envious of those people over in britain because you are better than they are in the one thing that matters. And that is the question every christian has to ask, of course, what must i do to be saved . So imagine how youd feel, you know, if youd grown up your whole life and youd always felt inferior to your older sister. And someone comes along and gets you to realize, wait a minute, in the ways that really matter youre actually better than your sister. Its going to change the way you think about your relationship. So theres one thing. Second thing thats going on, remember, is a lot of the elite in the colonies are reading these whig writers who are telling them history is a constant struggle between power and liberty, and liberty, regrettably, always loses. And that liberty is in danger in britain itself, the freest country in the western world, because corruption is eating away at the vitals of the country. Offices are sold. Votes are bought. Government operates not according to policy but according to what office can i get, what salary can i make, how can i get some goodies for my relatives and that sort of thing. And that allows the ambitious would be caesars in any government to use that sort of attitude, whats in it for me, to corrupt the house of commons. By saying hey, you support me, get you a good office. You support me, your aging aunt can have a government pension, your son can get into college. Weve got a little clergyman post here for your nephew. And the more and more people who are bought off by the government the less and less likely the house of commons is to be a bulwark against liberty. So liberty is safest, the whigs are telling these folks, in a country with a big, broad land Holding Middle class, farmers who are independent economically, they dont need anything from government. They dont have to go get a bribe because what good would it do them . And of course where do you find the society with the big broad land Holding Middle class . Right here in america. Not in england. Which can never have that kind of society because its just not big enough for every family to have a decent chunk of land. And so if the core of being english is to be free, and if liberty is safest in a society with this big land Holding Middle class, then the colonies are the best part of the empire, the most english part of the empire and the freest part of the empire. So stop thinking of yourselves as a bunch of backward bumpkins, think of yourselves as more english than people in england even. Youre the ones leading the way for the whole empire and perhaps all of europe, and maybe the whole world, toward a future where freedom and more and more secure and the would be caesars have less and less chance to destroy it and exalt themselves. So here are two ways in which the colonies are being are learning to think not of themselves as inferiors, and not even as equals, but as actually the best part of the empire. Thats going to change how they look at things. And then theres a growing sense of american identity, of the whole idea of what community you think of yourself as belonging to is kind of iffy for people to try to figure out. But one enterprising historian decided about 50 years ago or so lets look at newspapers and lets ask ourselves what do people mean when they use words like we and us and our the words of inclusion, and what do they mean when they use words like they and them and those, the words for, you know, the other. Well, up through, oh, about the 1730s or 40s, mostly when people talk about we they mean we pennsylvanians or we britains in the empire. You have your colonial identity. You have your british identity. When they talk about they and them, you mean, oh, those foreigners over in france and spain, or sometimes those people in the next colony down the road who we dont know about and dont really much care about. But increasingly as you get into the 50s and the 60s when you look at newspapers and see how people use those pronouns a lot of times now when they say we, they mean we americans. More than just we in our colony, less inclusive than we in the whole empire. Now youve got this intermediate identity, this sense that you have some things in common with people in other colonies on this side of the atlantic that you dont share with people in england or jamaica or other parts of the empire. And now when you talk about, you know, the outsiders, they and them, a lot of times now its not just those foreigners, it is also those people over in england. Now, this doesnt mean, of course, that if you think of yourselves as americans you think of yourselves as less british, any more than say, someone, who says im a new englander is any less american by thinking that. But it does mean that for the first time you can imagine that something binds you to the people in the other colonies. That, again, is different from what binds you to people in the rest of the empire. And you can see a greater sense, not just of american identity, but a greater sense of american unity. You know, the first three wars against the french and the indians, the government in britain are just banging its head against the wall to get the colonies to see you face a common threat. You should all be pulling together. Indians are attacking massachusetts, people in south carolina, say whats it to me . Indians are bothering people in virginia, people in rhode island, its none of their business. Finally in this last war the french and indian war, finally the colonies begin to see, yes, maybe were all in this together. Maybe we share something in common, and that is a common