Quotes Flashcards
Benjamin Franklin empire
‘A great Empire, like a great Cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.’
Benjamin Franklin On British control writing from london July 1773
‘This country pretends to be our sovereign’
Adam smith wealth of nations quote (1776)
‘The rulers of Great Britain have, for more than a century past, amused the people with the imagination that they possessed a great empire on the west side of the Atlantic’
Edmund Burke on the untidy empire called it
‘extensive and detached’
Alan farmer on charters
‘Charters were the umbilical cords attaching the colonies to Britain - the mother country’
Alan farmer on British administration in the colonies
‘Given that British administration affecting the colonies lacked central control, confusion and duplication often characterised the bureaucracy’
Alan Farmer on Charters
‘Charters were the umbilical cords attaching the colonies to Britain’
Alan farmer on parliamentary acts pre 1763
‘Trade regulation apart, there was hardly a single parliamentary act that touched on the internal affairs of the colonies’
Edmund Burke on salutary neglect
‘a wise and salutary neglect’
Peter Kalm (swedish biologist travelling in NA 1748-52)
The ‘restrictions occasion the inhabitants of the English colonies to grow less tender for their mother country.’
Richard Hofstadter (1948)
colonial America was ‘a middle-class world’
Alan Farmer on effects of Peace of Paris 1763
‘Ironically, the British triumph prepared the ground for the American Revolution’
Robert Middlekauff
‘before 1776, the Americans had become almost completely self-governing’
Maldwyn A. Jones
‘At the close of the Seven Years War in 1763 hardly any of the American colonists are likely to have harboured thoughts of independence’
Alan Farmer on the Sugar Act
‘The Sugar Act represented a fundamental revision in the relationship between Britain and her colonies’
Elpathet Dyer of Conneticut on the Stamp Act
‘If the colonies do not now unite, and use their most vigorous endeavours in all proper ways, to avert this impending blow, they may for the future, bid farewell to freedom and liberty, burn their charters and make the best of thraldom and slavery’
Alan Farmer on repeal of the Stamp Act
‘in denying Parliament the right to tax them, the Americans were implicitly denying Parliament’s right to govern them.’
Alan farmer on uniting power of the Stamp Act
‘The Stamp Act had brought the colonists closer together than they had ever been before’
Alan Farmer on the Townshend Duties
‘Some MPs realised that Townshend’s measures, which would raise only £40,000 per year, were a mistake’
Alan Farmer on Non-Importation
‘As well as putting economic pressure on Britain, non-importation strengthened the moral resolve of the colonists’
T.H. Breen on the threat of British luxury goods
‘The baubles of Britain, were believed to be threatening American liberty as much as were parliamentary taxation and a bloated customs service.’
Alan Farmer on the repeal of the Townshend Duties
‘The Townshend duties, which had stirred up such a hornet’s nest, made little financial sense’
John Adams in his diary on the Boston Tea Party
‘This destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important consequences and so lasting, that I cannot but consider it as an epoch in history’.
Chatham on the Tea Party
‘criminal’
John Adams
‘America is not any part of the British realm or dominions’
Thomas Jefferson in A Summary of the Rights of British America (1774)
why should 160,000 electors in Britain give laws to millions of Americans; ‘every individual of whom is equal to every individual of them’
Edmund Burke on empire and minds 1775
‘A great empire and little minds go I’ll together’
Hugh Brogan On Pontiac’s rising
‘’The whole frontier, from the Great Lakes far southwards, was in flames, and the British army had to stamp them out”
Hugh Brogan stamp act and revolution
‘On 22 March 1765 the Stamp Act became law, and the American Revolution began’
John Adams on the Olive Branch Petition
it gave ‘a silly cast to our whole doings’
Jeremy Black on opportunities missed 1775-6
‘It is not difficult… to feel that opportunities were missed and that the British failed to make adequate use of their sea power’
Alan Farmer on British inaction in Boston 1775-6
‘British inaction gave the rebels time to consolidate their hold elsewhere’
Thomas Paine, 1776 on breakdown of union
‘Reconciliation, is now a fallacious dream’
Sam Adams on declaring independence
‘Is not America already independent? Why then not declare it?’
Richard Henry Lee, 7th June in Congress, voicing the Virginia convention’s resolution
‘that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states’.
Alan Farmer on the right Independence Day
‘It was the 2 July vote, rather than the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on 4 July, that proclaimed the birth of the United States of America’
What does Farmer say about Americans celebrating Independence Day
‘for over 200 years Americans have been celebrating their country’s birthday on the wrong day’
Abraham Lincoln on Thomas Jefferson
‘the most distinguished political of our history’
Gordon Wood on Jefferson
one of ‘the greatest and most heroic figures figures in American history’
Vernon Partington on Jefferson
‘Far more completely than any other American of his generation he embodied the idealisms of the great revolution’
preamble to the Declaration of Independence
‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’
What did the Declaration of Independence accuse George III of|?
trying to establish an ‘absolute tyranny over these states’
Alan Farmer on declaring / winning independence
‘it was one thing to declare independence; it was another thing to win it.’
