American Revolution

• Prosperity through trade: Dmber (shipbuilding), indigo, tobacco, and rice

• Emergence of a strong middle class (arDsans, merchants, yeomen farmers)

• Boston, e.g., doubled in size between 1700 and 1720

• 1756-1763 - French and Indian wars

  • in Europe called seven years war

  • Britain won the war but had accumulated many debts

  • King wanted to save money by having to pay fewer soldiers

➡ For that purpose, the monarch issued the Proclamation Line of 1763

• that did not allow any further settlement west of an imaginary line in the Appalachian mountains

• settlers west of that line would not be protected by soldiers against Native Americans

• Parliament's first direct tax on the American colonies

• With this act they wanted to raise money for Britain

• It taxed newspapers, licences, tea, almanacs, pamphlets, broadsides, legal documents, dice, and playing cards

• It hit mostly the middle class: merchants, lawyers -> influential

American colonists:

• wanted to achieve some concessions, such as protection on the western frontier or have a say what their taxes would be spent on.

Patrick Henry

• a Virginia representative

• demanded “No taxation without representation” (in the English parliament)

Benjamin Franklin

• an agent to Parliament for the Pennsylvania Assembly - stayed in London for many years

• He tried to negotiate some concessions from the British Crown

➡ The King showed no inclination to compromise at all = Franklin turned into a revolutionary

• Bostonians protested in front of the custom house against taxes

• English soldier started shooting = five civilians died

• John Adams (2nd president of the U.S.) became the soldiers’ defendant even though he shared the revolutionary spirit

—> He believed that everyone had a right to a fair trial

• Angered by the Tea Acts (protest), some Bostonians dressed up as Mohawks (disguised as native Americans) to make a sensation and threw the cargo of tea that had arrived into the harbour —> showed that they are not British

• British king was very upset and wanted to punish Bostoners

• first armed engagements between American military and British troops.

The revolutionary war was an insurruction by American Patriots in the 13 colonies to British rule, resulting in American independence

• 4th of July, dra>ed by Thomas Jefferson who became 3rd president of the U.S.

• War of Independence; American colonists are supported by France

• commigee of 5 signed it: Franklin, Jefferson Adams, Sherman, Livingston

• George Washington becomes leader of the ConDnental Army (later 1st president of the USA)

• American RevoluCon resulDng in American independence, ends with Treaty of Paris

• Franklin and Jefferson sign the peace treaty with Britain for the newly independent state

• Britain opens „old Northwest“ (region south of Great Lakes) to United States a>er Treaty of

Paris ends American RevoluDon

George Washington elected first president

Washington DC established as US capital

• he first published it anonymously

• First pamphlet published in the colonies

  -> wanted an independence from Britain

• Was sold well and was preprinted in Germany, France, England

• its a small booklet containing information

  -> it was popular in America, because the people were all educated, the understood everything

• he uses the word mankind a lot

  -> french people, European people

• American people and European people

• Europe should be the mother, not England

• Family metaphor -> Britain as the mother of the colonies (children) -> throughout the common sense

• Britain should treat their children / colonies with love, protection, solidarity

purpose:

• he wanted to give Americans new sense of identity

• Had a great impact on his contemporaries (Zeitgenossen) right after his publication

• It was a bestseller

Thesis:

• the colonies need independence, not improved representation from the British government

Title:

• common sense (gesunder Menschenverstand) already contains an enlightenment idea

• Repeats the term by Locke of the faculty of reason -> that every human being owns

• major political theorist in the American revolution

• Born in England as a son of a corset maker

• As a young adult he ran away from home to go to sea

• Met Benjamin Franklin in London, followed his idea + emigrated to Philadelphia at the age of 37

• American colonists were the most literate population in the world at that time

  • Printers such as Benjamin Franklin had the role to spread information / propaganda

• increase of newspapers -> high political discourse

• Next to newspapers -> pamphlets were the most important media to propagate the ideas of the American revolution

• The title common sense already contains an enlightenment idea

  • compare it to Locke (reason) -> every human being owns it

• In the introduction Paine complains about Britains “the violent abuse of power”

• all men are created equal

• Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness

• The document lists a lot of grievances (Beschwerden) against king George the third and the British government

  -> e.g. accusing him of violating the colonists rights

• It criticises the implementation of the e.g. unfair taxes

• The declaration declares that the Americans colonists have the right to govern themselves and create their own institutions

• Concludes with saying that America is a free and independent state

• Paine complains about Britains “violent abuse of power”

  -> this was also later expressed in the Declaration of Independence

  -> according to him, it is the king who has violeted the social contract

• Natural rights of all mankind

  -> the basis for his argumentation are the natural rights

  -> rights that everybody shares just by being born

  -> cannot be taken by government

• You can see this idea of natural rights also in the declaration of independence with the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”

• Metaphor Britain as the mother and the colonies as the children

• According to Paine Britain has violeted the role as a mother

  -> Britain behaves unnaturally, while the Indians and animals behave naturally, protecting their young

• Europe and not England is the parent country of America

  -> America is a refugee of the violations of the mothers country

• One of his strategies: He takes the arguments of his opponents and refutes them