enemy and a common threat. Ben franklin, remember, tries to get the Colonial Leadership together at albany in 1754 to work out not just a common approach to the indian problem, but even a Colonial Government where theyll have one governor appointed for the whole of the colonies, one assembly for the whole of the colonies. Nothing comes of it. But just the fact that it could be thought of, and that some of the colonial leaders would come and talk about it and think its a good idea is something brand new. So youve got these longterm developments, growing population, growing political competence, growing economy, in fact while they dont make people want to be independent does mean that if independence should unfortunately come we probably can handle it. And then youve got this sense that, hey, wait a minute, we are no longer the backward provincials in this empire, looking with envy at the great metropolis across the seas. We are not even just the equal, but perhaps superior in some ways to those poor folks because here we are more religious, more devout. Here, freedom is safer because we have a huge group of middle class farmers who need nothing from anyone. Now, with that as background. Lets take a look at 1763. Here you are in america. Youve just won this big war against the french and the indians and you think that you won it. It kind of slips your mind that the British Government sent 25,000 regular troops across the atlantic to capture montreal and quebec and drive the french out of canada, and, of course, a british navy commanded the seas. What you remember is braddock marching his army pel mel through the forests of pennsylvania, being ambushed and practically destroyed by the indians and the french, saved only by the courage of the colonial troops led by george washington. So you dont have a terribly good impression of the park that the British Military played in winning this war. You think more of it being a colonial victory. And since the victory has been won the future looks great. Oh, that dark brooding presence out there in the forest that is laying like a shadow over your future is gone now, the french are out of america, theyre not coming back as far as youre concerned, the french without the indians without french help are less able to oppose colonial expansion. The future looks great, all the way to the mississippi. This is your world now. Well, across the atlantic, in westminster, things dont look quite that good. I mean, theyre glad to have won the war, of course. Who wouldnt be glad to beat the french, your traditional enemy, but the very completeness of the victory means the french are going to be all that more anxious for revenge. So you cant just say hot dog we won the war, peace is here, lets go home. Everybody in britain who knows about the state of the world knows theres going to be another war every generation or so. And you have to be ready to defend what you won. So victory is great but victory brings its own problems. For one thing, a bigger empire too defend. Youve got more land in america to defend. Youve got more land in india to defend. And youve got a couple of islands here and there extra to worry about. So you need to keep the navy, and you need to keep the army. At higher than the levels you had before the war. That costs money. So the three big problems facing america that worry british policymakers after they finish drinking the toasts to victory, one is what in the world do we do about these indians . The native American Population have been the enemy for 75 years and theyve looked on you as the enemy. Now, these people have to learn how to live as good loyal british subjects. Thats not going to be very easy considering that there are a lot of white loyal british subjects who want nothing more than get more indian land. So lets think about this. If you were a native american leader in 1763, and your great fear is that the english colonies are going to get more of your land what are you going to do about it . When they start saying wed like to carve out a nice big chunk of your territory . Yeah. Not going to be happy with it. And if they persist. Probably going to fight back or retaliate. Well, and this is exactly, of course, what happens in pontiacs rebellion. Pontiac leads the northwest indians, even before the war with france is over, to besiege almost every single british outpost between detroit and pittsburgh because theyre worried without french help they face a pretty dismal future. The government doesnt want to have to fight indian war after indian war in the interior of north america. So theyve got to figure out a way to deal with that. The second problem theyre looking at is law enforcement. Like almost all the colonial empires the british try to follow the Economic Policy of mercantilism, means you need to accumulate wealth in your country, because theres a war coming soon and you need to be able to fight wars. The idea of the america if y country has more, some other country has less. Countries, nations acquire wealth the same way families do, bring in more money than you spend or in trade terms, you sell more to other countries than your people buy from other countries. So you have to manage your trade policy in a way that helps prepare the country for the next war. Reduces the amount of foreign goods your people buy. And helps spur exports. Well, theres a lot of smuggling going on in the colonies because its a whole lot better from themer ch merchants point of view, sell them at a lower cost to your customer. The government hasnt been able to do much about this because of other things like wars