The American Revolution 1776-1783

Who: John Locke

Where: England (philosophies spread through the colonies)

What: Locke’s theories on natural rights were part of colonial arguments. “Natural rights” is part of a political theory that states when individuals enter into society they have basic rights that no government can take away.

Sig: Locke’s philosophy (see his Treatise on Civil Government, 1690) was the foundation for the American Revolution. That is, when government becomes destructive of certain ends (life, liberty, property), the people have the right to abolish it.

Who: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau

What: A doctrine (that is closely associated with the social contract) that the state is created by and subject to the will of the People, who are the source of all political power. Contrast this with monarchy, where the people may have no formal voice in governmental affairs

Sig: Once Americans, as a whole, accepted the ideas of Popular Sovereignty, they started molding the foundations for a democratic political system (which was, of course, republican in form—republican meaning that the people vote for representatives who then make political decision).

What: Limited government is a system of government that is bound to specifically defined principles of action by a written constitution.

Sig: The concept of limited government flows naturally from the assumption of popular sovereignty: If the people are sovereign, then any powers held by government are "given on loan” and cannot detract from the people's innate sovereignty. Therefore such powers are inherently limited.

Who: First Continental Congress: September 5-October 26, 1774, Second Continental Congress 1775 to 1781

Where: Philadelphia

What: The First Continental Congress met to develop a common colonial response to the Coercive Acts recently passed by Parliament. An advisory council rather than an empowered legislature, the Congress (as it came to be called) included delegates from twelve of the American colonies; Georgia did not participate. Congress advised each colony to form a militia, organized an association to enforce strict economic sanctions against Britain, and recommended that Massachusetts, the focus of the Coercive Acts, form an independent government. After issuing addresses to the king and to the British and American people, the delegates agreed to meet again in May 1775 if their grievances had not been resolved.

By the time the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in May 1775, fighting had taken place at Lexington and Concord. Congress quickly assumed responsibility for coordinating the rebellion, starting with the raising of a Continental army. A year later the Second Continental Congress took the final step toward separation by officially adopting the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The Second Continental Congress fought the War until superseded by the Congress created when the Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781. The Congress under the Articles (1781-1788) perpetuated the wartime balance of power, keeping the central government politically and financially dependent on the states. Yet Congress under the Articles did manage to prosecute the war successfully and could point to a number of other important achievements, including the Land Ordinance of 1785, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, and the complicated handling of land disputes among the states.

Sig: The various congresses reflect the hesitant yet practical movement towards a unified nation. While the states retained sovereignty (until ratification of the Constitution in 1788), the congresses did a great deal of important work, including moving the colonies from British colonies to an independent nation called the United States of America. Thus the congresses contributed mightily to the formation of a strictly American identity.

Who: Wife of President John Adams. In 1776, right before the Declaration of Independence, she wrote to her husband, “in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies.”

Sig: She saw the implications of revolutionary ideas for changing the status of women.
Link to Republican Motherhood and improved educational opportunities for women.

What: The Second Continental Congress approved an official document declaring independence from Great Britain, including justification for the rupture.

Sig: Arguably the most significant document in U.S. history, the declaration placed the colonies in open rebellion against the mother country, with the consequence being that armed conflict would determine the final outcome. War would decide the question: Who is sovereign?

Who: Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold (U.S.), John Burgoyne (British)

Where: Saratoga, New York

What: General Burgoyne surrendered a large British army at Saratoga, New York, on October 17, 1777. This was one of the most significant battles in U.S. history because it stopped the British invasion from Canada, lifted sagging American morale, and led to the treaties of military alliance and friendship/commerce with France in 1778

Sig: The battle convinced the French that the Americans were capable of winning, which led to the treaties between the French and the U.S. a few months later.

What: France, thirsting for revenge against the British, provided Americans with supplies, and then officially became allied with the colonies in 1778. Both sides agreed to not end the war without the other’s consent [a pledge broken by the United States and not to France’s dismay (France could not deliver Gibraltar to Spain and the separate peace between the United States and Britain that ended the war also ended a problem for the French)]. The treaty was made possible as a result of the American victory at Saratoga the previous October (1777).

Sig: Without French help the colonies and then the United States may not have been able to win the war. Further, the treaty became a sticking point between France and the U.S. in the 1790s, when France wanted U.S. assistance in the Caribbean in fighting the British. (The treaty was cancelled in 1800 by the Convention of 1800.)

Who: Colonials loyal to the king

What: Loyalists were colonials who were still loyal to the British king. Those who were in America under British rule, such as officers and officials, were also labeled Loyalists. The Loyalists were called “Tories,” opposing the Patriots, or “Whigs.” Tories were defined by patriots as “a thing whose head is in England and its body in America, and its neck ought to be stretched.” When the war was under way, loyalists were persecuted and driven from the U.S. Some Loyalists fought against the colonies.

Sig: The colonies and then the U.S. mistreated Loyalists, a thorny issue with the British after the war. (The U.S. could not restore Loyalists’ properties and the British would not evacuate posts in the west, as agreed to in the Treaty of Paris of 1783.)

Who: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay representing the U.S.

What: This treaty ended the Revolutionary War between the U.S. and Britain. Also, the boundaries were set, from the Mississippi on the west, to the Great Lakes on the north, and to Spanish Florida on the South. (Recall that the Treaty set the southern border at the 31st parallel, while Spain independently claimed that West Florida went up to 32º28″-- an issue finally resolved in U.S. favor with the Pinckney Treaty of 1795.) America agreed to stop persecution of Loyalists, and Congress was to recommend to the state legislatures that the confiscated Loyalist property to be restored. Debts to British creditors should also be paid. Britain pledged to get out of western forts. (U.S. treatment of the loyalists and British withdrawal from the forts became sources of friction.)

Sig: Britain recognized the independence and sovereignty of the United States after almost eight years of being at war. The U.S. entered the world stage as a new nation with the Treaty.