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Course: Constitution 101 > Unit 2

Lesson 6: The Reasons for the Revolution

Info Brief: Constitutional Story of the American Revolution

Learn about the constitutional story of the American Revolution.

In 1760, the American colonists were loyal British subjects. Fifteen years later, the colonies were at war with the British empire. What happened?

Professor Akhil Reed Amar of Yale University argues that the push for American independence required three key ingredients:

Personal: The revolutionaries had to be ready to break away from the British Empire, personally—to cast aside the king, the British people, and Parliament. In other words, they had to be ready to say that they were no longer British subjects. This was a big deal!
Military: The revolutionaries had to believe that they could actually win the fighting war with the British Empire.
Legal: The revolutionaries needed to develop a constitutional theory to counter Parliament’s push to raise taxes and shape policy in the American colonies.

Now, let’s take a deeper look at some of the key developments on the road to the American Revolution.

James Otis and the Writs of Assistance

To understand the story of the American Revolution, let’s begin with a famous episode: James Otis and the battle over the Writs of Assistance. The year is 1761—fifteen years before the Declaration of Independence. The place is Boston.

As a result of the Seven Years’ War, the British Empire has started to enforce longstanding anti-smuggling acts in the colonies. These were known as the “Navigation Acts.” The colonists had been breaking these laws for years—for instance, through illegal smuggling. And under its old policy of salutary neglect, the British empire turned a “blind eye” to this illegal trading, but no more! The British began to tighten their control over the American colonies.

Why did the British Empire change its policy?: Because the Empire had a massive war debt. It needed money. And the colonists in America had it.

As part of this shift in policy, King George III used his royal officials in the colonies to crack down on tax evaders and colonial smugglers with the use of so-called “Writs of Assistance.” These Writs gave royal officials (here, customs officials) “free range” to break into the homes or ships of colonists to search for evidence – anytime, anywhere, and for any reason. The colonists were outraged.

Enter James Otis. Otis was a prominent Boston lawyer and patriot. He took on the smugglers’ cause and attacked the Writs of Assistance. These smugglers were largely local merchants who looked to challenge the Writs of Assistance in court. These legal challenges eventually found their way to Massachusetts’s highest court—presided over by Thomas Hutchinson. (Eventually, Hutchinson would emerge as the most prominent Loyalist in America.)

In the Writs of Assistance Case (and in a five-hour speech!), Otis argued that the Massachusetts court should declare these Writs in violation of the British Constitution, the English common law, and the colonists’ natural rights. For Otis, these Writs violated a core principle: “a man’s house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince . . . .”

In Otis’s view, the Writs of Assistance violated the British Constitution. They violated the English common law. And they violated the colonists’ natural rights as human beings. With this argument, we can already see the roots of a novel theory that the colonists might later deploy to attack the constitutionality of British laws. Otis described the Writs of Assistance as “appears to me . . . the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty, and the fundamental principles of the constitution, that ever was found in an English law-book.” From there, Otis argued that the Writs were unconstitutional under the British constitution and that the Massachusetts court should declare them void.

And here’s Otis again: “Had this writ been in any book whatever it would have been illegal. ALL PRECEDENTS ARE UNDER THE CONTROUL OF THE PRINCIPLES OF LAW. . . . No Acts of Parliament can establish such a writ. . . . it would be void, AN ACT AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION IS VOID.”

While this may sound like a pretty conventional argument today. Of course, unconstitutional acts should be invalidated by courts. That’s why we have judicial review. But this was a radical argument for its time. Within the British constitutional system, Parliament was supreme. And as a practical matter, it could do what it wanted.

Otis lost the battle. The judges refused to invalidate the Writs of Assistance. But Otis wasn’t forgotten. Many years later, John Adams—who, as a young man, heard Otis’s arguments against the Writs of Assistance and was Otis’s friend and fellow revolutionary—said that Otis’s speech was “the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born.”

The Sugar Act

James Otis set the foundation for the push towards independence. But what were the key steps on the path to the Declaration of Independence? To begin, let’s fast-forward a few years to the Sugar and Stamp Act episodes of 1764 through 1766.