that put themselves maybe a crackdown on smuggling, and get the trade of the colonies moving more in tune with the good of the country. It got so bad that during this last war with france, there are colonial merchants actually selling goods to the french while the french are out shooting their fellow british countrymen. Youve got to put a stop to that. No government can allow that to happen. So thats problem two. And problem three is, you need money. Its going to cost money to defend north america. Wheres it going to come from . The american colonies are the most prosperous part of the empire, and they pay the least taxes. The average tax per person in British Isles is about 25 times as much as the average in the colonies. So if youre going to raise more money to help defend the colonies, it seems logical to try to ask the undertaxed people in the colonies to help chip in than to lay more burdens on the overtaxed people at home. Those are three problems the governments got to wrestle with in order to be able to take advantage of the fruits of victory. So indian problem pops up first, because of pontiacs rebellion. How are you going to deal with that . If your problem is that the indians dont like having their land overrun by a bunch of white colonists, then the only way youre going to calm the indians down is protect them against that danger. So the proclamation of 1763 says what . Proclamation 1763 come on, come on, you people know this. Okay. It says that the colonists cant settle west of the appalachians into indian territory. Right. And we hope that will prevent conflict. Now, the idea of course comes pretty well up against the colonists idea that hey everything west of the mississippi is now open for us. But surprisingly perhaps theres not a lot of grumbling and griping about the proclamation in the beginning. People in the colonies dont want to have indian wars either if they can help it. Especially the people on the coast where most of the ruling elite live they dont want to pay taxes to fight indians because the greedy folks on the frontier want to take away their land. Its not supposed to be a permanent area. As population builds up in some spot along the frontier youll go out and negotiate with the indians, carve out another chunk of land, pay them for it and open it up. So settlement will continue, expansion will go on, it will just be slower and more orderly and they hope more peaceful. Later on, however, as people start developing these paranoid fears that theres some conspiracy against government in britain then people start looking back at the proclamation. And saying hey, maybe this indian thing was just a front. Maybe the whole point is they want to keep us crowded up between the mountains and the sea so well be easier to control. But in the beginning the proclamation doesnt cause a whole lot of stir. Its a little bit different when you get to enforcing the law. The problem existed because there are not enough revenue cutters, not enough customs collectors to catch every little inlet along the coast where people might smuggle stuff in. When you do catch them, what happens . They get tried by a jury of their friends, relatives and customers. And the local jury, as often as not, laughs at the law, acquits the criminal, or fines him some measly amount that makes a joke of law enforcement. Governments cant let that happen. You know, if you have an unpopular law youve either got to repeal it or youve got to enforce it. You cant let a whole generation of people grow up scoffing at the law. So whats the government do . They basically put more police on the streets. More customs officials. More revenue cutters. Making it easier to catch the smugglers when they try to bring stuff in. When you do get them instead of having them sit down in front of a jury of their buddies, well ship them off to nova scotia to be tried by a judge who isnt going to be swayed by any local friendships. And justice can finally be done. Now, youd expect, right, that a good citizen, who looks around and says boy, crime is getting out of hand, would be overjoyed when the government decides to crack down on the criminals. And it comes as rather a shock when thats not the attitude at all. That comes out of the colonies. Remember, the whigs had been telling these people that the way you lose your freedom in todays world is not by Julius Caesar marching an army down and capturing london and installing himself as a dictator, but by the knew caesar hiding in some room somewhere in westminster and hauling members of parliament in and saying what will it take to get you from being a watch guard of public liberty into somebody who will let me do what i want . Heres your payoff. Well, the more government offices there are the more patronage the government has. Every new official in the Customs Service is another salary for somebody. You want your uncle, your brother, your son or even yourself, you know, to have that nice salary, well then if youre a member of parliament you better do what the government wants. And so instead of people saying hey, thank gosh were finally getting more officials to enforce the law and keep crime down they start complaining that, look at this, theyre creating more patronage jobs to use as bribes to get the house of commons to look the other way while whatever conspiracy there is against our liberties proceeds step by step. And then youve got guys like john hancock, one of the biggest smugglers in the colonies, people who get caught and are hauled up not before a jury, but before a judge, theyre not going to get much sympathy if they go around