Patricia Bonomi Quotes
Religious doctrine and rhetoric … contributed in a fundamental way to the coming of the American Revolution and its final success …. Where political theory advised caution, religious doctrine demanded action. By turning Colonial resistance into a righteous cause, and by carrying the message to all ranks and in all parts of the colonies, ministers did the work of secular radicalism and did it better.
Patricia Bonomi, Historian, Under the Cape of Heaven, 1990
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The crackdown on Boston which was intended to set an example and intimidate all of the other colonies backfired, and the British were told about it by their own officials in America. But they were so rigid and ideological about monarchy, that the stimulated rebellion rather than suppress them.
2nd Earl of Guilford. This bill cut off all trade with the American Colonies. It was meant as pressure to cease the rebellion. It did not work.
Americans were by no means united in wanting to take up arms against Britain. Relatively few of the loyalist quotations have come down to us, but here is one. It also illustrates why some Americans wanted complete independence: So that they could escape their debts to English merchants. Most however had more noble and unselfish motives. As a matter of fact, the American Revolution is unusual in the sense that there were so many men of substance who sacrificed much of their material wealth for the American ideal. There were also the rogues and opportunists as Galloway describes.
during and after the American Revolution
Wilkes was a strong advocate for the American cause—so much so that some in Parliament tried to deny him his seat in Parliament for his disloyal point of view.
The simplistic view that the American colonists were patriots and the British were the colonizers against whom the colonists revolted is not really accurate. The American colonists were polarized into patriots and loyalists. The Loyalist Americans ranged from many of those merchants whose business depended upon England, those whose family were still in England, those whose religion made them loyal to the Church of England, slaves who would be free under British law, Americans who had strong cultural and intellectual ties to England and those Americans who were great believers in monarchy and whose honor required that they fulfill the oath that they had taken to the King of England. Some of the worst atrocities of the American Revolution occurred in the battles of these Americans against each other. See {82105} for more on this point.
While the official battles of the American Revolution did not begin until 1776, parts of the American colonies were in a de facto state of rebellion and the British could not enforce their laws. See {636925} for another of the King’s statements.
Today, most Americans know little of Samuel Adams but see John Adams as a much larger and more important figure. But for the American Patriots fighting the Revolution, it was Sam Adams who made the most outstanding contributions to the political strategy and leadership.
This is a very interesting quotation. A contemporary historian tells us how rapidly the American colonists organized when Parliament passed the Tea Tax. Even with the Internet and social media it would be hard to organize representation from 13 states that fast today. The word of mouth and mail of the day was surprising to most of us. The passion on the issue and the public interest must have been extraordinary. Ramsay was the first major historian of the American Revolution.
Franklin was also an accomplished political cartoonist.
