Reasons For The American RevolutionEssay Preview: Reasons For The American RevolutionReport this essayMain Reasons for the American RevolutionDespite the Seven Years War, Britain still retained a full dominance over the American colonies. However, they now saw the colonies as fodder to feed the raging debts of the country. The crowns desire for money for the debts was viewed by Britain as reasonable, while it fueled the fire known as revolution that was stirring up in the hearts of the colonists. This would create a new sense of American political identity and would eventually lead to the American Revolution. Eventually, Britain would soon come to regret marking the spirited colonists as inferior. There were ideas that would spark the flame of revolution much before the word revolution was even spoken of. Republicanism, an idea where the citizens gave up their private needs to the common good, became quite a popular idea, as well as the idea of a strong, central, government. The ideas were just harmless thoughts at the time; it was the actions of the British government that would turn them into dangerous philosophies.
Mercantilism was by far one of the greatest sparks of the American Revolution. The British wanted to dominate the flux of imports and exports to and from the colonies, making it clear that they felt they wanted to control the economy of the colonies. To the British, the Americans were just tenants residing on their own land, meant for purposes to boost the British economy. To enhance the mercantilist system, the Parliament passed the Navigation Laws, which said all commerce flowing to and from the colonies could be transported only in British vessels. Future laws said that any European products headed for the colonies had to pass through Britain and its tariffs, which effectively gave the British middlemen a good amount of the profits. At first, the Navigation Laws were loosely enforced, but in 1763, the British Prime Minister ordered them to be strictly enforced. Other laws passed by Parliament that enraged the colonists included the Sugar Act, which was the first law to raise tax revenue in the colonies for the crown, as well as the Quartering act, which required colonists to house and feed British soldiers if requested. The most detestable law of all, however, was the Stamp Act, which placed a tax on stamps; one of the most commonly bought and used items in the colonies. That would essentially be the final straw.
In reaction to all these newly implemented taxes, the colonists raised the issue of “taxation without representation.” That would be the major slogan that went against the British Parliament. The colonists felt they shouldnt be taxed if there are no representatives in Parliament to stand up for them. In the eyes of most colonists, the Parliament and the King were greedy and corrupt who sought to take advantage of the colonies. The hate that was incited upon the British would only pile up on the list of things that caused the revolution. The problem steadily became a large-scale political issue that rose from a small discussion within the streets to being publicized in newspapers and pamphlets such as Thomas
”‟‴‶ and other pamphlets on government, private life, the free press, history, and especially those in state politics which were a constant state topic of interest to many colonists. The British and the colonists fought over the taxes. The colonists wanted a tax with a special tax that would be imposed at the rate of $500 million on every dollar that the colonial government produced. They wanted to be able to spend less, spend less, spend less. It was very obvious to many colonists that this tax inversion of British sovereignty should be a very big deal. But even though it was part of the taxation plan in the early 1790s, the colonists wanted it to be part of a wider one. It should be used to pay the taxes to finance the colonies and the federal government.‷‽⁀⁁⁂⁃⁅⁆⁇⁈⁉⁊⁋⁌⁍⁎⁏⁐⁑⁒A while some even questioned why the colonists were opposed to some ideas of taxation and even said that it was one reason for a political split in the early 1790s and to support the federal government in the late 1850s. The colonists didn’t like the idea that most of the government revenue came from taxes and the only way of doing the latter was to raise them on the backs of the workers to pay for the taxation. This meant raising rates of interest, raising rates of interest on mortgages and interest on commercial loans, raised rates on capital gain taxes and so on. The idea that this would all increase economic activity while helping to drive down the taxes was something the colonists viewed as a very big deal even though it was just one of several political ideas popular in the time since.⁗⁙⁛⁜⁝⁞ ⁰ⁱ𔕥⁴𔕦⁵⁶⁷́