whining that, hey, the government is not letting me break the law and stuff my pockets full of money anymore. But if they go around saying, hey, the government has taken away my right of a jury trial, one of the most fundamental liberties of the free englishman. If they can do it to me they can do it to you. Then people are going to pay a lot of attention. And so youve turned yourself from a criminal into a victim. A victim of the evil government that is little by little trying to turn everybody from free born english subjects into slaves. So just trying to enforce the law, and keep colonial trade going in ways that help the country instead of hurt it creates a lot of outrage. But the worst of it all, of course, is trying to deal with the revenue problem. If youre going to get money, and have part of your population paying practically nothing the wealthiest part, and another part paying more, who would you tax . Jody, who would you go after . Make the people pay enough and pay a little . Make the people who arent paying much. Even if you didnt think that was the morally right thing to do can you imagine the British Government telling the british people hey, we decided to let the colonists go on being free loaders and tax you more. Thats not going to go over very well with the constituents. And while the government is obviously, to some considerable degree insulated from Public Opinion if youre raising the land tax on the land holders in britain and theyre the people that vote for the house of commons you could be in some danger. Especially since there are, of course, opponents to the government that are always looking for ways just as political opponents always are of making the current government look evil and bad and corrupt and getting voters to turn away from them. So if you have to raise more money to defend the colonies in the new world, it only makes sense to have the people in those colonies at least pay a part of the cost of their own defense. So how are you going to do it . Well, the stamp tax is the answer. This looks like a pretty good deal to the government because what it is is basically a tax on most forms of legal activity. Youve got to put a tax stamp on wills, for instance, that you file with the court. You go plead in court, youve got to put a tax stamp on the pleadings you submit to the judge. You want to take your ship out with cargo, youve got to put a tax stamp on the papers. And things like pamphlets, want to publish a pamphlet on how to catch fish, put a tax stamp on it. Newspapers, same thing. It only affects a very small number of the couple of Million People in the colonies, only affects lawyers and merchants and publishers, and a couple other groups of people. Secondly its a puny tax, averages about one shilling a person per year. Hardly anything compared to what people pay in england. And third, and maybe best of all, its hard to evade and its easy to detect evasion. You dont have to send tax collectors swarming out over the landscape if you had a land tax. Look at the pamphlet, does it have the tax stamp on it or not, look at the will, theyre trying to file in court, does it have the stamp or not . Easy to figure out if people are paying or not paying. Every way you look at it it seems to be about the simplest, easiest way you could tax the colonies. And the 95 of the people who are sitting out on their farms growing food for their families would never see a tax stamp in their lives. Well, maybe if theyre wealthy enough to have a will. They have to stick one on there. People in england are astounded and surprised and totally frustrated when the stamp tax produces not gratitude for hey thanks for not taxing us so much and paying most of the cost of defending us, not even indifference, we dont like taxes but its just a little one, who cares, instead it produces outrage, anger and fear. Because, again, one of the fundamental undoubted rights of englishmen is not to be taxed but by your own representatives, the king cant take your money unless your representatives say so. So who represents the colonies in america . Well as far as everybody in england is concerned the house of commons is their representative, just like it represents everyone in the empire. Well, the house of commons makes really no sense as a representative body you think of it as full of a bunch of politicians who are going up there to look out for the interests of their little slice of the country because franchises who are electing members of the commons who are passed out back in the late middle ages and theyre big cities like birmingham and manchester in england who have no people elected to the house of commons because they were just villages hundreds of years ago, and there are a few other places that used to be towns with people in them that have nobody living there anymore. Old salem, or william pit, the great defender of america in the house of commons is elected from no living people. It makes no sense at all to say here are towns that have no one representing them and here are cemeteries that have a couple of people every two years to go up two people every year or so to go up there and represent dead bodies. The house of commons makes sense only if you think that its not a collection of politicians who are looking out or local interests. Its a collection of statesmen. Everybody there, wherever they are elected from, is supposed to be taking the big broad outlook and thinking of whats good for the whole empire. So if the house of commons is supposed to represent the interests of people in birmingham, people of birmingham cant complain when