American Revolution

Justifications for Revolution

Most mainland colonies possessed charters allowing them to exercise a degree of self-government. By the eighteenth century, many Americans took these charters as a guarantee that they possessed the “rights of Englishmen,” including a right to representative government. They thought of their colonial legislatures as local parliaments. The Crown and most in the British Parliament thought otherwise. In a series of disputes over taxation and other issues during the third quarter of the eighteenth century, Parliament and king insisted that the charters had no independent constitutional status. They could be changed by the British government at will.

The colonists felt that these claims violated their right to self-government. Subscribing to the views of English whig theorists like Locke and Algernon Sidney, by 1776, many colonists were arguing that the British government did not have the consent of its colonial citizenry and was therefore acting illegitimately and should be overthrown and replaced in the colonies. The Declaration of Independence clearly sounds familiar theoretical notes, borrowed most directly from Locke. It proclaims the existence of universal natural rights, suggests that the primary object of government is to safeguard these rights, and asserts that when a government does not do this, a new government may be formed. The bulk of its text is devoted to demonstrating the “long train of abuses” that Locke suggested were required to revolt.

The American Revolution is often described as having produced little notable political theory. Because many who wanted independence also hoped to preserve the “rights of Englishmen,” they tended to draw heavily on theoretical views already familiar in England. Among these were the writings of Sidney and Locke, who in addition to justifying revolutionary action warned of the dangers of absolute monarchy. Locke in particular stressed the benefit of separating the legislative branch of government from the executive branch to maintain the rule of law. The American revolutionaries felt that this distinction needed to be reimposed, as the British executive, King George III, had frequently thwarted the will of the colonial legislatures.

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