What does the word freedom mean in current times? Is it the ability to stay out as late as you want, or the right to watch movies with violence and sexuality? Or is it the privilege to smoke marijuana either for medical needs or recreational purposes? Whatever freedom means to each individual, there is only one goal in mind: to be able to determine one’s actions without restraint. Over two-hundred years ago, the American people were faced with a conflict of freedom. They had a difficult choice to make. Either follow the laws of the king that lived across the ocean, or find the courage to break free and govern themselves. The choice they made would set in motion the beginnings of the historical significance that we call the American Revolution.
From 1763, Americans had only to be convinced that an arbitrary ruler-whether
Parliament or King-was violating their inherent rights, to feel that rebellion was justified.
This conviction was bred in them by the series of events that occurred between 1763
and 1776. The language used to protest the British Acts was legal, and political. But
the primary cause of the Revolution is economics.
In theory the colonists accepted the principle that natural laws rather than royal
decrees should govern the economy. In practice only the southern colonies were bound
to England by the tobacco trade. The New England and Middle Colonies, unable to find
markets in Britain, found prosperity by trading outside the empire. Any attempt to stop
this trade would lead to rebellion and consequentially ensued. The idea of mercantilism
where the channelizing of all trade through England, was a restriction upon economic
prosperity of the New England colony.
The major cause for revolution within the economic theory is of economic subordination
of colonies to England. The Grenville Ministry passed a number of acts, but the main
act of provocation to the colonists was the stamp act. The stamp act was protested
upon the...