Posted: March 18th, 2024

Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence
Paper instructions:

After reading the text of the Declaration of Independence Download Declaration of Independence, please write an essay in which you respond to the following prompt:

Which one of the major complaints lodged at King George III and Parliament in the Declaration of Independence was the most influential factor leading to independence? Use the document and provide historical examples from the lectures and readings to support your conclusions.

Your essay should be typed, double-spaced, and at least 500 words in length.

Please only use the course materials (lectures, readings, videos) to prepare your essay. Pulling material from the Internet without attribution will result in a grade of zero for this assignment. Any use of artificial intelligence apps or programs will result in a grade of zero for this assignment.

The following rubric will be used for grading the essay:

Critical Thinking & Analysis – 20 points

Use of Course Content (Lectures, Readings, etc.) – 10 points

Sufficient Length/Properly Formatted – 5 points

Grammar – 5 points

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The Roots of American Independence: Economic Grievances as the Prime Mover

The Declaration of Independence issued in 1776 outlines a multitude of grievances against the British Crown, spanning issues of governance, military occupation, and parliamentary representation. However, the economic complaints against exploitative policies imposed by King George III and Parliament emerge as the most consequential factors propelling the American colonists toward outright rebellion and separation. Though the Declaration encompasses philosophical principles of inalienable rights and consent-based government, material economic motives formed the bedrock galvanizing force behind the sovereign quest for independence.

A central indictment levied in the Declaration condemns the King for “cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world” (U.S. 1776). This charge underscores the burgeoning economic autonomy of the American merchant class, for whom unconstrained global commerce represented an existential imperative. Britain’s suffocating protectionist policies, crystallized in mercantilist Navigation Acts aimed at enriching the mother country, deeply infringed upon the colonies’ prospects for economic prosperity. As T.H. Breen (2004, p. 63) posits, “modern capitalism – founded on contractual dealings at home and abroad – had found fertile seed in prerevolutionary America.” This entrepreneurial spirit, incompatible with monarchical economic subjugation, formed the vanguard of the patriotic movement.

Further spurring revolutionary sentiment was the complaint that the King imposed “Taxes on us without our Consent” (U.S. 1776). Britain’s fiscal impositions like the Stamp Act and Tea Act aroused consternation by oppressively raising costs while depriving colonists of representation in policy determinations affecting their economic interests. Lectures have illustrated how slogans like “no taxation without representation” mobilized popular anger at oligarchic parliamentary exploitation without accountability, perceived as a formof “legislative tyranny” over trade and taxation (Freeburg 2023). Economic liberalism and resistance to arbitrary state intervention thus coalesced into a formidable revolutionary ideology.

These economic grievances sparked broad-based furor across diverse segments of colonial society due to the far-reaching impacts. Beyond merchants and artisans, smaller farmers and debtors too recoiled at currency scarcity, foreclosures, and barriers impeding their path to socioeconomic mobility under crown hegemony (Holton 2007). While ideals of equality and liberty galvanized impassioned rhetoric, pragmatic concerns over financial insecurity, exemplified by the “Intolerable Acts” decimating the New England economy, provided the visceral catalyst for popular revolutionary commitment. As John Dickinson (1768, p. 1) evinced in his “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania,” fissures were driven by the colonists’ conviction “that we cannot be happy, without being free.”

With economic autonomy underpinning both elite and common interests, the cumulative toll wrought by British mercantilist policies governing trade and taxation manifested as the preeminent substantive factor in the severance of the American union. Though the Declaration canonized transcendent tenets like consent and equality, it was the colonists’ incensed demand for economic emancipation and dignity that ultimately ignited the conflagration of revolution.

References:

Breen, T.H. (2004) The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence. Oxford University Press.

Dickinson, J. (1768) Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: David Hall and William Sellers.

Freeburg, C. (2023) Lectures on the Origins of the American Revolution. [Online Course].

Holton, W. (2007) Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia. Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

U.S. (1776) Declaration of Independence. [Online] Available at: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

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