even they ho pay a tax. Even though they dont elect anybody. Everybody in the house of commons is watching out for them and everybody in the house of commons is watching out for pennsylvania. Now, the british call this virtual representation. You may not elect anybody directly but youre virtually represented by everybody. Now, we know today, you know, the difference between Virtual Reality and real reality. And it gets pretty close sometimes but you cant buy a cheeseburger in Virtual Reality and so the colonies have a very different way of looking at representation. From the very beginning of the Virginia House of burgesss in 1619 the colonial idea has been you can only be represented by someone you elect from among you and your geographic area. I mean, why should somebody elected from somewhere else represent you . It makes no sense. Now, if you live in Lebanon County you cant depend on the guy from Lancaster County representing your interests. You cant punish him if he does wrong. You cant reward him with reelection if he does right. Hed be a fool to represent your interests. The only thing that matters to him is what other people in Lancaster County want. If you cant be represented by some person in the next county you sure as heck dont think youre represented by somebody 3,000 miles away who youve never seen and has never seen you. So everybody agrees that the englishman is entitled to be taxed only by his own representatives. What they dont seem to agree on is who are his representatives. If you think the house of commons represents the whole empire, including pennsylvania, they can certainly tax pennsylvania. Thats the view of people back home. If you think the Pennsylvania Assembly is the only representative body for pennsylvania then the house of commons cannot possibly constitutionally tax people in pennsylvania. And everybody in england should be able to see that. Well, theres the big problem, right . Now, let me ask you this. Lets suppose youre a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly. And lets suppose the government agrees, hey, look, if the king wants your money hes got to come ask the Pennsylvania Assembly for it. So the government says to you, mr. Pennsylvania assemblyman, lets say youre that assemblyman, government says to you, hey, we need some money. Will you please tax your constituents and send us some money . Whats your attitude likely to be . Probably you wouldnt want to youd be willing to go back and tell your constituents, next election the reason youre paying this extra tax is that i had to send your money overseas. Do you think your voters would like that and reward you or would they kick youlike that an reward you or would they kick you out . They probably wouldnt like that and that is what folks in england think the attitude and america is likely to be. If you have to ask the local assembly to please send money, then the assemblymen says hey, wait, i will get defeated at the next election, you are never going to get any. So, if you look at the fundamental vital interests of people in the colonies, it is in their view that we should enjoy all the rights of englishmen, we are no less english and one of the rights is no one can take our money but our collective representatives who are right here in philadelphia and once we let the government to overstep the bounds, where does it stop . It stops at another seizure. The people in england look at it very differently. If we cant have the government raise money from the prosperous part of the country and the rest have to pay extra for we are not going to put up with that. There are some proposals, lets like their columnists elect through the house of commons and then they would be there and we would tax them. But the house of commons is that would never work well, we can go to england 3000 miles away, thats 5 to 8 weeks, we dont know whats going on over there and we can construct our representatives about what to do etc. But it looks to a lot of people in england like the columnists are saying, we dont care what excuse we come up with, we just dont want to pay taxes. You guys pay more. That does not go over well. So, how do you fight the stamp act if your columnist . Well for one thing you get a mob up and go to the people who are appointed to distribute the tax stamp and say would you rather resign your office be willing to risk his life selling tax stamps and just so the government doesnt misunderstand what the columnists are trying to say, and kind of as a way to regain leadership from the mobs hanging around in all the coastal cities, the colonial elites decide to meet together in new york at the Stamp Act Congress to tell the British Government exactly what the story is, and number one we are english just as much is you and we have all the rights people in england do and one of those is you cannot tax us through the representatives and number four is you are trying to do it anyway and number five is we are not going to let you. And, just to drive the point home, we will have a boycott of british goods. The american colonies i one of the biggest most profitable market for merchants and manufacturers, not of course if nobody buys their stuff. And so, after a while, the merchants and manufacturers of britain go swimming down to westminster and tell the government to get rid of the stupid tax, you are costing us money. Besides, since nobody is willing or stupid or brave enough to actually distribute the tax stamps, you want making any money from it anyway and so they repeal the stamp act. Great celebration in the colonies, hey, these guys finally understand our