Great Britain settled four major, english speaking colonies around the world: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. The coins of the first three, to this day, continue to bear the likeness of Queen Elizabeth II (new issues will feature Charles III). Why was America different? If George III had not been so prideful, was there ever a chance that the USA would still be a member of the British Commonwealth?
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21 replies on “Was the American Revolution Necessary?”
Had we remained under the “Crown,” we would be oppressed even more than we are now (e.g. Canada & Australia & New Zealand). Even in England just about 10-15 years ago, a candidate for some office was JAILED for QUOTING P.M. Churchill.Our Revolution is STILL paying handsome dividends! God has blessed America by hardening George’s heart. Oh, how I wish America would consider blessing God again.
Belated 4th July Greetings. Excellent, thoughtful video, as always.
I’ve long felt that if there was one thing that might have avoided the 13 Colonies breaking with Britain it would have been George III actually visiting the Colonies. For all his many faults, he was a practical man, Farmer George. As kings go, he was quite down to earth. If he’d seen America and met Americans in their own land he might have had a vision of what could have been. But that would have required Lord North’s administration (and George III) having the vision and will to make it happen. Yeah, right.
In the 1990s Richard Dreyfus and Harry Turtledove wrote a detective thriller called The Two Georges set in a world where there was a peaceful resolution and a British North America, it’s worth a look.
In the same decade I remember a very noisy cider fuelled argument in a West Country pub with a good friend (both in our 20s at the time) about what might have happened if such a resolution had been achieved. He (naively in my view) assumed we would have a combination of the power of the British Empire at its height and 20th century USA. I argued it would have been something more like Canada all the way to the Rio Grande (and probably even not that).
Counterfactuals can be fun, and by looking at various “what might have beens” we can learn more about just why things did happen the way they did. That said, we should never fall into the trap of thinking we’ve somehow gone the “wrong way”. There’s nothing sadder and more futile than “oh, if only..”. All we can do is understand what happened and why, we cannot change it. History does not give do overs.
The American Revolution has distinct echoes of the English Civil Wars of the 1640s. No one on the Parliamentarian side at the Battle of Edgehill in 1642 was fighting to depose, much less kill, King Charles I. They sought to rid the King of his “evil counsellors”. Once fighting started, and blood was shed, things took a more extreme turn and eight years later it did cost the King his life.
When I was in the Young Conservatives one question we would casually ask newbies in the pub to get an idea of them was “Which side would you have been on in the Civil Wars?”. There was no really wrong answer, so long as they could defend their position. Immediate, blank, unthinking loyalty to King Charles I was close to being wrong, as was enthusiastic support for Parliament. What we were really looking for was thought, and an understanding that our country today is a result of those wars, and that both the execution of Charles I and the Restoration of Charles II are necessary parts of its history. I feel much the same way about the American Revolution.
The USA I love and respect is a product of that revolution, to wish it hadn’t happened would be to wish away the USA.
Almost immediately after the revolutions in the USA and France the Australian colony was established. It had several reasons.
It worked, partly because London had learned a hard lessen with the American Revolution and they where scared witless by the French revolution and Napoleon.
The founding fathers were thinking ‘Someone should tell the King!” We’ve seen that since with Lenin, Stalin and Putin. Prigozhin sent an army 3/4 of the way to Moscow taking several major cities just to get a message though to Putin. It all abruptly stopped and now Prigozhin is back home in Saint Petersburg IN PUBLIC. Lukashenko had used his FSB contacts to get Prigozhin’ s number.
I suspect that Lukashenko verified that someone really was blocking communications between Putin and Prigozhin but it was not who they all thought it was. Putin was calling the wrong number and Prigozhin was being actively blocked at the Kremlin, etc.
What happens when you mutiny and it works? Answer everyone claims it was never really a mutiny. I know my, dad was in one when he was a army reservist 1950’s. He was the spokesman. Someone was selling the food and not feeding the troops and blocking normal complaints channels. That resulted in the cooks being jailed and volunteer troops taking over the kitchen. Dad was never court marshaled.
When I was at the same training barracks in 1989 they busted a drug ring in the same army kitchen!
The founding fathers found out that sometimes drastic action is needed. If it had succeeded. If they did not have a truly mad king. It may have been different.
