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Cause of the American Revolution

Discussion in 'News & Current Events' started by billwald, Apr 27, 2012.

  1. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    from http://lewrockwell.com/nock/nock22.1.html


    It was said at the time, I believe, that the actual causes of the colonial revolution of 1776 would never be known. The causes assigned by our schoolbooks may be dismissed as trivial; the various partisan and propagandist views of that struggle and its origins may be put down as incompetent. Great evidential value may be attached to the long line of adverse commercial legislation laid down by the British State from 1651 onward, especially to that portion of it which was enacted after the merchant-State established itself firmly in England in consequence of the events of 1688. This legislation included the Navigation Acts, the Trade Acts, acts regulating the colonial currency, the act of 1752 regulating the process of levy and distress, and the procedures leading up to the establishment of the Board of Trade in 1696.[1] These directly affected the industrial and commercial interests in the colonies, though just how seriously is perhaps an open question – enough at any rate, beyond doubt, to provoke deep resentment.

    Over and above these, however, if the reader will put himself back into the ruling passion of the time, he will at once appreciate the import of two matters which have for some reason escaped the attention of historians. The first of these is the attempt of the British State to limit the exercise of the political means in respect of rental values.[2] In 1763 it forbade the colonists to take up lands lying westward of the source of any river flowing through the Atlantic seaboard. The deadline thus established ran so as to cut off from preemption about half of Pennsylvania and half of Virginia and everything to the west thereof. This was serious. With the mania for speculation running as high as it did, with the consciousness of opportunity, real or fancied, having become so acute and so general, this ruling affected everybody. One can get some idea of its effect by imagining the state of mind of our people at large if stock gambling had suddenly been outlawed at the beginning of the last great boom in Wall Street a few years ago.


    For by this time the colonists had begun to be faintly aware of the illimitable resources of the country lying westward; they had learned just enough about them to fire their imagination and their avarice to a white heat. The seaboard had been pretty well taken up, the freeholding farmer had been pushed back farther and farther, population was coming in steadily, the maritime towns were growing. Under these conditions, "western lands" had become a center of attraction. Rental- values depended on population, the population was bound to expand, and the one general direction in which it could expand was westward, where lay an immense and incalculably rich domain waiting for preemption. What could be more natural than that the colonists should itch to get their hands on this territory, and exploit it for themselves alone, and on their own terms, without risk of arbitrary interference by the British State? – and this of necessity meant political independence. It takes no great stress of imagination to see that anyone in those circumstances would have felt that way, and that colonial resentment against the arbitrary limitation which the edict of 1763 put upon the political means must therefore have been great.

    The actual state of land speculation during the colonial period will give a fair idea of the probabilities in the case. Most of it was done on the company system; a number of adventurers would unite, secure a grant of land, survey it, and then sell it off as speedily as they could. Their aim was a quick turnover; they did not, as a rule, contemplate holding the land, much less settling it – in short, their ventures were a pure gamble in rental values.[3] Among these prerevolutionary enterprises was the Ohio company, formed in 1748 with a grant of half a million acres; the Loyal Company, which like the Ohio Company was composed of Virginians; the Transylvania, the Vandalia, Scioto, Indiana, Wabash, Illinois, Susquehanna, and others whose holdings were smaller.[4]
     
  2. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    I believe this is the same Nock who authored The Jewish Problem in America, The Atlantic Monthly, August 1941?

    http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1941/08/the-anti-semitic-problem-in-america/6274/

    Does the gist of this abstract mean that the American Revolution was caused by the greed of the colonial entrepeneurs rather than the tyranny of King George and that the Declaration of Independence is/was a lie, a piece of propagand as alluded to above?

    And is that your feeling Bill?

    If not then what is the purpose of this O/P?

    Just curious.

    HankD
     
  3. mont974x4

    mont974x4 New Member

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    We know why we fought the Revolutionary War. Our leaders were forthright enough to write out the list of grievances and send it to the king. A careful reading of the Declaration of Independence answers the question for us. Taxation was a serious issue. It was not the only, or even the most serious, issue. It was for more than just money.
     
  4. Scarlett O.

    Scarlett O. Moderator
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    Well, I'm a bigger believer in primary sources as far as history is concerned. There truly is more than you know of what is taught in school - private, Christian, public, and home - that needs some truthful revision.

    Here's an excellent source of the root causes of rebellion by the American colonists told in their own words. It's called the Declaration of Independence. I see no reason to doubt the truthfulness of it.

    I've only pasted the portion where the causes of the rebellion were outlined. Oh - that's the whole thing!



    • He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
    • He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
    • He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
    • He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
    • He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
    • He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
    • He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
    • He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
    • He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
    • He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
      He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
    • He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
    • He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
      ....For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
      ....For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
      ....For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
      ....For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
      ....For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
      ....For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
      ....For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
      ....For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
      ....For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
      ....He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
      .....He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
      ....He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
      ....He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
      ....He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
     
  5. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    >Does the gist of this abstract mean that the American Revolution was caused by the greed of the colonial entrepeneurs rather than the tyranny of King George and that the Declaration of Independence is/was a lie, a piece of propagand as alluded to above?

