Revolutionary Influences on Politics

Revolutionary Influences on Politics

The development of the early republic of the United States of America had many influence from ideas on liberty, equality of men, and God-given rights to mankind. These ideas were formed during many outbreaks of riots, resistance of laws passed by British government, and the yearning for independence. All of these ideas caused many revolutions to form, dismantle of the old American government, and the formation of the one that still exists today. The ideas that came from the American Revolution helped influence the founding fathers into how to form the constitution. The French revolution also had some say in the making of the US government. Revolutionary activity and ideas helped the founding fathers form the government that we still live under today.

A revolution is the rising of people to overthrow a pre-existing government and replace it with another one that is better and meets most of the peoples wants. The American Revolution, between 1775 and 1783, happened because Americans wanted to break away from the British government and form their own independent government. The era began in 1764 when the British government passed the Sugar Act. It was to help pay off the Americans military expenses after the Seven Years War with France but it just caused problems within the colonies. This act did little to help with the finances, so parliament passed the Stamp Act of 1765, which taxed anyone who made a will, bought or sold property, borrowed money, purchased newspapers, or any other type of goods (Boyer). All classes of colonists were affected by this act and much resistance broke out. The Act made people think that they either had to face the taxation full-frontal or give up on their idea of self-government (Boyer). They wanted an actual representation in government rather than virtual.

This caused an outbreak of “motley crews” to form and protesting for their “Liberty.” Rediker and Linebaugh’s definition of a “motley crew” is an organized group of workers (mainly sailors) performing similar tasks or different ones but all working toward the same goal. The term also refers to multi-ethnic, meaning that blacks and whites were working together. In 1765, this motley crew caused a political storm as “they defended liberty in the name of right” and caught the eye of Samuel Adams, one of the founding fathers to help form the present constitution. He concluded a new form of ideology of resistance and embodied the fundamental rights of man against the government o which it could be judged itself (Rediker and Linebaugh). The mobs were against slavery and Adams saw this as a new revolutionary thought. He will later use this influence in the making of the constitution.

Much more resistance formed through many different writings and sermons. Events such as the Boston Tea Party and the Boston Massacre also showed the resistance of the colonists of the British government. Thomas Paine, another founding father, put the final touch on how to break away from the “mother land” and why we should do it in his very famous pamphlet Common Sense. This pamphlet put the blame on the British parliament for all of the suffering and pain the colonists had been going through. It was the extra push that got the American Revolution going and the formation/influence of the Declaration of Independence made by Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers in 1776 (Boyer). But none of this would have happened without the actions of the motley crew and their ideas of liberty to help “illuminate the nature of the American Revolution” (Rediker and Linebaugh).

The revolution made social changes that contributed from the Declaration of Independence and the factors caused by the war itself. Revolutions of blacks, white women, and Native Americans also formed revolutionary ideology of social and political order from 1776-1783. The formation of the Articles of Confederation in 1781 was the nation’s first government which brought to the states sovereignty, freedom, and independence which made the citizens first and the US second (Boyer). Impatience among colonists for the government to become more economically stable led to the formation of Shay’s rebellion to occur. This influenced the founding fathers to reconsider the Articles of Confederation and the form the Constitution of the United States of America during the Philadelphia Convention of 1787.

All of this revolting, rioting, and Revolutions was started from the idea that we should all be given Liberty, Freedom, and actual representation of the people. The Founding Fathers do not attempt to suppress all of this revolutionary activity nor did they attempt to blunt it. Instead they decided to channel this activity and pull it together to consider what God-given rights