Common Sense And The Pursuit Of Independence

"All Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among there are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" (Declaration of Independence). During the late 18th century the 13 colonies in America start to disagree with their king and his government. The Seven Years’ war left Britain with debt, which led the mother country to make the colonies share the cost of empire by the creation of new laws. The creation of the Sugar Act and the Proclamation Line are examples of laws that affects the economic interests and the political power of the 13 colonies, which ended up in fights. These problems has led the colonies to fight for what they belief was their rights and they declared themselves
as an independent country. The United States was created for the states by the states and its purpose was to establish a perfect union within the colonies through justice, safety, welfare and liberty to keep the ideas of Locke since the colonies believed that England has become a corrupt nation. So, it was their job to protect the ideas gained during the Glorious Revolution and Americans saw their nation as a rising empire, destined to populate and control the entire North American continent.
The British has been imposing taxes and regulating the commerce of the colonies. The Sugar Act was another law, which reduced the taxes by half; the Sugar Act seems to favor the colonies and there is no reason to complain. However, there were black markets across the colonies that did not pay taxes; so, these people have to pay taxes since the law was inforce due to the enormous debt of the British Empire. This has affect the economic interest of the colonies since they did not have the same opportunities to avoid the law. Moreover, the Proclamation Line did not allow the colonist to move to the west (Foner). If we remember that the definition of freedom for the English was to be able to have land. So, this law can be understood as a violation of their freedom. Furthermore, there were people that did not follow the law and they bought land outside the Proclamation Line. This point is important since the land outside this limit has no value; so the colonist have the necessity to protect their own benefits. I think that the problems that they were facing had a bigger impact on the high class of the colonies since they were losing money and therefore power.
I was a little surprising how the events towards the creation of the new country took place. The start of the war between American colonists and the British Army set the base towards the Independence of the 13 colonies. However, I think that not all colonies were hundred percent involve since the Oliver Branch Petition shows that they tried to avoid a war and kept thighs as they were before; the Congress has address this petition to George III, reaffirming Americans’ loyalty to the crown and hoping for a permanent reconciliation (Foner). This shows that the colonists start the fight without a plan and without a purpose.
I think that the purpose to become an independent country was given by Thomas Paine who published Common Sense, a hugely influential pamphlet that convinced many American colonists that it was time to break away from British rule.
He made a persuasive argument to the colonists that the cause of independence was urgent (Foner). In my opinion, the most important aspect about the Common Sense is that it was like a translation of the complicated philosophical and scientific principles of the Enlightenment into simple words that the masses could understand. Therefore, he has played a greater role in moving the American people from a spirit of rebellion to one of revolution. Now that they had decided to create a new country, they need to have some philosophies and ideas as inspiration to form its structure. I believe that the creation of the United States is based on the philosophy of John Locke with his concept of the Natural
Law.
By the late eighteenth century, the Enlightenment had begun to spread across Europe. It is defined purely in intellectual terms as the spreading of faith in reason and in universal rights and laws (Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, volume 2). This movement was sparked by intellectuals such as John Locke and Isaac Newton, both who hoped to change their contemporaries’ worldviews and to transform political and social institutions. However, these ideals were not just limited to the European nations, but American intellectuals such as George Washington started to think with these ideas. As a result, the United States Constitution, one of the most important documents in the U.S., was written. This document summaries the goals that the founders want to achieve for this country.
The Constitution establishes the structure of government in the United States, which set up the people as the basis of the legitimacy of government. It separates the power into four branches: legislative, executive, judicial and state so that the power is not centralized. Moreover, The Constitution’s first ten amendments known as the Bill of Rights creates checks and balances between the branches. Therefore, the constitution was created for the states by the states as a manual that explains how the government should behave. It also protects minorities from the possible abuse of majority, and protects the privacy and property rights of the people (U.S. Constitution).
Since the colonies are separating from the British Empire, it will be necessary to ask, what are the differences between the United States system of government and the British system of government?
We can highlight that the United States practices wants a federal constitutional republic form of government while the British uses constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system; if we look at the constitution, it says that, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government…” (U.S. Constitution. Art. IV, Sec. 4.). Therefore, the colonies don’t want a king as the head of the state because the monarchy was one of the main things that the former colonists had rebelled against, any form of monarchy and most forms of concentrated power were avoided. Moreover, the United States describes itself as a federation of states, each with their own government and a Federal government to rule them all, which makes sense due to the large and spread-out country; on the other hand England is small, densely populated and much centralized. Furthermore, we can say that the most fundamental difference between the political systems of the United States and the British is the constitution; the United States has a written constitution which is very difficult to change while Britain does not have one but instead its constitutional provisions are scattered over various Acts of Parliament, any of which can be changed by a simple majority in the
Parliament.
The creation of new laws had affected the economic interests and the political power of the 13 colonies problems has led the colonies to fight for what they belief was their rights by declaring an independent country. The United States was created for the states by the states and its purpose was to establish a perfect union within the colonies through justice, safety, welfare and liberty to keep the ideas of Locke since the colonies believed that England has become a corrupt nation. So, it was their job to protect the ideas gained during the Glorious Revolution and Americans saw their nation as a rising empire, destined to populate and control the entire North American continent.