How the Colonies Became a Nation, 1750-1783 E The American Revolution Turned Out to be a Good Thing for all VERYTHING seemed to be going England was now the strongest naval power in the world, had conquered large areas in India and was reaching out all over the world with ships and trade. Spain and France were losing commerce and power, while the British were building up a great empire. Commonwealth This is a good ernors and courts. They were acquiring territory, laying taxes, training militia, keeping up schools, regulating national trade, trying to keep lawbreakers in order. They were learning how to set up and to use self-government, better than in the mother country, better than anywhere else in the world. Most of the world was governed by Principles of Life of life which lay in Personal Freedom, Law, A share in their own Government made by kings or sultans, or czars or emperors, who laid down the law for all the people in their realm. In England the kings were figureheads. The real government there was in the hands of a small group of landowning families. Only in the colonies was there real popular gov ernment. Rights of Man The foundation of these free little governments was the idea of personal freedom, as an incould not be taken away. This began with the personal rights of Englishmen at home, which the colonists brought over with them. place to consider a side of American born right, which First of these "inviolable rights" was freedom of person. Englishmen could not be slaves. They were free from arbitrary arrest or imprisonment; and if arrested they had a method, called "habeas corpus," by which anyone deprived of his liberty, except for crime, could quickly be set free. They had a system of trial by jury under which a man could be convicted only by the verdict of twelve of his countrymen. In like manner the colonists were free. They were subject to their own courts which acted quickly and in an orderly way. They were accustomed to the privilege of bail, to an open public trial, to confronting the witnesses; they were used to "habeas corpus." They also claimed the great privilege of "no taxation without representation." That is, that nobody was bound to pay a tax unless it was laid by some authority which sprang from the people. Colonial Governments But the colonists were freer than the people of England in their governments. England had no written constitution, but every one of the thirteen colonies was for a time at least under its own charter or grant. In the New England colonies a town meeting in every town made the local laws; and in the middle and southern colonies a county government with popular elections cared for local matters. Then each of the thirteen colonies had its own elected legislature. To be sure eleven of the thirteen colonies had governors appointed from England who could veto acts passed by the Assemblies. Great Power The most striking thing about these colonial and local governments was that they had so much power. They levied taxes, raised troops, enacted criminal laws, set up courts, made laws on business, told the Indian what he must do and set up schools and colleges. The colonists knew there was a power and force across the sea that was bigger than they. Nevertheless all the colonies liked to have their own way and did have it in most respects. Summary of Colonial Rights If you wish to understand a boy or girl you take note of what he or she says, but still more of what he or she seems to believe and act upon. So with the colonists. We must know not only what they did but what they thought it right to do. Among the principles of life which lay in their minds some of the most important are the following: 1. Personal freedom. 2. Equality before the law. No colonial nobility existed and they paid little attention to English titles. 3. A share in their own government, through elections and representation in legislatures. 4. The idea that government is made by "a compact" between the people and their rulers. If the ruler were a king and would not keep the compact, then it was right to break it and if necessary to break the king. 5. The right to gather in Congresses where they learned how to act together under their own central authority. All the people of England were considered to be represented in the Parliament that taxed them; but none of the colonists were represented there. The one field in which the general laws of England bound the colonies was that of commerce and relations with other countries. Still, so long as England made no local laws for the colonies they did not suffer. Frontier War with France All these questions were put aside for several years during the so-called French and Indian War. The French at last woke up and made a great effort to bring their northern and southern colonies, Canada and Louisiana, closer together. About 1750 they began to build a chain of forts from Lake Ontario to the Ohio River. If they could succeed in holding that country for a few years, the English would be blocked out of the West. Hence it was altogether to the interest of the English colonies to work with the home country in putting a stop to the French advance. Virginia claimed the region west of the mountains and in 1754 sent out a young Virginian officer named George Washington to warn the French. They attacked him near Great Meadows on the upper waters of the Monongahela River. This was the beginning of a war which in Europe was called the Seven Years' War. For the first time the British sent out regular troops to fight on the frontier. A little army from England, with colonial detachments, under the command of General Braddock in 1755 was ambushed by the French at Braddock's Field, a few miles from the present Pittsburgh. Then the war blazed all the way from Canada to the Ohio River. For several years the French had the best of it, because they were united, and the English colonists, though brave and hardy, would not act together. When the Quakers of Pennsylvania refused to vote money to carry on war, the Governor induced them to buy "bread, flour, wheat or other grain." Whereupon he bought gun powder which he said must be "the other grain." Finally the current began to run in in favor of the English, who beat the French out of India, and defeated their fleets. at sea. British and American privateers captured a large part of the French merchant ships. The English and Americans together at last took Fort Duquesne at the place where Pittsburgh now stands. The British army under General James Wolfe captured Quebec in a notable battle and that ended the war in America. Peace, Union and Approach of A Storm When peace was finally made in Paris in 1763, the French were obliged to give up every square mile of their holdings in the continent of North America. The English took the whole of Canada, and the upper lake region and the valley of the Mississippi east of that river. Choiseul, the French statesman is said to have remarked that, "It would always be of service. to keep [the British] colonies in their dependence which they would not fail to shake off the moment Canada should secede." Benjamin Franklin, a leading figure in Pennsylvania, did his best to get at least the middle and southern colonies to work side by side. In 1754 seven colonies sent delegates to a meeting |