CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION DBQ – Assertion Before Evidence
Provide specific, accurate, relevant information
to support or deny the following assertion.
As you read, determine through APPARTS & Yes/But analysis, if the doc affirms or denies the assertion
Assertion: The American colonists were justified in waging war against Britain.
Document 1:
The Stamp Act and the other imperial measures to raise revenues in America appeared very
different when viewed from the eastern side of the Atlantic. In 1766, Thomas Whately, a British
treasury official and aide to Prime Minister George Grenville, wrote Considerations on the Trade
and Finances of This Kingdom, excerpted below, to explain why both justice and necessity
required the new imperial taxes and trade regulations after the end of the French and Indian
War in 1763.
“…Of all the Measures which were pursued for the Benefit of Trade, those were by far the
most important which respected the Colonies, who have of late been the Darling Object of the
Mother Country's Care: We are not yet recovered from a War undertaken solely for their
Protection: Every Object for which it was begun, is accomplished… but whatever may be the
Value of the Acquisitions in America, the immediate Benefit of them is to the Colonies; and this
Country [Britain] feels it only in their Prosperity…
Were there no other Ground to require a Revenue from the Colonies…Add to these the
Advantages obtained for them by the Peace; add the Debt incurred by [Britain in] a War
undertaken in their Defense only; the Distress thereby brought upon the [British] Finances, upon
the Credit both publick and private, upon the Trade, and upon the people of this Country and yet
no more was desired than that they should contribute to the Preservation of the Advantages they
have received, and take upon themselves a small Share of the [military] Establishment necessary
for their own Protection: Upon these Principles several new Taxes were laid upon the Colonies:
Many were indeed…
But it was never intended to impose on them any Share of the National Debt…the
Legislature [Parliament] only required of them to contribute to the Support of those
Establishments, which are equally interesting to all the Subjects of Great Britain.The Charge of
the Navy, Army, and Ordinance, of Africa and of America, is about £3,000,000 per ann(ually)…
they are as important to the Colonies as to the Mother Country; as necessary to their Protection,
as conducive to their Welfare, as to our own: If all share the Benefit, they should also share the
[Burden].
Document 2:
These excerpts are from Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania by John Dickinson. Dickinson was
a Pennsylvania political leader who served in the Stamp Act Congress of 1765. Later, he served
in the Continental Congress. He was against breaking free from Great Britain, therefore refused
to vote on and sign the Declaration of Independence. He was appointed by president of
Delaware as a Brigadier-General in the Continental Army and later still, served as a member in
the Constitutional Convention. In the following statement, Dickinson condemned some of the
new taxes being imposed by Parliament.
There is another late act of parliament, which appears to me to be unconstitutional, and ...
destructive to the liberty of these colonies....
The parliament unquestionably possesses a legal authority to regulate the trade of Great
Britain, and all her colonies. I have looked over every statute [law] relating to these colonies,
from their first settlement to this time; and I find every one of them founded on this principle, till
the Stamp Act administration.... All before, are calculated to regulate trade.... The raising of
revenue ... was never intended.... Never did the British parliament, [until the passage of the
Stamp Act] think of imposing duties in America for the purpose of raising revenue.
[The Townshend Acts claim the authority] to impose duties on these colonies, not for the
regulation of trade ... but for the single purpose of levying money upon us.
John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, 1767-1768
Document 3:
In The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, 1774-1777, Cresswell, a young Englishman, kept an
account of his travels through the American Colonies. The following excerpts are dated October
19, 1774 and tell of his visit to Alexandria, Virginia.
Everything here is in the utmost confusion. Committees are appointed to inspect into the
characters and conduct of every tradesman, to prevent them selling tea or buying British
manufactures. Some of them have been tarred and feathered, others had their property burnt and
destroyed by the populace....
The King is openly cursed, and his authority set at defiance.... everything is ripe for
rebellion. The New Englanders by their canting, whining, insinuating tricks have persuaded the
rest of the colonies that the government is going to make absolute slaves of them.
Document 4:
In 1769, two of the four regiments stationed in Boston were removed, the 14h and 29th
remained. On February 22, 1770 a crowd in Boston mobbed the house of Ebenezer Richardson,
a customs service employee. Richardson tried to scare them by firing a gun into the crowd and a
12 year old boy, Christopher Seider, was wounded in the arm and the chest and died later that
evening. Samuel Adams arranged the funeral which was attended by over 2,000 people.
