Latest news with #CoerciveActs
Los Angeles Times
04-07-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
How martial law made the American Revolution
On this Fourth of July, with federal troops still on the ground in Los Angeles, our own American Revolution provides a surprising lesson on the perils of military overreach in domestic affairs. Notably, the nation's political and military leaders should consider the British blunders of the 1770s as they weigh the prospect of militarizing American streets, now and in the future. Parliament's Stamp Act tax of the mid-1760s ignited the Anglo-American conflict. Yet, as historians broadly agree, it was escalating martial law in Boston under different legislation, the Coercive Acts of 1774, that transformed American resistance into full-scale revolution. Let's start by recalling what had happened four years earlier during protests over the Townshend duties, a series of taxes Parliament added to everyday goods, including tea, exported to the colonies. The British ministry responded to the unrest by stationing approximately 2,000 redcoats in Boston. On the night of March 5, 1770, in an accidental bloodbath set off by the pelting of soldiers with snowballs, the British opened fire on a crowd of unarmed civilians outside the Custom House, killing five and wounding others. 'Let me observe,' Sam Adams soon wrote about the Boston Massacre, 'how fatal are the effects, the danger of which I long ago mentioned, of posting a standing army among a free people.' The problem worsened after the Boston Tea Party. The hacking to pieces of 342 crates of tea owned by the East India Co. in late 1773 was, of course, criminal activity. As such, it warranted the full application of colonial and municipal law against the offenders. Instead of leaving justice to the locals, however, Parliament passed the four draconian bills known as the Coercive Acts. To enforce them, in a fatal progression, King George III's ministers dispatched a military governor and occupying army to Boston, in effect imposing martial law on the entire colony for the unlawful actions of a few. Each of the Coercive Acts struck at the heart of Massachusetts self-rule. The Boston Port Act shut down all trade through Boston Harbor and its surrounding waterways, while the Massachusetts Government Act dissolved the colony's assembly, courts and town meetings. The remaining two acts allowed trials to be relocated overseas and forced residents to house British troops at the governor's discretion. Taken together, the Coercive Acts constituted an unprecedented assault on the rights and freedoms of the American people. Colonists decried them as 'barbarous,' 'diabolical' and 'Tyrannic' — the work of a 'Despotic power.' What followed is familiar to many Americans. Massachusetts, under martial law, summoned the other colonies to a continental congress in Philadelphia. In reaction, the king and Parliament declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion, ordering thousands of additional redcoats across the Atlantic to crush dissent and make arrests. A conflict the British thought they could resolve with boots on the ground only escalated. On April 19, 1775, in another tragedy of unintended carnage — this time triggered by a stray bullet — the king's troops gunned down eight colonials on Lexington Green, turning protest into civil war. Fifteen months later, as a remedy of last resort, the colonies declared independence, highlighting Britain's regime of martial law as the first cause of the breach. The declaration pointedly charges King George with 'abolishing our most valuable laws,' 'suspending our own Legislatures' and '[keeping] among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.' History doesn't deliver road maps, but it does abound in examples of military overreach sparking unpredictable violence. In the case of the American Revolution, we are reminded that deploying an army on the streets where one's own citizens live and work provokes tension, fear and anger — and sometimes, by the twin forces of accident and escalation, bloodshed and lasting civil discord. Eli Merritt is a political historian at Vanderbilt University. He writes the Substack newsletter American Commonwealth and is the author of 'Disunion Among Ourselves: The Perilous Politics of the American Revolution.'
