The Imperial Debate

2021 ◽  
pp. 10-31
Author(s):  
Gordon S. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Declaration Of Independence ◽  
Mother Country

This chapter covers the imperial debate between the colonists and Great Britain between the early 1760s and 1776. The debate began with the differing ideas of representation held by the colonists and the mother country. But eventually it came to focus on the doctrine of sovereignty that said that in every state there must be one final supreme lawmaking authority. The colonists’ inability to deal with the doctrine of sovereignty forced them to create a new conception of the British Empire in which they were outside of Parliament’s authority and tied only to the king. The debate climaxed with the Declaration of Independence.

scholarly journals Federal Aspects of Preferential Trade in the British Empire

1918 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. D. Allin
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Fiscal Policy ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Commercial Policy ◽  
New Era ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right

The battle over the Corn Laws was fought out in Great Britain as a domestic issue. But it had nevertheless a great imperial significance. During the mercantilistic régime the colonies had been regarded as a commercial appanage of the mother country. The victory of the free traders opened up a new era in the economic history of the empire. The colonies were released from the irksome restrictions of the Navigation Laws. They acquired the right to frame their own tariffs with a view to their own particular interests. In short, they ceased to be dependent communities and became self-governing states.But the emancipation of the colonies was by no means complete. The home government still claimed the right to control their tariff policies. The colonies were privileged, indeed, to arrange their tariff schedules according to local needs; but it was expected that their tariff systems would conform to the fiscal policy of the mother land. The free traders, no less than the mercantilists, were determined to maintain the fiscal unity of the empire. There was still an imperial commercial policy; its motif only had been changed from protection to free trade. The colonies were still bound to the fiscal apron strings of the mother country; but the strings were no longer so short, nor the knots so tight as they had formerly been.

Sophistry, Security, and Socio-Political Structures in the American Revolution; or, Why Jamaica did not Rebel

1986 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. R. Clayton
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
British Empire ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
North American ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Constitutional Principle ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
Political Structures

Britain's most important American colonies did not rebel in 1776. Thirteen provinces did declare their independence; but no fewer than nineteen colonies in the western hemisphere remained loyal to the mother country. Massachusetts and Virginia may have led the American revolution, but they had never been the leading colonies of the British empire. From the imperial standpoint, the significance of any of the thirteen provinces which rebelled was pale in comparison with that of Jamaica or Barbados. In the century before 1763 the recalcitrance of these two colonies had been more notorious than that of any mainland province and had actually inspired many of the imperial policies cited as long-term grievances by North American patriots in 1774. Real Whig ideology, which some historians have seen as the key to understanding the American revolution, was equally understood by Caribbean elites who, like the continental, had often proved extremely sensitive on questions of constitutional principle. Attacks of ‘frenzied rhetoric’ broke out in Jamaica in 1766 and Barbados in 1776. But these had nothing whatsoever to do with the Stamp Act or events in North America.

Ein föderales Imperium?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Rummel
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
British Empire ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Military Personnel ◽  
The Other ◽  
The 19Th Century

The previously ignored model of Greek colonisation attracted numerous actors from the 19th century British empire: historians, politicians, administrators, military personnel, journalists or anonymous commentators used the ancient paradigm to advocate a global federation exclusively encompassing Great Britain and the settler colonies in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Unlike other historical templates, Greek colonisation could be viewed as innovative and unspent: innovative because of the possibility of combining empire and liberty and unspent due to its very novelty, which did not contain the ‘imperial vice’ the other models had so often shown and which had always led to their political and cultural decline.

Who Ran the British Empire 1830-1850?