Constitutional Rights, toast to william pitt and all the other defenders of american rights in parliament and to george iii, the patriot king who stands above party in politics and looks out for the good of his people. They are so busy celebrating that the columnists dont sufficiently realize that at the same time that congress or parliament repealed the stamp act, they pass the declaratory act that says parliament has the right to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever, including taxation. So, the government didnt really accept the argument, all they said is we could tax you anytime we want we just so happen to feel like it right now that is not much of a victory. But, it columns things down, but you still have the problem of money, can you ask the people in britain to pay extra to defend america when americans are willing to defend america . So, the new Prime Minister comes in and comes up with a new idea, the towns and act. The government gets a mistaken impression that the objection to the stamp act really was that it was an internal tax, as opposed to a duty on imports, where people have never really objected to parliament tried to regulate trade. So, lets forget the stamp stuff, we will have a tax on things columnist import, paper, glass, t, we will collected at the ports, no one else has to be bothered like that. Big surprise. More outrage, anger and fear. More mobs, another boycott of british goods, more angry protest going back across the ocean. Look, dont you guys get it. Any money you extract from us is taxed and you cant do whatever you call it or however you try to hide it you cant do it, its unconstitutional. Just to remind you of that were not buying your goods again, your boycotts, morelos money, the merchants and manufacturers go back to car limit and say stop this nonsense and the government backs off and repeals all the taxes except the one on tape. More big celebrations in the colonies, people breathe a big sigh of relief, maybe we finally made our point that we are paying taxes now, the next few years, a number of things happened to reawaken the fears of conspiracy against liberty. If its not a tax issue, its something else. For example, the government sends troops to boston in 1768 and one of the great fears that englishmen have is fear of a Standing Army. But, when theres a war going on you need a army to fight the enemy and when theres no war you dont need an army. Now no continental country could say that of course, youve got potential enemies on every border but the government would be complete idiots if they didnt keep an army up in peace time to prevent somebody invading them but britain of course is a bunch of islands, as long as the british navy is there, you will have plenty of notice before you have to get ready to fight and you dont need an army. So, if you see your government beginning to build up an army when there is no enemy around, you have to start asking yourself who are they planning to use it again. If its not the enemy is it us . Why would the government need an army, unless its planning to do something really horrible to its own people and it wants to put down the inevitable protest. And then englishmen have seen armies in peace time be used for precisely that purpose under the stuart kings and even the great defender of parliamentary rights, who even after he lopped the kings head off meet himself to cater and ran an even tighter ship than the stuarts did. So, here are troops in boston, why, are they defenders from the indians, the indians are out in the frontier of the french are gone and why are there Government Troops in boston . You really have to start asking the question. So again, remember the waves, the whig riders have been telling people over and over again how do you lose your liberty . Use it to your own government, you lose it to some ambitious politician or group of politicians who decide to gradually start snapping away at it. You are far more likely to fall prey to your own government into a foreign enemy. So, if you have this sort of generalized suspicion of government and you see things happen like hey you are trying to tax us without our consent and take away the right of a jury trial, they have troops here with no war going on, it does make some people start to wonder. And then, the boston massacre of course, only brings the fear of a Standing Army to an even greater peak, here they are shooting down their own people. But, theres even more going on than that. The church of england is the established Church Back Home and there is a state church and most of the southern colonies and parts of new york and the anglicans in america have a problem, to be a clergyman you have to be anointed or consecrated by at least one bishop and all of the bishops are back in britain. So, if you are pennsylvanian and you want to be a minister in the church of england, you have to go all the way back across the ocean in an expensive and dangerous trip or, your clergymen have to be englishmen and scotsmen sent over here, it would be allotting gator to have a anglican bishop right here in the colonies. So, a lot of the anglicans in america start asking for one. And you think, who cares, right . If youre presbyterian or congregationalist or anything, why do you care . How easy it is for the anglicans to get clergyman, but remember the church of england as part of the government and the bishops sit in the house of lords and are basically politicians, not religious people and, every new anglican minister is another piece of patronage to be used to corrupt the people who should be defending