EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
Few periods of American history have been more written upon than the decade preceding the Revolution. Nevertheless, there is still room for a brief volume upon the subject; all the world knows that the Revolution really began almost fifteen years before its beginning, because of the efforts of the British government to give greater unity and stiffness to its colonial system, both as to government and as to trade with other nations; but the real motives underlying the uneasiness of the colonies still need enlightenment.
In the arrangement of The American Nation, both Greene's Provincial America (vol. VI.) and Thwaites's France in America (vol. VII.) are introductory to this volume: the one showing the organization of government against which they complained, and the other the danger from the French, the removal of which opened the way for revolution; the volume is also most closely linked with Van Tyne's American Revolution (vol. IX.).
Professor Howard opens with two chapters on the conditions and political standards of the Americans on their side of the ocean, and of the British on their side; then follows (chap, iii.) an account of the system of Navigation Acts as it then existed, which may well be compared with chapters i. and xix. of Andrews's Colonial Self-Government, and chapters iii. and xviii. of Greene's Provincial America. The two preliminary episodes of the Parson's Cause and Writs of Assistance (chaps, iv. and v.) are followed by a discussion of the Sugar Act of 1766, which Professor Howard considers the starting-point of the Revolution. In three chapters (vii., viii., ix.) the Stamp Act, Stamp Act Congress, and repeal are considered; in two more chapters the Townshend Acts and the attempts to enforce them by the military are described.
The narrative then gives way to an indispensable discussion of the Anglican Episcopate, which fits into Greene's discussion of the same subject in an earlier volume (Provincial America, chap. vi.). The first appearance of the West as a distinct factor in national life is described in chapter xiii. and will be resumed in Van Tyne's American Revolution (chap, xv.); and, in a later stage, in McLaughlin's Confederation and Constitution (vol. X., chaps, vii.,viii).
The final steps leading up to revolution, from 1773 to 1775, occupy chapters xiv. to xvii. The last chapter of text is the argument of the loyalists, a strong presentation of the reasons which led so many thousand Americans to adhere to the mother-country. It should be compared with Van Tyne's American Revolution (chap. xiv.). The Critical Essay on Authorities is conveniently classified by subjects which do not follow strictly the order of the chapters.
The aim of the volume is to show what the issue really was and why people who had lived under one general government for a century and a half could no longer get on together. Professor Howard's investigations bring him to about the same point as those of earlier writers — viz., that war was inevitable because of long antecedent causes tending to independence, and was precipitated by the failure of the home government to understand either the situation or the American people; but that it was not a result of direct and conscious oppression. Yet this fresh study of the evidence results in a clearer view of the difficulties of the imperial problem; and brings out in sharper relief the reasons for the apparent paradox that the freest people then on earth insisted on and deserved a larger freedom.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
The struggle between the English colonies and the parent state resulting in the recognition of a new and dominant nation in the Western hemisphere is justly regarded as a revolution. Its preliminaries cover the twelve years between the peace of Paris in 1763 and the appeal to arms in 1775; but its causes are more remote. Up to the very beginning of hostilities, the colonists disclaimed any desire for independence; yet it seems clear to us that unconsciously they had long been preparing themselves for that event. The origin of the Revolution is coeval with the earliest dawning of a sentiment of American union. Its assigned causes are, indeed, mainly economic and political. It was not a social revolution in the conventional sense; yet it was profoundly sociological in character. The conditions were favorable to the rise of a more united and a freer society in America; but this was hindered by the inertia of a colonial system which the American people had outgrown. Hence it is a grave mistake to see in the struggle between Great Britain and her colonies merely a useless contest provoked by the fanaticism, the ambition, or the stupidity of a few leaders on either side. A revolution cannot be explained on the basis of personal influences alone.
To the friends who have aided me in many ways during the preparation of this book I desire to convey my grateful thanks. The maps showing the environs of Boston and the Indian delimitations were prepared by Mr. David M. Matteson, of Cambridge. For the other maps I am mainly indebted to the skill and research of Professor Clark Edmund Persinger, of the University of Nebraska. Professor George Henry Alden, of the University of Washington, has generously placed at my disposal the maps in his New Governments West of the Alleghanies before 1780; and for like permission to make use of the map in his Western State-Making in the Revolutionary Era, I am under obligations to Professor Frederick J. Turner, of the University of Wisconsin. I have had the privilege of reading in manuscript the enlightening dissertation on The Foreign Commerce of the United States during the Confederation, by Professor Guy H. Roberts, of Bowdoin College.
George Elliott Howard.
