Civil war causes, consequences, and historical significance

Civil War

The Proclamation of George III, issued in October, 1763, is according David Brion Davis and Steven Mintz among the original most disturbing reasons for the English subjects living on the American continent to start feeling less Englishmen and more American. A particular reference to the rights to expand over Indian territory awoke the very spirit that led these people on their way as settlers in a new world. Although the Proclamation could be considered good in its spirit of finally making justice with the aboriginals, it hit the most sensible cord of the colonists: And whereas great Frauds and abuses have been committed in the purchasing Lands of the Indians, to the great Prejudice of Our Interests, and to the great Dissatisfaction of the said Indians; in order to prevent such Irregularities for the future, and to the End that the Indians may be convinced of Our Justice and determined Resolution to remove all reasonable cause of Discontent, We do. . .enjoy and require that no private Person do presume to make any Purchase from the said Indians of any Lands reserved to the said Indians. . . . (George III, cited by Davis and Mintz, 1998).

To this aggressive restriction of expanding over the western territories that seemed even more inviting and promising it was added what it was to become the capital blow for the colonists from the part of the British government: the restriction related to economics. The Sugar Act that imposed new taxes on imported goods and the Currency Act, that forbade colonists to issue paper money, both passed in 1764 were the first unfortunate economic measures undertaken by the British rule that were stirring the feeling of revolt already awakened by king George the III with his Proclamation. These extremely oppressive and authoritarian measures were followed by others, like the Stamp Act. The former act added the last drop to the spirits of revolt in the colonies and led to the protests expressed by delegates of nine colonies who met in New York city. They pushed for the Stamp Act to be abolished arguing that the British Parliament had no right to tax the colonies since they had no representation in the Parliament (Davis, Mintz, 1998).

The authors of the Boisterous Sea of Liberty cite John Adams, the second president of the United States, who was among the first to acknowledge the beginning of the formation of an American conscience that differentiated the tax paying colonists from their English counterparts on the other side of the Ocean. The most important vehicle for the dissemination of information, the printed media, was to pay tribute to the British rule. This conspicuous expression of restricting the liberties of those who were until then loyal and obedient subjects to the crown was among the most hard measures that made the colonists no longer able to put up with the new and disturbing British laws referring to the life in the colonies. According to Adams, the Stamp Act held a crucial importance to the awakening of the American spirit as opposed to the British domination: The people, even to the lowest ranks, have become more attentive to their liberties, more inquisitive about them, and more determined to defend them, than they were ever before known. . . . Our presses have groaned, our pulpits have thundered, our legislatures have resolved; our towns have voted; the crown officers have everywhere trembled, and all their little tools and creatures been afraid to speak and ashamed to be seen. . . (Adams, cited by Davis and Mintz, 1998).

The audacious and proud colonists felt the numerous new imposed taxes and restrictions as the tools of oppression and tyranny. The people that subsequently led the American Revolution by the power of their inspiring words and actions were brilliant in their use of the newly born love of freedom in the harts of the future American nation.

The British were wrong to underestimate the consequences of their measures. First of all, they considered the battles from Lexington and Concord, battles that started the American Revolution, as small incidents that were led by some demagogues who foolishly thought to overthrow the British rule in the colonies (Davis and Mintz, 1998). The Amnesty Proclamation that followed is considered by Davis and Mintz as the worst idea the British side could have had in handling the aggravating situation. The undecided and even the royalists felt offended by the tone and immediately took action, on the side of the revolutionaries.

The written word was more powerful than guns. It fired the spirits of all those who never before dreamed of opposing the British sovereignty. The cause of the American revolution was advocated both inside and outside the colonies. Among those who contributed to bringing the new American cause close to the hearts of Europeans was Mercy Otis Warren who subsequently published a history of the American revolution.

One of the most powerful reasnings that were meant to determine the colonists to fight any British attempt to continue ruling over the colonies in the spirit set forth by king Geroge III Proclamation and the following acts was the comparison between the too well-known meaning of slavery and the future of British ruling that was to be expected to: "make us as tame and abject slaves, as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway" (Washington, cited by Davis and Mintz, 1998). The future of the American nation was already reaching the point of no return.

Thomas Jefferson's draft of the declaration of Independence contained references to the abominable European usage of enslaving Africans and bringing them to the colonies. Like Washington, Jefferson was comparing the enslavement of blacks with what the colonists were to expect if they continued to be subjects to the British rule: "This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain, determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce" (Jefferson, cited by Davis and Mintz, 1998).

Although some of the initial revolutionary principles that were inscribed in the final Declaration of Independence remained in contradiction with the facts following the birth of the American nation, they remained at the origin of the abolitionism and other measures taken in the name of equal rights. They will be extended over the centuries to come, but the love of freedom and the united forced of the oppressed blacks or women or gay etc. will still have a long way to go until reaching the much proclaimed love for equality, regardless of skin color, religion, sexual orientation or gender.

The fate of the war between the forces led by the American revolutionaries and the British armies was left in the hands of a few strategists like George Washington. According to Davis and Mintz, Washington proved to be both a brilliant strategist and a god politician.

By the end of the spring, in 1777, Washington's army counted less than 10.000 people. Most of them were young, inexperienced, malnourished slaves or landless people.

In spite of the fact that Washington's army was in a poor state, the British proposal to end to war in exchange for giving p any pretentions to taxes from the British part was rejected by the revolutionaries who had on their side the precious aid from the French. France's entry into the Revolution in 1778 altered the entire nature of the conflict. No longer was the Revolution simply a conflict between Britain and the United States; the war quickly expanded to include a number of other major European powers. In 1779 Spain joined France, hoping to regain Gibraltar and the Floridas. And in late 1780, Britain declared war on the Netherlands, partly in order to cut off war supplies that were flowing to the Americans from a small Dutch island in the Caribbean (Davis and Mintz, 1998).