Spetember 25th Notes

The Birth of American Government
*Most citizens of Britain’s North American colonies happily considered themselves British first, and Pennsylvanians, Virginians, Georgians, etc, second. These colonists were proud of their British heritage and loyal to the British monarchy.

-Between 1754 and 1763 a war was fought between the French and the British in North America over control of land in Western Pennsylvania, and what is today Ohio. This war was known as the French & Indian War. The colonists fought loyally on the side of the British and the British went on to win this war. This war was long and drawn out, and even though the British won, it cost them many lives and an awful lot of money.

-British citizens back in Britain were expected to pay for this war by paying higher taxes. Taxes were raised so high that many British citizens could not afford to pay them. In an effort to pay the high war debt, Parliament decided to levy taxes for the first time on the colonies.

-In 1765 Parliament imposed the Stamp Act, this law taxed all paper goods bought and sold in the colonies. Parliament later expanded the Stamp Act by taxing sugar and glass as well.

-The colonists were not upset that they had to pay taxes; they realized that taxes were an unavoidable fact of life. What truly angered the colonists was that they were being taxed by a legislature that in no way allowed the colonies to be represented. Colonists started using the slogan “taxation without representation is tyranny.”

-In a sign of colonial unity, colonists in all 13 colonies protested these new taxes by imposing a boycott on all British goods. Eventually the boycott worked and Parliament was forced to repeal the Stamp Act.

-The British still needed colonial tax dollars so they replaced the Stamp Act by levying taxes on other goods, most notably tea.
-Parliament enacted a series of laws called the Intolerable Acts that were designed to punish the colonies for the boycott. These laws stripped some of the colonies of their tradition of self-government, disrupted trade in some of the colonies, and positioned troops in some of the larger colonial cities, Boston being one of them.

*The First Continental Congress: Representatives from all 13 colonies met in Philadelphia in September 1774 to discuss what to do about the new taxes and the Intolerable Acts. What was decided was for the colonies to enact an embargo. All trade with Great Britain was to completely cease, and no one was to buy any British products.

-King George’s, and Parliament’s reaction to the First Continental Congress was to declare the colonies to be in an active state of rebellion. On April 19,1775 British troops clashed with colonists in Lexington and in Concord Massachusetts; the Revolutionary war had begun.

*The Second Continental Congress: In April 1775 representatives from all 13 colonies again met in Philadelphia, this time they decided to issue colonial money, form an army and a navy, and name George Washington the commander of the new colonial military.

-Before all this took place there were many whispers of independence in the colonies, these whispers turned into screams, people actively campaigned for independence. The best selling book in the colonies was Common Sense by Thomas Paine; this pamphlet gave compelling arguments in favor of independence.

-Finally, in June of 1776 the Second Continental Congress voted to declare independence. A panel of 3 members, (Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson) were appointed by the Congress to draw up a formal declaration. Franklin and Adams left the writing of the declaration to Jefferson.