Sociology Assignment: Analysis of American Revolution

Question

Task: Your task is to write a sociology assignment critically discussing the events that led to the American Revolution.

Answer

The concept of American
Revolutionexplored in this sociology assignmentwas a path that took many years, several events and factors that pushed the colonists in order to point where the revolution demanded to fight for their own independence in America. American Revolution is regarded as the political as well as the ideological revolution that occurred in the colonies of North America during 1765-1783. This report is based on the discussion and evaluation of the events that led to the American Revolution. In addition to this, it focused on the events that subsequently led to the derivation of the confederation article and the Constitution for the United States of America. It explains the key characteristics that were developed by the Republican constitutionalism as well as discusses the declaration that was made in the independence act of the USA and according to the manifestation that was initiated in the Articles of Confederation.

The American Revolution led to the creation of Thirteen Republican State Governments which organized the continental union. It also created a scenario of independence within the citizens of America developing a new nation. In the era of 1776, British Government emphasized on the affairs of the colonial movement that made the people worried that they would again lose their freedoms. As Kelly said by Kelly, the belief in natural rights led to the foundation of American Revolution that provided the government with responsibility in order to protect private property, government consent, and citizens' equality.

Before 1764, British Government left the colonists alone in order to govern themselves. In the year 1764, the British imposed new laws as well as taxes like the Sugar act, currency act, as well as the Stamp act that also impacted on the three colonial states. On this section, the colonists objected as well as they protested against the laws and taxes of British Governments with their moto to say no to taxation without any representation. Moreover, the Sons of Liberty was a group that was formed in the year 1765 at Boston that in no time spread across the colonies. A fight broke out in one of the protests carried out in Boston where several colonies were shot and killed, which is known as the Boston Massacre (Johnson, 1997). Tea taxes were imposed in 1773 that broke out into protests where the patriots dumped their tea into the water of Boston harbor. This protest is referred to as the Boston Tea Party.

Focusing on the incident of the Boston
Tea Party in 1773, the British government decided to punish the colonies. In this way, they issued a huge amount of laws, which was referred to as the Intolerable Act by the colonists. One such act is known as the Boston Port act where it forced the people to shut down the port of Boston for trade (Kelly, et al., 1991). In order to do so, the Britishers used their ships in order to block the Boston Harbor so that they could punish the people that lived in the place of Boston. This impacted on several colonies making the people angered even those who were afraid of the Britishers started to revolt against the government. This forced the British Government to suppress the revolution by increasing the number of laws. Britishers hoped that this could control colonial aggression, however, the results were completely inverse. Here, the laws united the people against the British Government. Moreover, various colonies tried to supply essentials in order to help the people of Boston during the Blockade. This impact of the Boston Port act made the Sons of Liberty more powerful with new people.

In the year 1774, out of the 13 colonies 12 of them sent their representatives to the first Continental Congress. This was the first direct response of the intolerable acts, where they focused on sending a petition to King George II in order to remove the Intolerable Acts. However, this remained unresponsive. In view of this, their approach came to boycott the British Goods. During 1775, British Soldiers in Massachusetts disarmed the American rebels and arrested their leaders. This led to the revolutionary war that began on April 19th of 1775. The fight broke between the two sides of Lexington and Concord Battle.

“Social contracts' ' are referred to the documents of articles of Confederation and US constitution. These documents outline the relationship between the government and the people. These are based on the Government’s classical liberal principles that are used by the American founders. This justified the American revolution expressed in the Declaration of Independence. However, various historical students refer to this Articles to be a failure. This was one of the logical products of the Revolution that gave a new path governing the problems of America.

This Social contract that governed the American colonists for centuries burnt into thrash where it was referred to as the primary rules of the Great Britain and British parliament. With the end of French and Indian war in the year 1763, the ideas of John Locke influenced the American Colonists. The other 17th century moral philosopher Thomas Hobbers started to describe the treatment of British Government. Moreover, the laws and acts limited the westward expansion that provided the colonists destructing the legitimate power of the government. Thus, in 1776, the colonists had no other response than to break away from the government. Keeping Thomas Jefferson as the chair, the second Continental congress established a committee in order to draft the Declaration of Independence.

