A Cause, Not a Revolution

[Draggingtree]

The Cause: The American Revolution and Its Discontents, 1773-1783
by Joseph J. Ellis
Liveright
400 pp., $30.00

The term “American Revolution” was not used by the Founding Fathers, but adopted by later generations. The British called the dispute “the American rebellion,” while on our side of the Atlantic, it was referred to as “The Cause,” because at that time, the colonists in rebellion had no American national identity and referred to their home state—be it Virginia, New York, or New England—as “their country.”

As Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph Ellis describes in The Cause, all through the struggle for American independence, and even afterward, “there was always far more emphasis on pluribus [“the many”] than unum. [“the one”].”

Along with having no national identity, most of the participants in the cause were not revolutionaries. Ellis writes:

The earliest and most articulate advocates of the cause insisted that they were not proposing a revolution. Quite the contrary, it was the British government that was attempting to impose a revolutionary change in the structure of the British empire by insisting that Parliament was empowered to tax and legislate for the colonies without their consent.  

https://chroniclesmagazine.org/recent-features/a-cause-not-a-revolution/

 

[Valin]

@Draggingtree

Quote

The earliest and most articulate advocates of the cause insisted that they were not proposing a revolution. Quite the contrary, it was the British government that was attempting to impose a revolutionary change in the structure of the British empire by insisting that Parliament was empowered to tax and legislate for the colonies without their consent

Something so many people don't understand.  They (or most) were  fighting for the natural  bon rights as Englishmen.  IF The King and Parliament had Asked and Explained Why more money was  needed he war probably not  have happened. Neither side eve really understood what the other side wanted.

That said There were  those in England who were concerned that The Colonies wee  growing So Fast,  that soon it would become  a case of  The Tail  Wagging The Dog.