Colonial Turmoil

And the Path to Independence

 Means of Political Interactions
• Taverns
– On roads
– Social institutions
Means of Political Communication
• John Peter Zenger
– New York Weekly Journal
– Freedom of press?
• Not yet
• Libel if true
Map of Europe, 1715
 Legacy of Scientific Revolution
• “natural philosophers” of S. Revolution

• Key word of S. Revolution is “reason”

• Could apply reason (and scientific ways of

thinking) to human nature and society
 Isaac Newton and John Locke
• Apply Newton’s Laws of Reason to human
society

• John Locke’s tabula rosa (blank mind)

– Knowledge is from environment and reason
– Changing the environment means changing
society
 “Philosophes”
• Intellectuals of French Enlightenment

• Power of human logic and rationality to

discover natural laws governing economy,
politics, society, and judicial system

• Protestant Reformation – focus study and

individual conscience – paved way
 Pierre Bayle
• French Protestant

• ‘God is incomprehensible to man’

• Religious toleration – presence of many

religions would benefit, not harm, the state
 Travel Literature
• “Cultural relativism” - The position that there
is no universal standard to measure cultures
by, and that all cultures are equally valid and
must be understood in their own terms.
Paris, capital of the Enlightenment
 Evolution of Thought

Locke
• Scientific laws • Reason and
can discover • Reason applied sense
natural laws to natural laws experience can
create a better
world
Newton Philosophes
 The Enlightenment
• The Philosophes
– Baron de Montesquieu
(1689-1755)
– François Marie Arouet
Voltaire (1694-1778)
– Denis Diderot (1713-
84)
– Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(1712-78)
Montesquieu
•Charles de Secondat,
baron de Montesquieu

•1689-1755

•The Spirit of the Laws

(1750)
 Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws
• an original classification of governments by
their manner of conducting policy
– argument for the separation of the legislative,
judicial, and executive powers
• theory of the political influence of climate
• profoundly influenced European and American
political thought
– relied on by the framers of the U.S. Constitution
Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws
applied in government

System of checks
and balances

Separation of
powers
British political
system
(and US Constitution)
François-Marie Arouet
(Voltaire)
 Voltaire
• believed reason and educating the illiterate
masses would lead to progress

• Candide (1759)
– common sense conclusion that we must "cultivate
our garden"
 Voltaire
• "écrasez l'infâme," or "crush the infamous”
– refers to abuses to the people by royalty and the
clergy that Voltaire, and “superstition and
intolerance”

• "Superstition sets the whole world in flames;

philosophy quenches them”
 Deism

Philosophy of religion
Supreme being
Reason and observation of natural
created
world
universe

Does not Does not

Set universe in
intervene in interfere with
motion
human affairs natural laws
 Deism

No revealed
England, France,
God is “Supreme religion, religious
United States and
Architect” authority or holy
Ireland
books
 Famous Deists
• John Adams
• Ethan Allen
• Benjamin Franklin
• Alexander Hamilton
• Thomas Jefferson
• James Madison
• Gouverneur Morris
• Thomas Paine
 Deism vs. Protestantism
• “This faith alone, when based upon the sure
promises of God, must save us; as our text
clearly explains.”
– Martin Luther
 Thomas Jefferson
• “We are saved by our good works, which are
within our power, and not by our faith, which
is not in our power.”
 Denis Dierot, 1713-1784

•Very critical of Christianity

•All human behavior is

determined by heredity

•Warned against blind

optimism of growth of
physical knowledge and belief
in automatic social and
human progress
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• Swiss, 1712-1778

• Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of

Inequality (1754)
– the natural, moral state of man had been corrupted
by society
• The Social Contract (1762)
– famous opening line, "Man is born free; and
everywhere he is in chains."
Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality
• “The first man who had fenced in a piece of land,
said "This is mine," and found people naïve enough
to believe him, that man was the true founder of
civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and
murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes
might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling
up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his
fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are
undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth
belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.”
 Rousseau, The Social Contract

Sovereignty
The power to make laws

In the hands of The real sovereign

the people is the law
 The Scottish Enlightenment
• Adam Smith (1723-90)
– The Wealth of Nations,
1776

– Attack on
merchantilism

– Advocate of free trade

 Adam Smith and laissez-faire
Mercantilism:
system of political economy
based on national policies
of accumulating bullion,
establishing colonies and a
merchant marine, and
developing industry and
mining to attain a favorable
balance of trade through
government regulation
laissez-faire:
opposes governmental
regulation of or interference
in commerce beyond the
minimum necessary for a
free-enterprise system to
operate according to its own
economic laws
The Invisible Hand
What does this look like in the geopolitical
sphere?
• Arguments against slavery