1965 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Taft Manning
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Colonial Administration ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
The People ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
The Government ◽  
Colonial Office

Patterns of historical writing are notoriously difficult to change. Much of what is still being written about colonial administration in the nineteenth-century British Empire rests on the partisan and even malicious writings of critics of the Government in England in the 1830s and '40s who had never seen the colonial correspondence and were unfamiliar with existing conditions in the distant colonies. The impression conveyed in most textbooks is that the Colonial Office after 1815 was a well-established bureaucracy concerned with the policies of the mother country in the overseas possessions, and that those policies changed very slowly and only under pressure. Initially Edward Gibbon Wakefield and Charles Buller were responsible for this Colonial Office legend, but it was soon accepted by most of the people who had business to transact there. Annoyed by the fact that the measures proposed by the Wakefield group did not meet with instant acceptance, Wakefield and Buller attacked the Permanent Under-Secretary, James Stephen, as the power behind the throne in 14 Downing Street and assumed that his ideas of right and wrong were being imposed willy-nilly on the unfortunate colonists and would-be colonists.The picture of Stephen as all-powerful in shaping imperial policy was probably strengthened by the publication in 1885 of Henry Taylor's Autobiography. Taylor was one of Stephen's warmest admirers and had served with him longer than anyone else; when he stated that for a quarter of a century Stephen “more than any one man virtually governed the British Empire,” historians were naturally inclined to give credence to his words.

scholarly journals The Rethinking of Great Britain’s Role: From the World Empire to the Nation State

2019 ◽  
pp. 129-145
Author(s):  
O. Zernetska
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Global State ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
Commonwealth Of Nations ◽  
British Commonwealth ◽  
British Commonwealth Of Nations ◽  
Different Parts

In the article, it is stated that Great Britain had been the biggest empire in the world in the course of many centuries. Due to synchronic and diachronic approaches it was detected time simultaneousness of the British Empire’s development in the different parts of the world. Different forms of its ruling (colonies, dominions, other territories under her auspice) manifested this phenomenon.The British Empire went through evolution from the First British Empire which was developed on the count mostly of the trade of slaves and slavery as a whole to the Second British Empire when itcolonized one of the biggest states of the world India and some other countries of the East; to the Third British Empire where it colonized countries practically on all the continents of the world. TheForth British Empire signifies the stage of its decomposition and almost total down fall in the second half of the 20th century. It is shown how the national liberation moments starting in India and endingin Africa undermined the British Empire’s power, which couldn’t control the territories, no more. The foundation of the independent nation state of Great Britain free of colonies did not lead to lossof the imperial spirit of its establishment, which is manifested in its practical deeds – Organization of the British Commonwealth of Nations, which later on was called the Commonwealth, Brexit and so on.The conclusions are drawn that Great Britain makes certain efforts to become a global state again.

Nice Work if You can Get it: Ethnic Penalties in Great Britain

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
SIN YI CHEUNG ◽  
ANTHONY HEATH
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Major Part ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Visible Minorities ◽  
First And Second Generation

Britain has long been home to migrants from Ireland (which until 1921 had been part of the United Kingdom). More recently, it has seen major inflows from a number of less-developed countries such as Jamaica, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, and Hong Kong that had formerly been part of the British Empire. While there is some reason to believe that the Irish experienced some discrimination in Britain in the first half of the twentieth century or before, evidence implies that the Irish, both first and second generation, now compete on equal terms with the indigenous British. The ethnic penalties experienced by the visible minorities from the less-developed members of the Commonwealth have declined markedly in the second generation, but all the major visible minorities still find it more difficult to obtain jobs commensurate with their qualifications than do the various white groups, even in the second generation. Continuing discrimination against visible minorities is likely to be a major part of the explanation for the difficulty in gaining employment.

Britain, Commonwealth and the End of Empire

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Holland
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Due Process ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Commonwealth

This chapter examines the history of Great Britain, the British Commonwealth, and the end of the British Empire in the twentieth century, suggesting that the twentieth century ended in Britain as it began, with the constitutional structure of the United Kingdom a contested and vital subject of public discourse. It concludes that the transitions that characterised the Empire-Commonwealth over the twentieth century were ultimately constrained within the due process of British constitutionalism.

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