Friday, July 4, 2025
Independence Day Thoughts on the American Revolution and a Legislative Check on the Executive
As Americans celebrate Independence Day, which is observed on the date of the Declaration of Independence, which explained the reasons for the passage by Continental Congress two days before of the resolution of independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland of the Thirteen American Colonies as States, some thoughts on the American Revolution are currently relevant.
The American Revolution had begun in response to a tax levied on the colonists in 1765 by the British Parliament to pay for defense against the French, who held parts of North America. The American colonists did not object either to defense against the French, or paying taxes, but resented the lack of representation in Parliament that deprived them of their ability to consent to taxation and its particular from of imposition, unlike their fellow British subjects in the British Isles. In the U.K. Britons were represented by over 600 Members of Parliament, but Americans, who numbered around a third that of Britons, were not represented at all. There were not even any non-voting delegates from any of the American colonies, including the other British North American colonies or possessions around the world, or even a collective delegate for the North American colonies, which the Americans regarded as unfair. The distance of thousands of miles and the slow pace of travel meant that the Members of Parliament had no familiarity with the American Colonies whose interests they represented in abstentia. The British Parliament had been founded in the 13th Century through the Magna Carta, which limited the absolute power of the King. It was strengthened after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that deposed an absolutist monarch and further limited royal power. After an interregnum of anarchy, civil war and republican government, and a restoration of monarchy, through the unwritten British Constitution, the King governed through a prime minister, with the Parliament acting as the national legislature. But King George II influenced his Prime Minister to rule tyrannically, as did his colonial Royal Governors. Instead of resisting such abuses, the Sovereign’s supporters in Parliament became complicit in enacting authoritarian laws against the rebellious Americans, over the loyal opposition of the Whigs like Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism. The lack of a legislative remedy encouraged the American Colonists to change their goal at the start of the Revolution from a peaceful protest in favor of equal recognition of their natural rights toward independence from the United Kingdom. The Declaration of Independence expressed a litany of the abuses committed by the British monarchy against the American Colonists. Thus, the British oppression of the American Colonists represents an example of the danger when the Executive Branch of government is authoritarian and the Legislative Branch fails to act as a check on it. As Americans observe the start of the 250th year of their independence from the British they would profit by recalling the Spirit of 1776 and defending vigorously against the current threats to equality, liberty and representative government by an autocratic federal Executive and a complicit Legislature.
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