One: Ok, Please fellas, stop using the term “Multi-Verse”. That word is an oxymoron, an internal contradiction. If the concept “Universe” means anything, it means ONE WHOLE Universe. Otherwise it means nothing, especially if you try to say there are several ‘one everything.’
Two, The Revolution may not have been necessary but what it developed was incredible. When a people fought their own government to throw off a Tyranny, they had to face the problem of not establishing a Tyranny of their own making! And they had admit that everyone in the colonies were NOT ALIKE in culture, language or background. Non-homogeneous people had to learn to live together in peace.
what a development the Constitution was. a miracle.
Hmmm … concerning the terms multiverse and universe, your logic is flawed since you’ve ignored any context that exceeds our own limited human perspective where only the visible universe has any observable meaning; however, the existence of a multiverse can neither be proved nor disproved from our limited perspective. Believe what you will, but it is the pinnacle of hubris to declare that what we can see is all that there is.
David, forgive me for not defining my terms more clearly. That is why you misunderstand me. My definition of the Universe is every thing, every where, every change that exists whether or not we observe or know anything about it. If it exists, it is IN the Universe. So my logic is correct because my premise includes all possibilities of existence, not just what we see and know of. That said, the term “Multi-universe” becomes an oxymoron, as it truly is. Cheers.
Then this is purely a disagreement about semantics, and your chosen rubric is limited in its flexibility of scope. It matters not, for that is what you choose. However, imposing such limitations upon the thoughts of others, as you attempted in your opening, is anathema to my way of thinking for I am not God — I merely wish to know His thoughts to the best of my ability. Imagination and creative philosophy are often required to do so.
It had never occurred to me before but, Bill’s point about how our country was populated by people who self-selected for vision and risk was brilliant!
Actually, it gives real meaning to the phrase “Land of the free and home of the brave.” They aren’t just words. Bill makes a good case for the idea that it *really is* in our collective DNA.
I had never thought of that before and suddenly I am much prouder to be an American than I was thirty minutes ago.
Thanks Bill!
Bill has mentioned that idea before, so it wasn’t as much as a surprise to me. The implication he has also brought up, that if those self-selected attributes are genetic and are for the most part, here, it explains why Europe has such a problem with a lack of vision.
As such, I find it heartening when a new generation picks up the standard of freedom and shows that there are still Americans elsewhere.
I am so glad there was a split. This split allowed the greatest minds of the age to design a new type of government. Please find the 5000-year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen and read it.
That was fantastic!
Great job and a really good thought to hash out.
We were blessed to be settled primarily by the English, even with the absolute number of outcasts, prisoners, and those escaping for religious reasons on this side of the pond. Our Constitution is a direct outgrowth of the best of Western civilization, which England was up until then. Washington and Adams took their English heritage and laws seriously. The manner in which King George dismissively treated the Americans offended their English sensibilities.
There may have been no need to break the two countries apart, but we are blessed that they chose to do so.
One could argue that today’s best thinkers take their American heritage and laws seriously and are having their American sensibilities offended. Hopefully there won’t be a need to break our country apart, but if we do we Normals will have the benefit of the best of our side
There’s a profound comment from Bill here. “This country was founded by people who self selected by vision and risk.” I think that carries through to today. Those who were brought here as slaves did not self select for vision and risk. Though there are many notable exceptions, as a whole, that community has not prospered to the degree other immigrant communities have.
That’s a very interesting observation. Very interesting!
Good point, although it falls short on one crucial data point. Freed slaves got to live in the Vision & Risk culture, and were making gains until the Dems figured out how to put them back on the plantation via the welfare state
🇺🇸 Thank you, gentlemen, for your insights, analysis and love of our country and its people 🇺🇸
The main cause for the American Revolution was THE PEOPLE. Canada and Australia size are comparable to the US, but they were scarcely populated. Survival was the name of the game “up there” and “down there”. In the colonies life was comparable with Great Britain. There is much more to discuss, but I leave there for the time. Saludos.
I think Australia grew/evolved differently than Canada because Australia was first a penal colony.
Our state of Georgia used to be England’s penal colony (a convicted criminal would have the choice of prison or being sent to Georgia). After the American Revolution, England used Australia as the penal colony. I would think that would make its growth much different than Canada’s.
Perhaps we should bring back the idea of penal colonies. I’m thinking of inhabitable hell holes like downtown SF, Baltimore, Detroit, Philly, etc