Sons of Liberty, Sons of Licentiousness

This chapter shows how colonists responded to the transformation of the British Empire. Radical resistance gained strength from economic anxiety and the fact that authoritarian imperial reform was clearly and explicitly designed to subordinate the colonial economy. American radicals, far from being libertarians, were fully committed to using the power of government to achieve their goals. They used the language of political economy to argue for a boycott of British goods, believing that this not only would stimulate American manufacturing but would make the colonies less dependent on the mother country. When a majority of colonists, who were keen observers of Britain's political scene, became convinced that authoritarian reformers had taken control of Westminster and Whitehall, they declared their independence.

Britain’s Authoritarian Ascendancy

This chapter examines the political evolution of the mother country as authoritarian reformers exploited the social, political, and economic concerns of the landed elite to seize control of the state. Even as Grenville angrily exited the political stage, authoritarian reformers continued to argue for debt reduction, low wages, and a refurbished empire. Unsurprisingly, establishment and radical Whigs remained sharply critical of this new vision of politics. Despite the continuing opposition of radicals and establishment Whigs, however, authoritarian reformers used their power, not only to pass the Townshend Duties and Massachusetts Government Act, but also to reform British government in India.

Introduction

This introductory chapter briefly considers why the British American colonists had broken away from an empire that they had long revered. Americans like to think of themselves as fundamentally different from Europeans—both more democratic and more libertarian. But during the eighteenth century, Britain and its North American colonies were actually becoming more alike. However, the United States followed a different path from the dramatic transformation that painted the globe French blue and British red. That path reflected the fact that the American Revolution was a revolution not for or against monarchy, but against the authoritarian transformation of the British Empire.

The Rise and Fall of the Stamp Act

This chapter shows why the same politicians who concluded that Pitt's war was an expensive boondoggle also pushed for the taxation of the American colonies. The Stamp Act was part of their broader program of authoritarian reform, which promised to restore Britain's finances and trade through fiscal retrenchment and moral improvement. But it prompted angry denunciations on both sides of the Atlantic. Radical and establishment Whigs accused their leaders of abandoning both the British constitution and the mutually beneficial relationship that had long sustained the empire. When Grenville's ministry fell in July 1765, Britain's new establishment Whig prime minister, the Marquess of Rockingham, seized on the postwar recession to denounce the economic consequences of authoritarian reform. Forging a broad and popular coalition with radical Whigs, Rockingham's administration rolled back Grenville's program, including the Stamp Act.

Taxing America

This chapter tackles the questions over how best to reconcile the demands of colonial defense with the interests of the British Empire. Americans had repeatedly demanded British military aid, raised large sums of money for the king's troops, and praised the empire as a force for good. And although there is little doubt that colonial assemblies clashed with royal governors, they often worked closely together to expand colonial fiscal-military states. But, as in Britain, the growth of armies, taxes, and debts created new burdens and stirred intense controversy. However, these conflicts were not, fundamentally, between localists and imperialists or libertarians and statists; rather, they were between radical Whigs and authoritarian reformers. They turned on competing conceptions of political economy and government, and they exposed deep ideological rifts within colonial society.

Britain’s Controversial Empire

This chapter recounts the political-economic debate surrounding the War of Austrian Succession and shows why authoritarian reform initially failed. That debate centered on a critique of Whig government. Those establishment Whigs who led Britain believed that their country could only survive the mortal threats of French absolutism and Jacobitism by building a strong fiscal-military state, one that not only engaged in European warfare but also raised large amounts of revenue through high domestic taxes and extensive public borrowing. Britain's midcentury prime ministers believed that Britain had created a powerful commercial empire, and they had little interest in either taxing the colonies or spending heavily to defend them. This vision of politics, which placed a heavy burden on both country gentry and middling sorts, did not go unchallenged.

Conclusion

This concluding chapter draws some insights in the aftermath of American independence, arguing that America's revolution against empire was a revolution against domination. But domination was about far more than power; it was about denying people the fruits of their labor. And for that reason, radicals on both sides of the Atlantic contended for a more equal society and a more perfect union. But the reality of American empire proved far more equivocal. The future of the United States was marked by growing inequality and by laws that denied many their dignity and their freedom. Independence created a state strong enough to conquer a continent and robust enough to keep millions in bondage.

English Blood by English Hands

This chapter shows how the ideological conflict over empire and public finance continued throughout the war. The American War of Independence was one of the most controversial wars in Britain's history, provoking demands for domestic reform and even flashes of republicanism. In the colonies, the difficulties of forging a new and effective American state meant that conflict was endemic. For both sides, common cultural ties and lingering affection for the British Empire prompted repeated attempts to negotiate a settlement. Those efforts ultimately failed, however. Most colonists were strongly attached to building a new, republican empire in North America, one made possible by the Articles of Confederation. When the war finally ended, Britain's radical Whig prime minister, William Petty, not only granted the new United States a generous peace but sought to reunite the empire along radical Whig lines.

The Seven Years’ War and the Politics of Empire

This chapter offers an account of the British debate over the war. Although establishment Whigs were initially reluctant to commit money and men to rebuff French encroachments in North America, military defeats and angry denunciations from radical Whigs on both sides of the Atlantic eventually led to an alliance with radical Whig leader William Pitt. Pitt's strategy of colonial reimbursement and global warfare helped make the Seven Years' War one of the most expensive in Britain's history, and it led politicians to accuse him of warmongering and demagoguery. Although authoritarian reformers were initially a voice in the wilderness, the accession of George Grenville and the fall of the Pitt–Newcastle ministry gave them the opportunity they needed to enact a sweeping program of reform and austerity. They cut back the war effort, negotiated peace with France, and stifled dissent—even as radical and establishment Whigs cried out against them.