Louis M. Hacker on the cause of the American revolution
‘The struggle was not over high-sounding political and constitutional concepts over the power of taxation or even, in the final analysis, over natural rights. It was over colonial manufacturing, wild lands, and furs, sugar, wine, tea and currency, all of which meant simply the survival or collapse of English mercantile capitalism within the imperial-colonial framework of the mercantilist system’
what do Charles Beard and Merrill Jenson argue?
they emphasise the importance of economic factors in bringing about the American Revolution, stressing the Trade and Navigation Laws and oppressive customs duties.
Alan Farmer’s main reason for Revolution (hint it rhymes with lipsicle)
‘Principle, not economic hardship, was the cause of opposition to the taxes and duties’
Thad W. Tate’s main reason for the War of Independence
‘the contest over constitutional rights’; ‘political and constitutional issues were the occasion fore every outbreak of protest within the colony’
Alan Farmer on British deliberate irritation
‘After 1763, British ministries, in an effort to squeeze money from America, devised a series of irritations which propelled the colonies towards independence’
What does Farmer call the outbreak of war in 1775?
‘an accident waiting to happen’
Farmer on rebellious troops presence
‘The moment the British moved away from a town or region, rebellion flared up in their rear’
Eric Robinson on the task for British forces attacking Patriots
‘trying to hit a swarm of flies with a hammer’
Why didn’t the British fight a seabird strategy?
- policy would betray loyalists
- seaboard strategy had failed in New England in 1775
- Pressure in Britain for a speedy and decisive victory; not long and drawn out
Joseph Ellis (2004) on why Washington adopted an offensive strategy taking on the British army in battle
‘He regarded battle as as summons to display one’s strength and courage; avoiding battle was akin to dishonourable behaviour.’
What does Stephen Conway (1995) regard the War of Independence as?
the first modern war, anticipating what happened in Europe in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815)
What does Piers Mackesy (1964) regard the War of Independence as?
in contrast to Stephen Conway’s view, Mackesy sees the contest as essentially traditional and conservative.
John Adams explaining the defeat in the battle of Long Island
‘In general, our generals were out generalled.’
A disconsolate Washington writing after December 1776 British forces seized Newport, Rhode Island
‘I think the game is pretty near up’
Farmer on Saratoga and France
Although ‘France may well have entered the war in 1778 even without Saratoga’ ‘Saratoga helped to overcome any last doubts and made French intervention certain’
Farmer on French intervention
‘French intervention produced a national war effort in Britain that the American rebellion had not aroused.’
Farmer on French intervention
‘French intervention produced a national war effort in Britain that the American rebellion had not aroused.’
What does Farmer call Arnold’s traitoringggg and escape to fight with success for Britain ?
‘HIs action seemed to symbolise the crumbling of the American idea’
Tarleton’s savagery In warfare with Carolinas 1780
‘If warfare allows me I shall give no quarter’
Lord North’s response to Cornwallis’s surrender
‘Oh God, it is all over’
John Adams’ remark on ensuring unity in the colonies
he ensured that the ‘thirteen clocks were made to strike together’
Esmond Wright (1995) phrase on the American Revolution
‘Nobs versus Mobs.’
Alan Farmer on Slavery
‘As the revolutionary crisis heightened awareness of ideological principles, so the anti-slavery movement gathered strength in every northern state’
Alan Farmer’s conclusion on slavery in this era
‘The Revolutionary generation was remarkable for its failure to take more action against slavery.’
Mary Beth Norton (1980) on the impact of war on women
Women moved from submission into a world over which they had some control, and were no longer content to be ‘good wives’, instead educating themselves and discussing politics.
Alan farmer’s conclusion on women in this era
‘Most women remained in a subordinate position within a patriarchal social order’
Edward Countryman (1985) on Native Americans
the transformation of power relations between white people and the Native Americans in the trans-Appalachian west was among the most radical Changs wrought by the war.
John Adams on complete, unexpected Revolution
‘We are in the very midst of a Revolution, the most complete, unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of nations’
historian Colin Bonwick
‘there can be no doubt that the United States which entered the nineteenth century was very different in many, if not all, respects from the colonial America from which it emerged.’
Edmund Wright on the extensive influence the American revolution had
‘It is impossible indeed to find limits to the consequences for the world that have followed from the events that took place on the narrow Atlantic seaboard in the years from 1763 to 1783.’
William Pierce on James Madison, 1787
‘the best informed Man of any point in debate’
Historian Clinton Rossiter (1956) on James Madison’s performance at the Philadelphia Convention
‘a combination of learning, experience, purpose, and imagination that not even Adams or Jefferson could have equalled.’
Thomas Jefferson describing the Philadelphia Convention May 1787
‘an assembly of demi-gods’
What did John Fiske call the years from 1781-1787 before the Founding Fathers rode to the rescue with their Constitution
the ‘Critical Period’
How do Beard, Jensen and Main respond to John Fiske’s view that the years 1781-1787 were a ‘Critical Period’
they see 1781-1787 as years of achievement, not failure. The Founding Fathers actually were reactionaries trying to protect their own economic interests.
What do Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick consider the Founding Fathers to be?
‘Young Men of the Revolution’, driven by youthful energy not self-interest
How does John Roche see the Founding Fathers?
modern politicians who understood the need for reform and who carefully calculated the best strategy for achieving it
What does Esmond Wright emphasise about the Founding Fathers
that they were patriots, ‘men with principles as well as pocketbooks’.
John Adams, 1815, on what the Revolution was
‘What do we mean by the Revolution? The War? That was no part of the Revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington.’