In 1764, Parliament passed the Sugar Act. Under this Act, the colonists would pay taxes on imported molasses. The British imposed these taxes to help pay for the costs associated with the Seven Years’ War. To ensure that the colonists paid these new taxes, the British would enforce alleged violations not through a regular jury trial, but, instead, through vice-admiralty courts. These courts were run by royal judges. While colonial jurors often refused to punish alleged smugglers even if they were guilty of violating British law, new vice-admiralty courts were put into place to crack down on illegal smuggling.

Many colonists opposed the Sugar Act—expressing their opposition at town meetings, through assembly resolutions, and through petitions to King George III and Parliament. Their arguments were simple and powerful. First, they feared that the British were attempting to set a new precedent. Traditionally, only elected representatives could enact taxes designed to raise revenue. But the colonists had no representation in Parliament, and their own colonial assemblies—elected by the colonists themselves—hadn’t supported the Sugar Act. If the colonists permitted the British to impose a small tax now, what would stop them from passing a much larger tax later? The famous colonial response?: No taxation without representation! If Parliament wanted to impose a new tax to raise revenue from the colonists, it had to persuade the local assemblies elected by the colonists themselves to raise those taxes. Second, the American colonists cherished the jury right as an important protection against government abuse. The Sugar Act undermined that right by setting up vice-admiralty courts to try alleged tax dodgers.

The British government responded to the colonists with a theory of its own—the classic British theory. Parliament was supreme. It was free to govern the American colonies as it saw fit. In turn, it could pass new taxes to raise money from the colonists. Not only that, but it could pass whatever laws it wanted inside the American colonies.

The Stamp Act

In March 1765, Parliament then followed up the Sugar Act with the Stamp Act. This move was even more controversial.

The Stamp Act required the colonists to purchase an imperial stamp for the use of various types of paper, including diplomas, court filings, and even newspapers. The British would use these taxes to raise revenue for the British government. Once again, tax dodgers would face trial before vice-admiralty courts, not traditional juries.

Importantly, this new tax affected far more colonists than the Sugar Act, and many of them were outraged. In Boston, mobs of colonists intimidated the would-be stamp collector—destroying the stamp office and ransacking his house. He decided against taking the job. Later, a Boston mob would even lay waste to the mansion of Governor Thomas Hutchinson. Eight other colonies joined Boston in the fight against the Stamp Act.

Their arguments dovetailed with many of the critiques of the Sugar Act:

No taxation without representation; and jury rights for Englishmen!

Eventually, opposition leaders decided to meet in the first colonial assembly that brought together leaders from various colonies: the Stamp Act Congress. There, twenty-seven delegates from nine colonies met in New York’s City Hall.

In March 1766, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act. However, Parliament also passed a Declaratory Act—reaffirming its own central constitutional argument (and rejecting the colonial theory that challenged it): Parliament had “full power and authority to make laws and statutes . . . to bind the colonies and people of America . . . in all cases whatsoever.”

The Townshend Acts

Fifteen months later—in 1767—Parliament enacted another set of colonial taxes: the Townshend Acts. These taxes covered a variety of imported goods, including tea. To aid enforcement, these new Acts also allowed for a new set of writs of assistance.

Many colonists opposed this new set of taxes. This led to a new wave of activity by the colonial opposition, including boycotts of British goods. Responding to the fears of many British customs officials, the British government also sent General Thomas Gage and 2,000 British troops to America—many of them landing in Boston. Even worse, the British Quartering Act required the colonists to pay for these troops.

In the view of many colonists, this move ran afoul of a basic constitutional maxim: No standing armies in times of peace. In short, the colonists feared that the British government would use these troops to harass the colonists and abuse their rights.

The Boston Massacre

On March 5, 1770, British soldiers stood guard at the Boston Customs House. A rowdy crowd of around fifty colonists harassed the soldiers—with some even tossing snow, ice, and other hard objects at them. In this chaotic atmosphere, the British soldiers fired into the crowd. Shortly thereafter, five colonists—including African American sailor, Crispus Attucks—lay dead on the street.

