Samuel Damren
This is the second commentary on what it is like to live under the rule of a King – an experience not had by Americans in 250 years.
As noted in the first commentary, “new men” arose in America in the 1700s. In a setting distant from the oppressive dominance of monarchy, they embraced democratic principles. Historian Jules Pfister in his 2021 book “Defining America in the Radical 1760s” attributes two factors to the rise of these “new men.”
First, the British Crown’s benign neglect of American affairs following initial settlement of the colonies. Second, the significant growth of self-governance within the colonies and the achievement of economic self-sufficiency during the 1700s.
When the Crown attempted to re-asserted direct control over the colonies in the mid-1760s through taxes and regulation of free trade, the measures met fierce resistance from the “new men” of America.
The standoff began after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 ending warfare among competing European powers for global dominance. Britain’s war debt was substantial and accumulated over decades of conflict. To reduce the debt, the Crown looked to American colonies to share the burden. Americans saw things differently.
This commentary examines the conduct by the British Crown that the “new men” of America found inimical to democratic rights.
The British learned a costly lesson: Americans will respond to attempts to deprive them of effective democratic governance with the sacrifice necessary to preserve it and with the determination to outlast a “Tyrant … unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
The document igniting the Revolutionary War was the Declaration of Independence which contains that quote. It sets forth a list of grievances and usurpations of rights by the British Crown that colonists found intolerable. The underlying rationale for the grievances, according to Pfister, resides in an earlier document.
In 1774, the House of Burgesses, the democratically elected assembly of colonists in Virginia, passed a resolution supporting Massachusetts and decrying oppressive acts of Parliament after the Boston Tea Party.
In response, the royal governor of Virginia dissolved the assembly.
Undeterred, assembly members regrouped at Raleigh Tavern as the Virginia Convention and formed an association to boycott British goods. One of its members, 31-year-old Thomas Jefferson, wrote a pamphlet
for consideration by the new body titled, “A Summary View of the Rights of British America,” dated July 30, 1774.
Jefferson asserted that “the British Parliament has no right to exercise authority over us” in any circumstance not just taxation.
He asserted that the King, not Parliament, bore responsibility as “chief officer of the people” for the current crisis; further stating that “kings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people.”
The Summary cast support for these assertions through a compelling line of argument. While not adopted as a resolution of the Virginia Convention, it brought Jefferson great acclaim across the colonial audience.
Jefferson argued that when the colonial ancestors emigrated from England to “British America,” they did not relinquish their rights as British subjects, including the right to democratically elected representational government. Moreover, because “America was conquered, and her settlements made at the expense of individuals [who] … for themselves they fought, for themselves they conquered, and for themselves alone they have right to hold [when] not a shilling was ever issued from the public treasures of his majesty,” the American colonies had no obligation to pay Britain’s war debts through the imposition of colonial taxes, they did not approve.
As historical precedent, Jefferson pointed to various instances of “less alarming” legislation previously withdrawn in the face of colonial opposition. While “single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day” in Jefferson’s view the series of recent oppressions “prove a deliberate and systematic plan.”
In a litany of recent oppressions, Jefferson cited prohibitions on “manufacturing for our own use the articles we raise on our own lands with our own labor,” the suspensions of colonial legislatures in New York and elsewhere, and the prohibition of shipping activity “within the harbor of Boston.”
Jefferson also decried the King’s directive to “send among us large bodies of [uninvited] armed forces not made up of people here, nor raised by the authority” noting that if the King were to have “such a right,” it could “swallow up all our other rights whenever he should think proper.”
Finally, Jefferson excoriated the select “British counselors” that “surround” the King for their willingness to sacrifice “the rights of one part of the empire to the inordinate desires of another.” He closed with a cutting observation about the courtiers: “Let those flatter who fear; it is not an American art.”
The next commentary in this series will compare present-day conduct of the Trump administration with Jefferson’s criticisms of the monarchy Americans revolted against and overthrew.
As noted in the first commentary, “new men” arose in America in the 1700s. In a setting distant from the oppressive dominance of monarchy, they embraced democratic principles. Historian Jules Pfister in his 2021 book “Defining America in the Radical 1760s” attributes two factors to the rise of these “new men.”
First, the British Crown’s benign neglect of American affairs following initial settlement of the colonies. Second, the significant growth of self-governance within the colonies and the achievement of economic self-sufficiency during the 1700s.
When the Crown attempted to re-asserted direct control over the colonies in the mid-1760s through taxes and regulation of free trade, the measures met fierce resistance from the “new men” of America.
The standoff began after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 ending warfare among competing European powers for global dominance. Britain’s war debt was substantial and accumulated over decades of conflict. To reduce the debt, the Crown looked to American colonies to share the burden. Americans saw things differently.
This commentary examines the conduct by the British Crown that the “new men” of America found inimical to democratic rights.
The British learned a costly lesson: Americans will respond to attempts to deprive them of effective democratic governance with the sacrifice necessary to preserve it and with the determination to outlast a “Tyrant … unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
The document igniting the Revolutionary War was the Declaration of Independence which contains that quote. It sets forth a list of grievances and usurpations of rights by the British Crown that colonists found intolerable. The underlying rationale for the grievances, according to Pfister, resides in an earlier document.
In 1774, the House of Burgesses, the democratically elected assembly of colonists in Virginia, passed a resolution supporting Massachusetts and decrying oppressive acts of Parliament after the Boston Tea Party.
In response, the royal governor of Virginia dissolved the assembly.
Undeterred, assembly members regrouped at Raleigh Tavern as the Virginia Convention and formed an association to boycott British goods. One of its members, 31-year-old Thomas Jefferson, wrote a pamphlet
for consideration by the new body titled, “A Summary View of the Rights of British America,” dated July 30, 1774.
Jefferson asserted that “the British Parliament has no right to exercise authority over us” in any circumstance not just taxation.
He asserted that the King, not Parliament, bore responsibility as “chief officer of the people” for the current crisis; further stating that “kings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people.”
The Summary cast support for these assertions through a compelling line of argument. While not adopted as a resolution of the Virginia Convention, it brought Jefferson great acclaim across the colonial audience.
Jefferson argued that when the colonial ancestors emigrated from England to “British America,” they did not relinquish their rights as British subjects, including the right to democratically elected representational government. Moreover, because “America was conquered, and her settlements made at the expense of individuals [who] … for themselves they fought, for themselves they conquered, and for themselves alone they have right to hold [when] not a shilling was ever issued from the public treasures of his majesty,” the American colonies had no obligation to pay Britain’s war debts through the imposition of colonial taxes, they did not approve.
As historical precedent, Jefferson pointed to various instances of “less alarming” legislation previously withdrawn in the face of colonial opposition. While “single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day” in Jefferson’s view the series of recent oppressions “prove a deliberate and systematic plan.”
In a litany of recent oppressions, Jefferson cited prohibitions on “manufacturing for our own use the articles we raise on our own lands with our own labor,” the suspensions of colonial legislatures in New York and elsewhere, and the prohibition of shipping activity “within the harbor of Boston.”
Jefferson also decried the King’s directive to “send among us large bodies of [uninvited] armed forces not made up of people here, nor raised by the authority” noting that if the King were to have “such a right,” it could “swallow up all our other rights whenever he should think proper.”
Finally, Jefferson excoriated the select “British counselors” that “surround” the King for their willingness to sacrifice “the rights of one part of the empire to the inordinate desires of another.” He closed with a cutting observation about the courtiers: “Let those flatter who fear; it is not an American art.”
The next commentary in this series will compare present-day conduct of the Trump administration with Jefferson’s criticisms of the monarchy Americans revolted against and overthrew.
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