I am currently re-reading this as one of my books in my 'actually learn and remember US history' project, and it is honestly more insightful than I remember. It is interesting now that I have read a fair amount of books on US history is that that knowledge is letting me make new connections and insights into a book that I have previously read. I don't think I have ever re-read a non-fiction book so this is an interesting experience for me.
I don't know if this is a new insight or I just simply forgot it because the author makes it very clear (perhaps I was just super dense on my first read? - ill go with forgetful though), and that is that it is really wrong to think of the American Revolution as a fight over taxation without representation.
I have always heard that being the main cause, and it honestly did not really click with me. I mean, how the hell can you get passionate over taxation without representation? The author makes the point that the ideology underneath that principle was the cause of the revolution, and that principle is liberty.
America's conception of liberty essentially derived from the 18th century English Commonweathmen who saw liberty and power in a constant battle, and that representative government had to check executive, arbitrary power to ensure liberty. If not, there would be tyranny and the people would be turned into slaves.
The Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Declaratory Act, Townsend Acts, Tea Act, quartering British troops in Boston, Custom Agents, British military courts, and wresting official positions from local control by having England pay their salary instead of the local populace were all seen as evidence of a conspiratorial plot perpetuated by the British ministry and parliament to strip away the colonies' rights and liberty, institute tyranny, and turn them all into slaves whose sole purpose is to enrich the mother country.
You might think this is a bit crazy, but it all makes sense if look at it from the perspective of colonists at this time who imbued the ideology of the 18th century commonwealth men. All of those above instances were instances of arbitrary power that was unchecked by a representative body because the colonies had no representatives in Parliament. Therefore, these colonists thought their liberty and rights were being eroded and that Parliament was slowly instituted a tyrannical and arbitrary government in the colonies.
This all came to a head with the Boston Tea Party, and more specifically, Parliament's response. Parliament took away Boston's liberty and rights, took away their representative government and instituted a government based on tyranny and arbitrary power. This galvanized the other colonies because they realized that this could be easily done to them in the future. In the eyes of the colonies, Boston was simply fighting to preserve its liberty in the face of arbitrary British power. The colonies likely asked themselves, what would stop the British from doing what it did to Boston if we decided to stand for our liberties and rights? It is better to stand together in order to fight Britain to preserve liberty and rights than have each of the colonies be picked off one by one and have the colonies be turned into another India.
That explanation, one of ideology, fear, passion, and rights makes FAR FAR more sense than simply saying it was about taxation without representation. Sure, it was about that, but that definitely does not get to the heart of the issue, and one that was definitely not explained to me, or at least made clear (might have forgot it, but I doubt it) in my high school American history class.
I am only about 1/3rd of the way through on the re-read, but it has definitely re-enforced my desire to read
The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn. Along with American Slavery and American Freedom, this book makes it seem that it is absolutely necessary to understand the ideology and colonists conceptions in order to understand the revolution and Colonial/Early American society. Best way to do it is to read that book because that is where both are getting their ideas on Early American ideology and thought. So yea, that is the next book that I am reading.
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Actually a lot of the names are great. Anyway I just stuck with it and got more invested over time, though I'm not at the halfway point yet, so.