Era of revolution American revolution The Philadelphia Convention in 1787 adopted the United States Constitution. This established a federalist republic with three equal branches of government. Tensions between the British and the American colonies grew after the Seven Years War over the issue of taxation without representation, culminating in the latters decision to declare independence and face the consequences. The intellectual underpinnings for revolution were provided by the radical English pamphleteer Thomas Paine. His Common Sense pro-independence monograph pamphlet was anonymously published on January 10, 1776 and became an immediate success.[29] It quickly spread among the literate, and, in three months, 100,000 copies (estimated 500,000 total including pirated editions sold during the course of the Revolution)[30] sold throughout the American British colonies (with only two million free inhabitants), making it the best-selling American book.[30][31] He pioneered a style of political writing that was able to render complex ideas intelligible to average readers of the day.[32] The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, echoed Locke convincingly: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.[33] The American Revolution formally concluded in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris, in which the British recognized American independence. After the war, the colonies debated about how to move forward. Their first attempt at cooperation transpired under the Articles of Confederation, which were eventually regarded as too inadequate to provide security, or even a functional government. The colonies held a Constitutional Convention in 1787 to resolve the problems stemming from the Articles of Confederation. The resulting Constitution of the United States was a monumental document in American history and in world history as well. In the context of the times, the Constitution was a revolutionary and liberal document. It established a republic with clear separation of the executive, the legislative, and the judicial.[34] The first ten amendments to the constitution, known as the United States Bill of Rights, guaranteed some of the natural rights liberal thinkers used to justify the Revolution. The American theorists and politicians who created the Constitution were heavily influenced by the ideas of Locke. As one historian writes: The American adoption of a democratic theory that all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, as it had been put as early as the Declaration of Independence, was epoch-marking.[35][36]
Posted on: Fri, 04 Jul 2014 15:24:13 +0000
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