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CONCEPT CONNECTIONS

Why Did the Colonists Revolt?

To administer the vast new American territory it gained in 1763, Britain had to reform its
empire. Until that time, its colonies had been left largely free to manage their own affairs.
Now, Parliament hoped to pay the costs of empire by taxing the colonies, while at the
same time extending control over its new lands in the continental interior. Colonial radi­
cals resisted these reforms. Calling themselves Patriots, they insisted on preserving local
control over taxes. As Britain pressured local communities, colonists created intercolonial
institutions and developed a broad critique of British rule that combined older, repub­
lican political principles with radical ideas of natural rights and the equality of all men.
Their protests grew more strident, eventually resulting in open warfare with Great Britain
and a declaration of independence.

The Granger Collection, New York.
Why Did Americans Create Republican Governments?

At the same time they fought a war against Great Britain, Patriot leaders in the newly
independent states had to create new governments. They drafted constitutions for their
states while maintaining a loose confederacy to bind them together. In 1787, reformers
put forward a new plan of government, in the form of a constitution that would bind
the states into a single nation. At both the state and the national level, leaders sought to
create republics: systems of government grounded in the sovereignty of the people.
The new American republic emerged fitfully. Experiments in government took shape
across an entire generation, and it took still longer to decide how much power the federal
republic should wield over the states. Political culture was unformed and slow to develop.
Political parties, for example, were an unexpected development. At first they were widely
regarded as illegitimate, but by 1800 they had become essential to managing political
conflict, heightening some forms of competition while blunting others. In the last half The Granger Collection, New York.
of the eighteenth century, American political culture was transformed as newly created
governments gained the allegiance of their citizens.

How Did the United States Secure and Expand Its Borders?

One uncontested value of the Revolutionary era was a commitment to economic
opportunity. To achieve this, people migrated in large numbers, creating new pressures
on the United States to meet the needs of its citizens. The federal government acted
against westerners who tried to rebel or secede, fought Indian wars to claim new ter­
ritory, and turned back challenges from Britain and France to maintain its control over
western lands. By 1820, the United States had dramatically expanded its boundaries and
extended control far beyond the original seaboard states.
Even as the borders of the United States expanded, its diversity inhibited the effort
to define an American culture and identity. Native Americans still lived in their own clans
and nations; black Americans were developing a distinct African American culture; and
white Americans were enmeshed in vigorous regional ethnic communities. But by 1800,
to be an American meant, for many members of the dominant white population, to be a Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. /
republican, a Protestant, and an enterprising individual. Art Resource, NY.

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