American Revolution: Independence and the Birth of a Nation

American Revolution and Independence

The revolution and War of Independence of the 13 American colonies are the first chapter of the liberal revolution cycle.

Causes of the American Revolution

The causes include the Seven Years' War. The British government decided that the costs of this conflict should be paid by the American settlers themselves. This began a period in which the Assembly protested this situation. The government of the metropolis withdrew some taxes and implemented others. The monopoly on the sale of tea was given to the East India Company, which was detrimental to the merchants of the colonies. This caused the Boston Tea Party.

On the political side, these are enacted:

• Declaration of Human Rights in Virginia
• The Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia

War of Independence

The first phase involved the American colonists fighting the British army. On the military side, there was the first British defeat at Saratoga. European states discovered that the anti-British offered enormous possibilities for intervention in the American war.

In the second phase, the British army in the colonies was cut off from soldiers, weapons, ammunition, and all kinds of material because of the involvement of Franco-Spanish troops and the Netherlands.

Peace in the colonies was set at the Franco-British Treaty of Versailles, in which the United Kingdom recognized the independence of the United States of America.

The Birth of a New Nation

The end of the war did not guarantee the territorial unity of the Thirteen Colonies. After the war, each state had its own constitution, and the government of the nation found it difficult to have more power in Congress than the executive. The result was that the Philadelphia Convention drafted a new constitution, the first written constitution in 1787, which came into force in 1789. The ideas of Locke and Montesquieu succeeded.

Executive power rests with the president, who begins to be elected by universal male suffrage. Legislative power rests in a Congress consisting of two chambers (Senate and House of Representatives). The judiciary is based on a Supreme Court. The union's constitution was achieved. George Washington helped to consolidate the regime, but also saw the early appearance of American bipartisanship.

The Momentum of Nationalism

The confrontation escalated into a civil war that ended in victory for the northerners and the abolition of slavery. In the 1890s, the great industrial growth originated that turned the U.S. into a major economic power.

Causes of the French Revolution

It is a combination of ideological, social, economic, and political factors, which at one time led to the revolutionary explosion. Criticism from the Enlightenment to the institutions of the ancien régime provided the ideas that were to support the revolution. The economic and social crisis exacerbated social and political tensions. There are two fundamental facts: the French aid to the American Revolution and the general decline in agricultural prices. The livestock crisis led to a shortage of wool, to which is added the cotton shortage caused by the American War of Independence. The financial crisis unleashed an absolute monarchy and the political crisis. The monarchy had to face the political standstill of the privileged to initiate a tax reform. The fundamental problem was fiscal policy.

Origins of the French Revolution: From the Revolt of the Privileged to the Revolution

The successive attempts of the ministers of King Louis XVI (Necker, Turgot, Calonne, and Brienne) to establish a single tax paid by all the owners eventually failed because of opposition from the privileged nobility and clergy. The privileged required in the Assembly of Notables that the adoption of new taxes be made at a meeting of the Estates-General. Since then, the writing of the cahiers de doléances, or "log of complaints" began. While the nobility's books advocate keeping their privileges, the war of the Third Estate against the other two reached its climax with the publication of the booklet: What is the Third Estate?