    >And is that your feeling Bill?

    YES!

    Which of the reasons in the Declaration of Independence does the Bible authorize as justification to rebel against a Christian ruler?

    Anyway, our favorite president, (?) Abraham Lincoln nullified the principles set down in the Declaration of Rebellion and substituted "God is on the side with the most cannon."
     
  6. Scarlett O.

    Scarlett O. Moderator
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    Where is the evidence that King George III treated the colonies in a Christian manner and governing rightly?

    This might be of help.

     
  7. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    Well Bill, that is your right to believe and preach and I respect it.

    Your admission is BTW your personal exercise of the First Amendment the practice of which makes your admission somewhat dichotomous.

    I won't go into the scriptural precedents of rebellion against tyranical leaderships as others have already done that.

    And I disagree that the rebellion of those who framed the Declaration of Independence and other of our founding documents was a power grab but was as has been stated a form of self defense of a group of "we the people" under a rule of tyrannical oppression.

    No doubt some greed was in play on the part of the colonists being human, however the king turned a deaf ear to the pleas of relief and so here we are discussing it to this very day.

    HankD
     
    #7 HankD, Apr 28, 2012
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2012
  8. Aaron

    Aaron Member
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    Exactly right. And don't think taxation is only about money. It's about control.
     
  9. Aaron

    Aaron Member
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    So who is right, bill? Which nation under the sun is the right one?
     
  10. saturneptune

    saturneptune New Member

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    For me, the only nation under the sun is the United States.
     
  11. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    Amen!!

    Love it or leave it.

    HankD
     
  12. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    >Where is the evidence that King George III treated the colonies in a Christian manner and governing rightly?

    King George treated the colonies better than Rome treated its colonies but there isn't one word in the NT which OKs rebellion against one's political leaders.

    There will never be a "Christian" nation until Jesus returns. Every attempt to bring in the Kingdom by passing laws has failed.

    Still, the USofA since WW2 has been the best place in the history of the world for the working people and still is the best place in the world compared to Europe, Asia, and and every other place.

    But the western nations are all losing ground as China and India gain ground. When there is a world wide parity the working class will most all be serfs to the international corporations.
     
  13. Aaron

    Aaron Member
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    bill, you're a communist.
     
  14. Acebopata

    Acebopata New Member

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    What I want to know is if all this praise about the United States is really because of a gratefulness to live in a great nation or just plain old pride.

    Heavenly father, send your son, Jesus, to come quickly if it's just for pride and Lord, help us to preserve her, and to bring her back to you if our motives are to be grateful for the nation you've provided us, and a desire for her to be pleasing to you in grace. Give us the grace to be of a service, weather the United States returns to you, does not returns to you and keeps getting worse and worse until your return, or her land is given to another. In the name of Jesus, Amen
     
  15. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    Both gratefulness and pride (being yet in the flesh).

    Hopefully the gratefulness overcomes the pride.

    On the otherhand I am sincerely looking for that city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God.

    In the meantime I'll settle for second best.

    HankD
     
  16. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    Communism works well in most families and some tribes. It can't work well in larger groups because only a free market can establish worth.

    I'm a dues paying Libertarian.
     
  17. targus

    targus New Member

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    I am surprised that you did not say that "only unions can establish worth". :laugh:
     
  18. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    The American Revolutionaries fought against a corupt and tyranical global system.

    The American Revolutionaries, in a nutshell fought against the consolidation of power between the King, the Bank of England and the corporations that served both.

    200+ years was all it took for us to fall in love with the same corupt tyranical global system. Only now it's high tech and has the ability to track and trace each one of us anywhere we go.

    Back then it was King George, the Bank of England (a private central bank) and the VOC. Today it's the Federal Reserve system and the Fortune 500 with special guests stars from the halls of congress.

    The same global system that was sucking the life out of the colonies then is the same global system that is sucking the life out of the USA today. But today all that power that the founders feared would be consoldiated into a few hands has.
     
    #18 poncho, Apr 30, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 30, 2012
  19. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    >The American Revolutionaries fought against a corupt and tyranical global system.

    OK, that's one way to spin it. But it wasn't a "Christian" war.
     
  20. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    I've been thinking about that Bill. What war is a "Christian" war? What I mean is how does the just war theory, regime change and humanitarian wars square with Romans 13?

    If it's like many here argue that God puts dictators and tyrants in leadership positons and we are not to disobey them unless they forbid the preaching of the gospel, how come we go off to war in defense of those people God's "chosen" leaders are oppressing?

    Shouldn't we as Christians oppose regime change and just wars or humanitarian wars even when the "evil dictators" are killing their own people? If God did indeed put Hitler, Pol Pot and Stalin in power should we be rushing in to depose them? And if someone is going to say Pol Pot, Stalin, Hussein or any other dictator we've deposed or made war on in the past banned the gospel I'll need to see some strong evidence before I'll believe it.

    We can't have it both ways can we?
     
    #20 poncho, May 1, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: May 1, 2012
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