In response to this bloodshed, Governor Thomas Hutchinson permitted regular criminal trials for eight of the soldiers and their commanding officer (Captain Thomas Preston). At trial, they were represented by John Adams. Even though he was a patriot, Adams put on a forceful case on behalf of his clients. Adams set out to prove to everyone that—contrary to the views of King George III, his royal officials, and Parliament—Bostonians were committed to the rule of law and ordinary juries in the American colonies could be trusted to dispense impartial justice.

In the end, Adams was right, and most of the soldiers were acquitted of murder.

The Boston Tea Party

Fast forward three-and-a-half years to December 16, 1773.

Even though Parliament repealed most of the Townshend Duties, it left in place a tax on tea. Many colonists accepted this compromise. However, the Bostonians didn’t. Instead, the Sons of Liberty hatched a plan. The result? The Boston Tea Party.

To keep ships from unloading British tea in Boston, the Sons of Liberty boarded the ships carrying the tea, cracked open 342 chests, and tossed the British tea into the Boston Harbor. Perhaps John Adams best captured what this moment meant to the Boston patriots: “This is the grandest Event which has ever yet happened since the Controversy with Britain opened! The Sublimity of it charms me!”

The British Empire's response

The British empire responded with a series of Coercive Acts meant to isolate Boston from the rest of the colonies and crush the Sons of Liberty and their allies. With the Coercive Acts, the British government:

Shut down the economic engine of the city, the Boston Harbor.
Allowed British soldiers to be tried for crimes committed in America back in England—escaping the justice of ordinary colonial juries. (The colonists called this the “Murder Act.”).
And passed a new Quartering Act that gave the military the authority to force colonists to house soldiers in their homes.

Rather than teaching Bostonians a lesson or isolating them from the rest of the colonies, these Coercive Acts—nicknamed the “Intolerable Acts” by the colonists—backfired, strengthening the resolve of the patriots in Boston and bringing the various colonies closer together. It also brought them closer to revolution. Not surprisingly, Bostonians took the lead in opposing the Coercive Acts—opening up lines of communication (called “committees of correspondence”) between the various colonies.

The Coercive Acts also drove some colonial leaders to begin to flirt with more radical constitutional arguments. Up until then, most critics of the British empire settled on a theory that attacked certain British taxes, but left Parliament with broad authority to shape colonial policy. Cries of “no taxation without representation” might offer the colonists reasons to oppose a new wave of British taxes, but the Coercive Acts proved to many colonial leaders that this theory—though potent in certain circumstances—was inadequate to address new challenges. Other laws—like the Coercive Acts—had proven to be even more oppressive than the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, and Townshend Acts.

As a result, some colonists began to embrace radical constitutional theories that challenged Parliament’s authority to legislate for the colonies altogether. On this view, Parliament was so distant from the colonies that it was unfit to represent their interests. In short, the colonists should be able to govern themselves.

The First Continental Congress

In September 1774, over fifty delegates from twelve different colonies met in the First Continental Congress. These representative assembled to respond to the Coercive Acts. The congressional delegation included many leading colonists, including Virginia’s Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, and George Washington; New York’s John Jay; and Massachusetts’s John Adams and Samuel Adams.

In the end, Congress called for the repeal of the Coercive Acts and threatened a boycott of British goods if Parliament didn’t comply. The delegates also scheduled another meeting in Philadelphia in May 1775.

Even so, Congress still remained loyal to King George III, sending him a petition with their list of grievances. The King never responded. Before Congress could assemble again, the colonists and British troops had already met on the fields of Lexington and Concord.

Lexington and Concord

On April 19, 1775, British soldiers met colonial militiamen on the Lexington town green in Massachusetts. British soldiers fired on the colonists, killing eight militiamen, with only one British soldier wounded in the battle. In response, thousands of colonists gathered in the neighboring town of Concord to fight the British troops. More than 100 people died in the battle of Concord .