• Punishment as deterrent
– E.g. prison over public executions
– rehabilitation
 The Enlightenment in America
• Observation,
experiment,
reason, new
thinking

• Ben Franklin
Ben Franklin
• Franklin stove
• Lightening rod
• Founded a library
• Fire company
 The Thirty Years War (1618 – 1648)
• A series of wars in central Europe beginning in 1618
that stemmed from conflict between Protestants and
Catholics and political struggles between the Holy
Roman Empire and other powers

• Conflict begins between Catholics (Habsburg) and

Calvinists (Bohemia)
– Denmark, Sweden, France and Spain join in
• Peace of Westphalia (1648)
• End of the Holy Roman Empire
– Social and Economic effects debated
©2003 Wadsworth, a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Thomson Learning ™ is a trademark used herein under license.
The Thirty Years’ War
 The Decline of Spain
• Bankruptcies in 1596 and in 1607
• Philip III (1598 – 1621)
• Philip IV (1621 – 1665)
– Gaspar de Guzman and attempts at reform
• The Thirty Years War
– Expensive military campaigns
– Civil War
– The Netherlands lost
England and the Emergence of Constitutional
Monarchy
• Revolution and Civil War

• James I (1603 – 1625) and the House of Stuart

– Divine Right of Kings
– Parliament and the power of the purse
– Religious policies
• The Puritans
 Charles I
• Charles I (1625 – 1649)
– Petition of Right
• 1628) Petition sent by Parliament to King Charles I complaining of
a series of breaches of law
• sought recognition of four principles:
– no taxation without the consent of Parliament
– no imprisonment without cause
– no quartering of soldiers on subjects,
– no martial law in peacetime
» Charles was compelled to accept the petition, but he later ignored its
principles.

– “Personal Rule” (1629 – 1640): Parliament does not meet

– Religious policy angers Puritans
 Civil War (1642 – 1648)
• Oliver Cromwell
• New Model Army
• Charles I executed (January 30, 1649)
• Parliament abolishes the monarchy
• Cromwell dies (1658)
Restoration & a Glorious Revolution
• Charles II (1660 – 1685)
– Declaration of Indulgence (1672)

• ‘we cannot but heartily wish, as it will easily be believed, that all the people of
our dominions were members of the Catholic Church.’

• Test Act (1673) – Only Anglicans could hold military and

civil offices
 England: James II
• James II (1685 – 1688)
– Devout Catholic
– Declaration of Indulgence (1687)
– Protestant daughters: Mary and Anne
– Catholic son born in 1688
– Parliament invites Mary and her husband, William of Orange, to
invade England
– James II, wife and son flee to France
 William and Mary
• Mary and William of Orange offered throne (1689)
– Bill of Rights
• no catholics or wife or husband of a catholic could become
king or queen
• one restriction on royal power: ability of a monarch to
maintain an army in peace time
• confirmed that parliamentary debate and elections should
be free; Parliament should meet regularly
• condemned manipulation of juries
• affirmed the rights of law abiding citizens in face of royal
power
– The Toleration Act of 1689
 Responses to the Revolution
• Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679)
– Leviathan (1651)
– People form a commonwealth
– People have no right to rebel
• John Locke (1632 – 1704)
– Two Treatises of Government
– Inalienable Rights: Life, Liberty and Property
– People and Sovereign form a government
– If government does not fulfill its duties, people have the
right to revolt
Meanwhile, during the English Civil War . . .

• Dutch shipping companies taken over trade

with English colonies
– Oliver Cromwell persuaded Parliament to pass
Navigation Act (1651)
• All goods imported by England or colonies arrive on
English ships
– Crewed by English
Meanwhile, during the English Civil War . . .

• Navigation Act of 1660

– Ship crews’ ¾ English
– Raw materials from
colonies shipped only to
England or other
colonies
• Tobacco, cotton, sugar
 Then . . .
• Navigation Act of 1663
– All ships carrying goods
from Europe to America
must dock in England, be
offloaded, pay a duty
before going to Americas
 Then . . .
• Navigation Act of 1673
– Plantation Duty Act
– Every captain loading
raw materials in colonies
pay a duty on them
 Looking at all of this together . . .
• Enlightenment and man’s natural rights
• Bill of Rights and Toleration Act limit
monarchy’s powers and some freedom of
worship
• Overthrow of James II sets precedent for
monarchial overthrow
• Locke – when natural rights violated, right to
overthrow monarch and change government