Chapter XIII: Causes of the American Revolution

The People as Yeast.—The Fermentation.—Washington, Samuel Adams, Patrick
Henry, Rutledge, Franklin, Otis, and others, and their Value in the
Colonial Fermenting-Pots.—State Courtships in 1754, 1765, and 1774,
tend to a more Perfect Union.—How Home Confidences operate.—What
Effect the English Navigation Acts had on American Swimmers.—Lord
North and Charles Townshend.—Colonial Assemblies and Country
Dances.—Dislike of Impositions.—That small Boston Tea-Party.—The large
Amount of Atlantic Water between the Tea Seller and Tea
Purchaser.—When Tea can’t be sweetened.—Be-cause as a Cause.

Whole reams of good, white paper might be consumed, as they have often before been used, and greatly to the advantage of the manufacturer thereof, in spreading before our readers the various causes of the American Revolution.

We might collect from dairies North, South, East, and West enough milk and water to float entire cargoes of reasons and explanations for that separation which “in the course of human events” is apt to take place between mothers, even good ones, and daughters, and which is not usually retarded by the fact, that the mother is selfish, looks to her own interest exclusively, finds fault with the grown-up girl, and seems determined to get all the work out of, and to bestow as little as possible upon, her; and when the girl, on the other hand, is pretty high-spirited, has plenty of beaux, friends, and good health, and a nice, comfortable property of her own. We might, we repeat, collect all this ocean of milk and water together; but upon taking counsel of our own experience, we have concluded to condense this troublesome mass into a few panfuls of cream, which will, we feel sure, contain all the substance, richness, and compressed value of the entire sea. Skimming over the wide surface, we obtain, then, these creamy globules, the round causes of the American Revolution.

_1st Cause._—The people,—the _causa causas_,—the yeast, whose fermentation in the pots, placed in various American chimney-corners, raised off their lids and opened their owners’, to see their own rights and interests.

_2d Cause._—George Washington, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Joseph Warren, John Rutledge, James Otis, Henry Laurens, and a few others, without whom the fermenting-pots might have “run to emptyings.”

_3d Cause._—The duties vainly sought to be raised by George III. from the colonists, and which unexpectedly raised duties in them, that fitted them, not with, but to, a T.

_4th Cause._—The glimpses obtained during those stolen colonial courtships, in 1754, 1765, and 1774,—those sly unions at Albany, New York, and Philadelphia,—of the fuller blessings and happiness of “a more perfect Union.”

_5th Cause._—The identities of language, interests, love of liberty, capacities for legislation and home control throughout the various Colonies, and the felt unwisdom of looking three thousand miles for what they could better find at home.

_6th Cause._—George III., Lord North, and Charles Townshend.

_7th Cause._—The British Navigation Acts, which prevented American navigation and dried up the Atlantic for American bottoms.

By these heavy machines the seas were made all up hill to American, and easy down hill for English ships.

_8th Cause._—The colonial assemblies, where Americans learned their own country dances, and unlearned the court quadrilles.

_9th Cause._—The strong Saxon dislike of impositions which had accompanied the emigrants hither as a principle, and was always kept here, both principal and interest.

_10th Cause._—That little Boston tea-party, and the small unpleasantness at Lexington.

_11th Cause._—The large amount of Atlantic water which prevented the English tea seller from observing the rights of the American tea purchaser. After this discovery of English near-sightedness, the expense of sweetening the tea to make it acceptable to American palates, even when the cost was reduced to three-pence per pound, was found to be intolerable.

_Last Cause._—Be-cause.

BOOK THIRD.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

1775 TO 1789.

“L’Histoire c’est La Revolution.”
MONTESQUIEU, _De l’esprit des Lois_.