public liberty but instead her up at once minster looking out for what they can get for themselves. So you want to expand the power of the church of england in america and this looks suspicious. Why would you want to do this now . So, even things like that can be turned into fearsome things. And, then you have got the question of judicial independence. While in england, judges are in there for life in the hope went is to make them independent of the government. They dont have to look over the shoulder all the time to ask how is my decision gonna look to the guys in authority. The problem you have in the colonies is there are not very many educated competent lawyers. So, the government is not willing to put some half [ null ] lawyer and a Judges Office for life. You might have to have them be a judge now because you have no choice but in another 10 or 20 years when you have more educated lawyers you want to be able to get rid of this person and put a decent judge in. So, they dont have lifetime tenure for judges in the colonies. Well, if you look at it from the standpoint of we want the best qualified judges, that makes some sense, right . But if you look at it the way a paranoid conspiracy minded person would you ask yourself why is it that they dont want the judges to be independent and why do they want the judges to be subject to removal by government at any time . Obviously because they plan to do bad things and dont want the judges to stand in their way. So, here is another part of the conspiracy. So, if you have already been taught to suspect your government anyway and then you see your government doing things, that as far as you are concerned, any sensible person would see is unconstitutional or dangerous, taxing you when they dont represent you, not letting you have a trial by, keeping you from expanding westward to get further away from their control, making the judges subject to removal any time they want to get rid of a judge, putting troops in the colonies when there is nobody to fight but you, helping the church of england get bigger and more powerful here when Everybody Knows its just another quasi governmental body , you are going to start worrying. And, although all of this stuff looks really stupid from the view in england, it doesnt look stupid to you. So, you get more and more suspicious people and, the more they express their suspicion and people learn about it in england, the more people in england have to scratch their heads, what the heck are these people talking about . Theres no conspiracy against liberty in westminster, no taxes, why shouldnt they have to pay taxes . Everybody else does. No bishop in america . Who would care about that. Etc. So, if you are in englishmen and you are reading all of this stuff, this total phony baloney , the excuses not to obey the law to pay taxes, you start to wonder if maybe there is a conspiracy, but its not here in london, its in america and there are a few of these are like sam adams and a few people like that who are doing their best to stir up these totally phony fears to turn people against the government so that they could perhaps lineup is process of an independent america. We cant let this happen without trying to do something about it. So, every time they are protesting the colonies the government slaps them back in the people in england get matter and that just makes some of the people than the colonies matter and it goes from one step to the other. Then, of course the Boston Tea Party arrives. Here are a bunch of people swarming onto the docks and destroying thousands of pounds worth of tea from the east India Company, clearly an illegal act with lots of people in the colonies who believe in the law and are offended by this. Well, usually of course, if you go destroy somebodys property, one of two things will happen, the person whose property you destroyed will see you in court to make you pay for it but the government could grab your people in jail for the crime that the government doesnt do that in the case of the tea party. It would be awfully hard to figure out who these people were who did this. But what the government does instead is punished the whole city of austin until the bostonians agreed to reimburse the east India Company for all the tea. So, they shut the port of boston down, no ships in or out and they starve the city out of cost the merchants and dock workers money and eventually the economic pain is going to be sufficient that they will have to back down and pay for the tea. And they will punish the colony of massachusetts because they need to be taught a lesson. Well, this creates, again, outrage and fear, this is not the way that you deal with a criminal act, you dont go punish a whole population because someone robbed a bank. Why is the government doing this cracks it must be that they are trying to think of another excuse to put the screws on the colonies and make them key into their demand. If we do that, we dont deserve the name of englishmen. And then, maybe almost worse, totally unconnected with the Boston Tea Party, at the same time as passing the acts against boston and massachusetts but i will let the canadians have the same governor they had before, no elected assembly, never had one and they are not used to it and then we will have the Catholic Church be the official church of canada and they will be a little more content, well, the outrage in the lower colonies is tremendous and everybody understands, if you dont have an elected representative body is party your government, you have nothing against arbitrary government, why are they not giving the