A Struggle for Power¶
Metadata¶
- Author: [[Theodore Draper]]
- ASIN: B004XW6AF0
- Reference: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004XW6AF0
- Kindle link
Highlights¶
The American colonies were English in origin but not the work of England as a nation. The first settlements or plantations were financed and established by joint-stock companies primarily interested in profits for their shareholders. — location: 611 ^ref-63889
Colonization was originally an extension of trade and trading companies. Even the Pilgrims of Plymouth were subsidized by London merchants and investors who, as a distinguished American historian put it, “wanted profit, not prayers.” — location: 618 ^ref-45805
Until the 1760s, colonial affairs were generally treated by the secretaries of specific departments of the government; instructions were sent to the governors in the name of the king, not of Parliament. This long neglect made Parliament’s sudden incursion into colonial affairs in 1763–1765 all the more startling and unwelcome. — location: 775 ^ref-32836
In fact, they engaged in some extraordinary intellectual gymnastics to hold on to some shred of attachment to the British empire. First they objected to taxation, not trade; then they held on almost to the very end to a loyalty to the king, not Parliament. — location: 11827 ^ref-18429
it forgot all that had been said in previous years about obeying the king and blaming Parliament. — location: 11831 ^ref-33461
The Revolution was not fought to bring about democracy or any kind of egalitarianism. Before 1776, very few—if any—Americans expected to bring about a republic.5 The British gave the colonists a revolutionary program long before the Americans were willing to admit that this was their goal. — location: 11842 ^ref-11047
the British were the first to recognize what they were fighting against. They had been prepared to expect an American breakaway for decades before it became a practical issue. — location: 11867 ^ref-58991
More likely, a less deluded British government might have taken more resolute military measures earlier to head off the coming challenge. In this case, the question is whether the Americans would have been so headstrong if Gage had had 24,000 troops instead of about 4,000. — location: 11877 ^ref-32042
to overemphasize the grievances and self-deceptions that ostensibly brought about the Revolution is to lose sight of the underlying changes in the relationship between the colonies and the mother country. — location: 11879 ^ref-32340
- One wonders whether the militia would have been so headstrong and confident if the early disparities had not existed. — location: 11888 ^ref-30411
the war broke out even before the entire American side fully believed that independence was what it was fighting for. — location: 11891 ^ref-14906
To get over the objection that British rule meant rule by Parliament, the revolutionary colonists long tried to substitute the king for Parliament. — location: 11923 ^ref-17544
One wonders whether the delegates in 1776 blamed the king for all their troubles because they had previously exempted him from them. — location: 11929 ^ref-8012
Both sides were victims of their own contradictions. The British maintained that Parliament had the right to legislate and tax the Americans because the Americans were British subjects. But the British also held that the colonies were and must remain “dependent” on Great Britain and, therefore, different from it. The Americans wanted to be British subjects but not for the purpose of being taxed or subject to parliamentary legislation. The two were incompatible. — location: 11930 ^ref-2793
the American political positions changed repeatedly over the critical ten years. They went from objecting to taxation only, to rejecting the legislation of Parliament in all cases, to accepting the weak link with the king, to declaring absolute independence. — location: 11942 ^ref-53497
Paradoxically, the Americans were lucky to have been British colonies. In no other empire of the time could the colonies have had the advantages that the Americans had under the British empire. — location: 11990 ^ref-29446
Almost to the end of the colonial period, the colonists pleaded for their rights as British subjects, not as Americans. — location: 11995 ^ref-53452
The best-known revolutionaries belonged to a relatively small American elite. Sometimes backing it and sometimes going its own way was a larger, anonymous mass of the poor to the middle stratum, sometimes called the “populace,” the “rabble,” or the “mob.” — location: 11998 ^ref-29152
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