Eleven days later a riot broke out in front of the customs house on King Street. It began due to
an argument between a wigmaker’s apprentice and a Private over a Captain-Lieutenant’s
supposed debt to the apprentice’s master.
Shortly thereafter, hundreds had gathered, snowball and oyster shells and insults had been
thrown, “fire” bells rang out; Captain Preston dispatched his men to the scene and before it was
over multiple shots had been fired into the crowd killing 5 and wounding many more.
Document 5:
These excerpts are from Thomas Paine's Common Sense, published in January 1776. This
popular pamphlet helped to convince many Americans that the conflict with England was
beyond peaceful settlement and that independence was America's only course.
I have heard it asserted by some, that as America has flourished under her former connection
with Great Britain, the same connection is necessary towards her future happiness, and will
always have the same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument… Men
of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offences of Great Britain, and, still hoping for
the best, are apt to call out, "Come, come, we shall be friends again for all this." But … then tell
me whether you can hereafter love, honour, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire
and sword into your land?... No man was a warmer wisher for a [peaceful settlement] than
myself, before the fatal nineteenth of April, 1775 [the battles at Lexington and Concord,
Massachusetts, occurred on this day], but the moment the event of that day was made known, I
rejected the hardened, sullen-tempered [King of England] forever and disdain the wretch, that
with the pretended title of FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE, can unfeelingly hear of their slaughter,
and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul.
But admitting that matters were now made up, what would be the event? I answer, the ruin of the
continent…
First. The powers of governing still remaining in the hands of the king, he will have a negative
over the whole legislation of this continent. And as he hath shewn himself such an [hardened]
enemy to liberty, and discovered such a thirst for power…
Document 6:
Where the money is to come from which will defray this enormous annual expense of three
millions sterling, and all those other debts, I know not; unless the author of Common Sense, or
some other ingenious projector, can discover the Philosopher’s Stone, by which iron and other
base metals may be transmuted into gold. Certain I am that our commerce and agriculture, the
two principal sources of our wealth, will not support such an expense. The whole of our exports
from the Thirteen United Colonies, in the year 1769, amounted only to £2,887,898 sterling;
which is not so much, by near half a million, as our annual expense would be were we
independent of Great Britain. Those exports; with no inconsiderable part of the profits arising
from them, it is well known, centered finally in Britain to pay the merchants and manufacturers
there for goods we had imported thence—and yet left us still in debt! What then must our
situation be, or what the state of our trade, when oppressed with such a burden of annual
expense! When every article of commerce, every necessary of life, together with our lands, must
be heavily taxed to defray that expense!
Charles Inglis, 1776, Pennsylvania
Document 7:
The following was written by Anglican clergyman and educator William Smith. During the
Stamp Act crisis and the early years of the American Revolution, Smith favored the broadening
of colonial liberties, but criticized physical actions against Great Britain. He wrote a series of
public letters in 1776 under the name “Cato” in reply to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.
We have already declared ourselves independent, as to all useful purposes, by resisting our
oppressors upon our own foundation. And while we keep upon this ground, without connecting
ourselves with any foreign nations, to involve us in fresh difficulties and endanger our liberties
still further, we are able, in our own element (upon the shore), to continue this resistance; and it
is our duty to continue it till Great Britain is convinced (as she must soon be) of her fatal policy,
and open her arms to reconciliation, upon the permanent and sure footing of mutual interests and
safety.
Upon such a footing, we may again be happy. Our trade will be revived. Our husbandmen, our
mechanics, our artificers will flourish. Our language, our laws, and manners being the same with
those of the nation with which we are again to be connected, that connection will be natural; and
we shall the more easily guard against future innovations. Pennsylvania has much to lose in this
contest and much to hope from a proper settlement of it. We have long flourished under our
charter government. What may be the consequences of another form we cannot pronounce with
certainty; but this we know, that it is a road we have not traveled and may be worse than it is
described.
Document 8:
These excerpts are from "The Declaration of Independence," adopted and signed by the
Continental Congress of July 4, 1776.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations
[unlawful seizures], all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over
these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly…
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice…
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone…
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders…
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms;
Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is
thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.