American Revolution

Even at its time, the American Revolution was a global event, and its impact on world history has been significant. With the conclusion of the Seven Years' War in 1763, Great Britain commanded the greatest empire since the fall of Rome. Victory, however, brought with it the necessity of reorganizing the vast North American territories wrested from France and Spain. In an effort to prevent further warfare with the Indian peoples, the Proclamation of 1763 closed the vast trans-Appalachian area to White settlement. With a view to defending and policing these new territories, the British government maintained an unprecedented standing army in mainland America. To meet the costs of this commitment, as well as to relieve the massive financial burden left by the war, London sought to impose new taxes and enforce imperial trade laws that had long been ignored by the colonists. The end of the French and Indian War—as the Seven Years' War was known in America—thus marked the end of the period of “salutary neglect.”

British measures were designed not only to bring peace and stability to North America but also to require the colonies to share the cost of imperial defense and administration. The colonies, however, had come to think of themselves as self-governing entities, as having “dominion status,” to use a term of later origin, and they refused to have their duties prescribed for them by Parliament and King. Parliament and King were unwilling to accept such a [Page 60]novel theory of empire. Great Britain, consequently, became involved in a war not only with the New World colonies but eventually with most of Europe. The war, although not wholly disastrous to the British army, deprived Great Britain of the most valuable of its colonial possessions and removed it from the pinnacle of power that the country had attained by the Peace of Paris of 1763.

The initial aim of armed revolt was not independence but rather a restoration and recognition of what the colonials held to be their rights as British subjects. They professed to have been content with their status under British policy prior to 1763. That the colonies turned to independence in the second year of the struggle was partly the consequence of the British government's rejection of compromise and its adoption, instead, of severe repressive measures. It was also the consequence of a dawning realization of the advantages that might accrue from independence. No one set forth the arguments for independence so persuasively as an immigrant from England named Thomas Paine. Paine had arrived in America in late 1774, leaving behind a number of failed careers. Less than 2 years later, in January 1776, he published the pamphlet Common Sense. This pamphlet sold some 120,000 copies in the first three months and was the single most effective articulation of the case for independence. Among Paine's arguments, two were significant for the future foreign policy of the United States. Independence, argued Paine, would free the former colonies from being entangled in European wars in which they had no concern, and a declaration of independence would improve their chances of securing foreign aid.

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