canadians an elected assembly, is it because they intend to take away our sooner or later . Maybe, considering the protestant see the Catholic Church is the one great enemy of freedom in the modern world, the fact that your protestant government is saying hey, the Catholic Church can dominate the life of canada, this is a little suspicious why would they be doing that . Perhaps, worst of all they have extended the borders of canada down so it includes most of the modernist west midwest. Good chunk of what they considered future expansion will now be dominated by a catholic controlled colony with no elected representatives. Pretty suspicious. But all of this stuff comes together to produce the growing sense of outrage, to reach to things like the Continental Congress and leads the British Government to respond with even sterner measures. So this is how you go in 10 or 12 years from a country full of happy and proud englishmen to a whole bunch of traitors and rebels, not that of course, everybody buys into these conspiracies. But, enough do to produce the end result. Now, if you look back on it, a lot of this stuff could be compromised. You could maybe have made the proclamation of 1763 not quite so severe and could maybe have said, okay, look, relax about jury trials, everyone gets enough sex strugglers, were not after you. You couldve not maybe put the troops in boston and may be said to the anglican church, you guys, its too much trouble to have a bishop over there and we will keep doing what weve been doing that you can compromise away all of these disputes except one. How do you get around the fact that the colonists are insisting that we not pay any taxes, unless our local assemblies approve them . Because, otherwise its unconstitutional and the people in england are saying, we are not going to get away with paying taxes so you have to pay more because every good citizen has to be willing to take on the responsibility of citizenship as well as enjoy the advantages and we cant let you guys get away with escaping your responsibilities. They cant afford to back to because the columnists think their vital interest is wrapped up in descending their Constitutional Rights and this is perhaps one of the biggest that the government cannot take your money and the rest, you representatives say its okay. To get in on that, it brings you up and opens you up to more constitutional actions and you are heading down a slippery slope towards dictatorship. But, the government can give up either, saying they will let that wealthy is part of the empire pay nothing and everyone else has to pay more. No government could do that. So, once the argument about taxation representation gets set in stone, so that neither side can back down without giving up vital interests, that, it seems, really difficult to figure out how to compromise could ever be possible. Either the columnists have to submit to unconstitutional actions by their government and throwing liberties into danger as they see it, or the government has to sit to letting a big chunk of their country get away without living up to the responsibilities of a good citizen. And neither is possible. Once it gets set that way, its hard to see how it is, in any other place except the spot in concord that emerson wrote about. Dear once the embattled farmers stood in fire the shot heard round the world. That is all for today. Next time we will get into the revolution itself not next time because we have an exam next time. Week we are featuring American History tv programs is a preview of what is available every weekend on cspan3. Lectures in history, american artifacts, real america, the civil war, oral histories, the presidency and special event coverage about our nations history. Enjoy American History tv now and every weekend on cspan3. Weeknights this month we feature American History tv programs this week we showcase lectures in history series taking you into College Classrooms around the country. On wednesday, look at world war ii and how american cartoons influence the war effort. Watch American History tv, wednesday at 8 p. M. Eastern and every weekend on cspan3. Watch book tv for live coverage of the National Book festival, saturday starting at 10 am eastern, our coverage includes author interviews with ruth gator vince burke Ruth Bader Ginsburg and talks about child of the dream. Rick atkinson author of the british are coming and thomas malone, the founding director of the mit center for collective intelligence discussions his book super mines, the National Book festival is Live Saturday at 10 am eastern book tv on cspan2. The House Judiciary Committee will return early from summer recess to markup three gun violence prevention bills including banning high capacity ammunition magazines, restrict firearms from those deemed by the court and preventing individuals convicted of hate crimes from purchasing nick gunn. Live coverage begins september 4 at 10 am eastern on cspan and cspan. Org and if youre on the go, listen to live coverage using the free cspan radio app. Up next on American History tv, a discussion on the American Military during the revolutionary war, look at the equipment and capabilities of both the Continental Army and militia troops as well as advantages and disadvantages of the american and british forces, this is just over an hour. You are all declared independence. So, that means that we have to go to war. So, in order to do that we need to recruit our troops, train them and arm them in all sorts of good things but before we do that, i want to talk to briefly about military history in general