However, the declaration of Independence is not said as the social contract. Instead it appeared to justify the statement of the American Revolution (Lutz, 1980). Jefferson appeared as the successor of Locke's propositions where the individuals born in the state continued to possess natural rights. Moreover, the governments focused on protecting these rights by using them in a well-crafted argument based on the revolution against Great Britain.

In the Second Continental Congress, a new social contract was created that was even agreed by the Articles of Confederation. On May 1, 1781, the Articles of Confederation was ratified in an aim to establish a system of government where the American founders believed that it could end the problems that were faced during the colonial empire of British Rule. Since the colonial rule provided the founders a disdain in the central government, they focused on designing a system where any individual of the state retained their sovereignty. It provided minimum power to the approach of the national government (Lutz, 1980). Here, this government holds the states in a joint force with the league of friendship so that they can operate the main functions provided for the national defense as well as conduct the foreign policy.

Moreover, the Confederation article focused on creating a system which did not contain any chief executive or any court system and others. This article made the government of the nation that really had no power other than enforcing taxation or regulating the economy. Moreover, the articles focused on creating a single legislative chamber so that each delegation of the state chosen by the state legislature appeared for one vote in the national policy. In various cases, these national policies measure the required nine votes in order to pass. This ratification in the legislature was important in order to amend the article in state. Here, they created a weak and impotent national government that failed in managing the economic and social condition after the American revolution. Shays’s Rebellion clearly demonstrated the weakness of the government.

In the 1780s a faltering economic situation appeared that led many American in order to be in debt. Various Farmers lost their homes as well as their farms came to foreclosure making the scenario worse. Massachusetts made the state legislature pay the taxes in the hard currency. In order to quell the Shays’s Rebellion, the government asked the Congress to call up the national army. However, collection of revenue was not possible for an army since it cannot force the state for national appropriations contributions. Here, the Congress was thought to be powerless, and the Shays’s Rebellion circulated a message in the USA so that a new government of the nation can be formulated in order to meet the incapability and consequences of such discontent.

After realizing their failure of this first social contract, the Continental Congress called upon each state in order to send a delegation to Philadelphia for a convention by 1787 in order to revise the Articles of confederation. Leaving Rhode Island, each state sent their delegates for the conference held in May of the 1787 so that it could understand the need and failure of American Constitution (Nester, 2018). During the first discussion, they focused on creating a social contract that can embark a journey leading to the development of socio and politico-scenario in the history, where engineering emerged as the new feature of the nation.

The establishment of the Constitution appeared to govern the contract of the society, where from 13 states only 9 states are needed to enhance the coming document. Moreover, the new system returned them to tyranny as well as oppression. This established a centralized power based on the national government possession. Thus,in the March month of 1789, the USA nation was designated as well as the new leaders took the oath to strengthen the nation. In this section, after two centuries and 14 years, the American Constitution serves as a social contract.

Bibliography
Johnson, Paul. A History of the American People. 1st ed. New York:

HarperCollins Publishers, 1997. ISBN: 9780060930349.

Kelly, Alfred H., Harbison, Winfred A. and Herman Belz. The American Constitution: Its Origins and Development, Volume I. 7th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1991. ISBN: 9780393960563.

Lutz, D. (1980). From Covenant to Constitution in American Political Thought.Publius, 10(4), 101-133.

Sociology assignment Retrieved April 3, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3329746

Lutz, Donald S. "From Covenant to Constitution in American Political Thought." Publius 10, no. 4 (1980): 101-33. Accessed April 3, 2021.http://www.jstor.org/stable/3329746.

Lutz, Donald S. “From Covenant to Constitution in American Political Thought.” Publius, vol. 10, no. 4, 1980, pp. 101–133. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3329746.Accessed 3 Apr. 2021.

Nester, W. (2018).The frontier war for American independence.????????????????????????????, (3 (11)).