In 1689, the British and the French entered a long period of frequent warfare known as the Second One Hundred Years’ War. The British government had to start directing its focus towards the French rather than its colonies in the New World. Due to the constant warfare, the British did not enforce the Navigation Acts that regulated and controlled trade going to and from the colonies. This sort of political and economic strategy was called salutary neglect. The Americans enjoyed minimal interference in their trading and the American economy grew and developed under this salutary neglect. However, after the French and Indian war ended in 1763, the British government was severely in debt. It started to enforce the Navigation Acts and imposed …show more content…
Document B was from a Pennsylvania newspaper, and it called for the Americans to fight harder to expel the British from the Americas. The author wanted to politically separate America from Britain and pleaded for the American people to make this political change. After the war officially ended with signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, people started to realize that there were issues with the Articles of Confederation. In the next few years many people argued how to fix these issues and how the country should grow. Document G illustrated some of these problems. Document G was written by Abigail Adams to Thomas Jefferson informing him about the political turmoil in her home state. This was around the time of the Constitutional Convention, and Adams, a powerful woman, wanted to inform Jefferson that something had to be done to the Articles of Confederation to stop this unrest. Another reason why the Articles of Confederation had to be changed was because of its inability to organize militias or enact and enforce nationwide taxes. Around 1786, the common people in Massachusetts revolted because of unfair state taxes and this was called Shay’s Rebellion. The Articles of Confederation had no way of dealing with this problem, so the state itself had to
Taxes! After the French and Indian War, the British government needed money to pay for the cost of protecting the colonists from the French and Indians. The British government approved several taxes including the Stamp and Tea Acts to help pay for the costs of the war. The colonists were expected to pay these taxes.
Settling in the New World provided both the American settlers and the British government with many opportunities. For the colonists, North America provided an opportunity to improve their lives and escape religious persecution. For the British, settlers in North America provided access to raw materials and new markets in which to sell finished goods. This mercantilist relationship continued for several years, until the colonists began to question Parliament’s right to treat them differently than other British citizens. Taxes were imposed on the colonists as a means of helping to pay the debt Britain had incurred fighting the French.
The British men gathered full control of the trading center present in the Americas, and created the Navigation Acts to help aid them in their tactics to take control over all trade within the Americas. The Navigation Acts were passed under a mercantilist system, and was used to regulate trade in a way that only benefitted the British economy. These acts restricted trade between England and its colonies to English or colonial ships, required certain colonial goods to pass through England before export, provided subsidies for the production of certain raw goods in the colonies, and banned colonial competition in large-scale manufacturing. This lowered the competition in the trading world for the British and caused the British to have a major surge in power, that greatly attributed to the growth of their rising empire. The British’s ambitious motives in the trading world help portray a way that the British took control of an important piece in the economy of all of the other nations present in the colonies in the time period, and shows another leading factor in the growth of the British empire.
The Articles of Confederation was written when the United States was a fairly new country, and from the people wanting to create a different government from the king of England. Although this document respected individual rights, it was too loose of a document that could drive the country to success. After revising what they had created, the founding father of the us the created the us constitution. It was more strict, but still valued peoples rights.
The American government that we know today, had many troubles when it first came together when the Constitution was first ratified in 1788. There had been many failed attempts at creating a new and successful government, such as the Articles of Confederation the first plan for the new American government. This proved to be very unsuccessful because the states held all federal power, while the national government had very little. In order to please both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalist, each party agreed to the Constitution with the addition of the Bill of Rights. Documents like the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the above documents are heavily influenced by the writings of John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu,
The Federalist Papers were, and still are, very important to American History. These series of essays, mostly written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, were published to persuade Americans to ratify the new constitution. The new constitution would replace the Articles of Confederation, what the American’s had been living under at the time. The constitution highlighted an issue that the articles did not; empowering the central government like never before. Allowing the central government to act in the interest of the United States.
Britain had built up a great debt and the colonies were a financial burden to run, to try and resolve their problems the British instituted various measures
Between 1763 and 1775, there were three ‘Imperial Crises’ which occurred between the British and the American colonists. The conflict that was produced during this period arose through an undefined balance of political and economic power between the two parties. In 1763, Britain had just concluded the French and Indian war and was left with an immense and almost crippling debt of around 140 million pounds sterling (“Turning Point In American History”). In Britain’s eyes, the most effective way to reduce this debt was increased taxes. Unfortunately, the people of England were already massively overtaxed, which meant the last option for the British was to tax the American colonists.
The Articles of Confederation were a document seen as the “first” constitution of the United States. This document granted the new national government power to control the military, declare war, and create treaties between the states. However, the Articles had holes in it considering the government did not have the power to tax, create laws without at least nine states’ approval, or change the Articles of Confederation without a unanimous vote. This means that the country soon fell into debt and petty arguments between state, the new government had no control. It was time for a change.
Once the British and Colonist ideals were not the same(Document 2) this gave better reason and a model to not follow when pursuing independence. Yet without the British making the laws it did, the America today would not ensure unalienable rights and prohibit the making of any laws like Britain made, which ultimately lead to a better
The French and Indian War left England with a debt of £130,000,000. To help pay off the debt Britain set up taxes, to collect money, on frequently used products by the colonists. The Molasses Act put a six pence tax on every gallon of molasses. The colonists thought this was a lot of money to pay so they did everything to avoid it. This act was not really enforced and the colonists did not really obey this act.
DBQ Essay The United States Constitution is a document that or founding fathers made in order to replace the failing Articles of Confederation (A of C). Under the Constitution, the current government and states don’t have the problems they faced when the A of C was in action. The Constitution was created in 1788, and held an idea that the whole nation was nervous about. This idea was a strong national government, and the Federalist assured the people that this new government would work. The framers of the Constitution decided to give more power to the Federal government rather than the state governments because the A of C had many problems, there was a need for the layout of new government, rights, and laws, and there was a need for the Federal
The Britain felt that it was only natural that the American colony would pay the mother country more for their protection after the Seven Years War with France. England was trying to relieve some tax burdens by increasing the tax on the colonies (xix). “that the main purpose of country’s overseas possessions were to serve the business interest of British merchants and manufacturers and to provide the mother country with raw materials” (xvii). However, such increase in demand, and pressure seemed unfair to the American colony despite the fact that they had been paying less tax compared to an English
Since there was debt because of the war, the economy was already very bad in Britain – therefore they taxed the colonies. When the colonies started boycotting British products and threatened to stop trading with them all together, it was successful because Britain’s economy wasn’t strong enough to handle those things. The merchants in Britain couldn’t afford to have trade with America end. If the British merchants were hurt, this would thus hurt The economy as a whole in Britain. In later decades, in the War of 1812, America would try to stop trade with Britain again using a method called embargo, which would not be effective because they did not have the debt that the War had caused.
At the commence of the War England had a National Debt of 72,000,000 Pounds in 1754. By 1763, England had a National Debt of 135,000,000 Pounds, which equivalent to $10,000,000 today. With this economic collapse, England had to find newer ways of paying this money and a way of paying this off was by making tax and putting them on the Colonies. Mercantilism was employed to give/buy from England the manufactured goods and other items that will keep its economy stable. The British Council in 1763 Complained saying, “ We find that the revenue arising therefrom is very small and inconsiderable, ….