The British troops and the colonists continued to fight for the next several weeks—culminating in the battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775, more than a year before the Declaration of Independence. Over one thousand people died in the battle.

Following this wave of bloodshed, colonists had to begin to make a fateful choice: remain loyal to Britain, or join the patriots?

The Second Continental Congress

On May 10, 1775, the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia—with many of the same delegates assembled. However, the circumstances had change considerably since Congress’s last meeting. Less than a month earlier, militiamen battled British troops at Lexington and Concord. In turn, Massachusetts had begun to build a military force to keep up the fighting, and it was now calling on other colonies to send troops.

In addition, Benjamin Franklin was back in Philadelphia after over a decade of serving as a representative for the American colonies in London. Franklin was the most celebrated (and famous) American in the world. And yet, his service in London ended in embarrassment. In Franklin’s view, despite a lifetime of loyal service, the British government had treated him as a second-class subject. He returned to America filled with resentment and ready to join the patriots. Needless to say, they were happy to welcome him to the fight.

The Pennsylvania Assembly immediately sent Franklin to the Second Continental Congress, where he joined John Adams, Samuel Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Richard Henry Lee. Congress chose Boston’s John Hancock as its presiding officer, and John Adams put forward Virginia’s George Washington to head the new Continental Army.

During their session, the members of Congress took on an ambitious agenda—preparing the colonies for war with Britain, working to build support for independence (both inside Congress and outside of it), and trying to deepen the political ties between the various colonies.

Importantly, some members of Congress—led by John Dickinson—still worked for peace with King George III and Parliament. Dickinson even won Congress’s support to send (what is known as) the “Olive Branch Petition,” explaining to the King that the colonists remained loyal to the crown, opposed independence, and simply wanted him to respond to their concerns, honor their rights as Englishmen, and get rid of Parliament’s oppressive laws.

King George III wasn’t interested in the appeals of colonial leaders. He didn’t even read their petition. Instead, in late August 1775, he branded the American colonists traitors and rebels. In his view, they were in open rebellion and had to be crushed.

Thomas Paine's Common Sense

In the fall of 1775, the colonists were divided over the issue of independence. Some remained loyal to the crown. Other became patriots. And many still remained undecided. In this environment, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense hit the American colonies like a thunderbolt in January of 1776.

In Common Sense, Paine attacked the British monarchy, called for American independence, and envisioned the creation of new republican governments based on the consent of the people. In the process, he convinced many colonists to think anew.

Over time, the war spread across the colonies. Royal governments fell. And informal patriot assemblies took on the task of governing America.

In May 1776, Congress passed a resolution proposed by John Adams—calling for the colonies to set up new state governments. The American colonies responded by crafting new state constitutions. This was a constitutional revolution in itself—with the new states committing to written constitutions rooted in the consent of the governed.

Declaring independence

On July 2, 1776, a unanimous Congress declared independence—adopting a motion introduced by Virginia’s Richard Henry Lee and seconded by John Adams. Here’s the text of the Lee Resolution: “Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

The Declaration of Independence soon followed. In addition to an inspiring account of the principles at the core of the American idea, the Declaration was also a formal declaration by Congress to the rest of the world that the United States was now an independent nation. To justify this move, the Declaration also described King George III’s “long train of abuses” against the colonists.

Above all, the King violated the social contract. He hadn’t kept the colonists safe. He hadn’t promoted their happiness. Instead, he stood aside as Parliament passed oppressive laws and his royal officials abused the colonists. In fact, rather than listening to the colonists’ petitions and addressing their grievances, the King ignored their pleas and declared war on them.

Here’s how the colonists explained the King’s key flaw in the Declaration itself: “In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” So, the King—and the British Empire itself—had to go.

A bloody war followed—ending with the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 and the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

A little over two decades after King George III took the throne, the American people had declared independence, defeated the British empire, and begun the American experiment.

Interested in learning more?

Much of this backgrounder relied on the indispensable scholarship in Akhil Reed Amar’s The Words that Made Us. For more information on this topic, check out Amar’s book.

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