Epoch Times
27-04-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
The Augusta Resolves and the Declaration of Independence
In retaliation for the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliament responded by passing five punitive laws in 1774. Known as the Coercive Acts, also referred to as the Insufferable Acts or Intolerable Acts, these measures aimed to punish Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest, stripping them from self-governance. Seeking to quell resistance to British authority, the British Parliament instead awakened a sleeping giant. The implications of their laws reverberated throughout America's western frontier. The Coercive Acts became the impetus that led to the development of the Revolutionary War. The Sons of Liberty protested "taxation without representation" by throwing chests of Britain's tea into the Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party. Library of Congress. Public Domain House of Burgesses When news of the Boston Tea Party was first published in the Virginia Gazette, Virginia's legislators—members of the House of Burgesses—wondered what the Imperial retaliation might be. When they learned that the Parliament was essentially shutting down the Port of Boston, their response was strong and solemn. A group of burgesses, including Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and Francis Lightfoot Lee met in the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg to discuss their plan of action. Invoking language used by the House of Commons in the 1640s, they crafted a resolution calling Virginians to a day of 'fasting, humiliation, and prayer' on June 1, 1774—the day that Boston was to be closed. (L) An illustration of Raleigh Tavern with the famous Apollo Room, 1880. The New York Public Library. (R) The resolution was signed by 89 members of the House of Burgesses and several 'clergymen and other inhabitants of the colony and dominion of Virginia.' Public Domain The burgesses The day after the resolution passed, Dunmore dissolved the Burgesses. But they reconvened at Raleigh Tavern, where many of them lodged for the sessions. Here, they decided to return to their respective districts and sense the feelings of the people in the places they represented. Each district's 'Resolve' would help the banished Burgesses as they charted a course forward. Related Stories 12/10/2023 11/13/2023 There were 64 Virginia representative districts, and 59 of them actually completed the assignment. Most were not so confrontational to the Crown, but then there was the county of Augusta. A portrait of John Murray, fourth Earl of Dunmore, 1765, by Joshua Reynolds. Oil on canvas. National, Edinburgh. Public Domain The County That Stretched to the Mississippi Augusta County, Virginia today is large, but it isn't the biggest county in the state. In 1770, however, it encompassed most of Virginia's claims extending to the Mississippi River. It was the essence of the wild frontier—the land where Daniel Boone roamed. Although other counties were carved out of it as settlement advanced, it was still the embodiment of a way of life that was tied far more to the new world than the old. It was in 1770 that the lower half of Augusta became Botetourt County. In 1774, the district of West Augusta was separated from Augusta County. Since 1738, frontier business was conducted from Mill Place, later renamed Staunton. This group of people were more independent and used to providing for themselves. Their Resolve, while respectful of England, laid the groundwork for the case for independence. The Resolves' six authors—Alexander Balmain, Sampson Mathews, Alexander M'Clenachan, Michael Bowyer, William Lewis (son of one of Virginia's first settlers John Lewis), and George Mathews—met in Staunton on Feb. 22, 1775. Reflecting the western settlement's independent spirit, the resolves made it clear that the writers were making a commitment to risk 'life and fortune' to retain natural rights. If necessary, they would join with the colonies to secure those rights. They contained a commitment to bolster the militias as well. The colonies at the time were largely providers of raw materials. They sent them to Britain and received manufactured goods in return. The authors of the Resolves called for instituting the domestic manufacture of salt, steel, wool cards, paper, and gunpowder for the use of the militias. Making a Case for Liberty The committee that drafted the Resolves chose Thomas Lewis (another son of founder John Lewis) and Samuel McDowell to carry the Resolves to a convention of colonies to be held in Richmond in March of that year. A photograph of the St. John's Church in Richmond, Va., between circa 1860 and 1865, where the Second and Third Virginia Conventions met in 1775. National Archives, College Park. Public Domain Declaring themselves loyal subjects of King George, they nonetheless were direct in asserting: 'Many of us and our forefathers left our native land and explored this once-savage wilderness to enjoy the free exercise of the rights of conscience and of human nature. These rights we are fully resolved ... inviolably to preserve; nor will we surrender … to any Ministry, to any Parliament, or any body of men upon earth, by whom we are not represented, and in whose decisions, therefore, we have no voice.' The document is certainly a precursor to the Augusta Declaration of May 10, 1776, which called for the colonies to form a permanent and independent union of states. The 1776 Declaration directly calls for the formation of what became the United States of America. As the July 4 declaration was being crafted, the Virginia founders were undoubtedly aware of the sentiments expressed by Augusta. The delegates to the Second Continental Congress penned a letter to the Augusta delegates A hand-colored lithograph of "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!–Patrick Henry delivering his great speech on the Rights of the Colonies, before the Virginia Assembly, convened at Richmond, March 23rd, 1775. Concluding with the above sentiment, which became the war cry of the Revolution," 1876, by Currier & Ives. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. In 1775 the burgesses listened to Patrick Henry deliver his speech and raised regiments. Public Domain Historians may debate how much the Augusta documents influenced the Declaration of Independence, but there is no doubting the heart and spirit they brought to the American Revolution. Staunton historian Armistead C. Gordon What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to
