Was George Washington's Revolution Sinful?

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='Anomaly' post='1113691' date='Nov 7 2006, 10:36 AM']
That line is so funny, and so appropo, I'm going to have to use it. Will I have to pay royalties? :
[/quote]
As long as you don't use it against me, you may...

You can have the royalty checks sent to my paypal account. :

[God Conquers]

What a bizarre debate thread...

It's pretty clear that GW is not anywhere near Hitler. He was doing what he thought right.

Although I do back Britain on the "American Question"... they were certainly not being oppressive. The people of the colonies had more rights and freedoms than those on the mainland.

Incursions by the Americans into Native territories were causing wars and strife. They cried to the British to protect them. The British sent troops and built forts along the Appalachian valley.

This meant $$$. The Americans were being protected so the British wanted them to pay for it through taxes.

This was for some reason deemed unfair...

Hence, revolution.

[homeschoolmom]

Canadians. :

[Theoketos]

While he was legitimately king/prince, the government was not legit, and so war was just.

[suuran]

The French and Indian War was an extension of the Seven Years War between England and France over in Europe...the emphasis should be placed on "French". not Indian. It was a war fought primarily against the Canadian French who employed Indian allies. It was a British war that they brought the colonies into.

The colonies simply believed that parliament had [i]no authority[/i] to tax them, and there is a good argument to be made for that--the colonial charters were all issued by the king, not parliament, and parliament had never before attempted to taxt the colonies. And, remember, they weren't a new phenomenon. 150 years is a pretty long time. During that 150 years, the colonies were largely allowed to self-govern, given that they were established by organizations such as the Virginia Company or groups like Penn's Quakers, who acted with the king's blessing but not under his direct command.

150 years of most self-goverance, then Parliament quarters 10,000 redcoats right in the middle of your cities, starts regulating your trade, including the profitable trade w/ the West Indies, and laying down heavy taxes. Several appeals to the king went unanswered. I don't think the British government at the time was unjust per se, but I simply don't think it had the authority over the colonies it was trying to exercise.

[King's Rook's Pawn]

In most ways, the American Revolution was better for Catholics in the colonies, who were persecuted after the "Glorious" Revolution in Britain. The American Constitution at least granted them the right to practice their religion freely under the law. I recommend, specifically, that you read up on the history of Maryland, the Lords Baltimore and the Carroll family. It's a fascinating history and I'm surprised how little most American Catholics, even very orthodox ones, know about it.

The major difference between the American Revolution and most other revolutions was that the American Revolution was against a distant government that was hardly very involved in the colonies anyway, except to use them as a convenient tax base. Most revolutions occur in the homeland, completing overturning the government. Ours was more like a war of secession. As for the question of it being rebellion against a legitimate prince (George III), well, a [i]real[/i] old-timey Catholic might argue that he wasn't the legitimate king of Britian anyway, since the Stuart line was still actively claiming that throne. Thus, it was a revolution against a usurpatious government.

[Aloysius]

[quote name='notardillacid' post='1113407' date='Nov 6 2006, 11:48 PM']
2) There is no French Monarchy
[/quote]

well, there is a current pretender to the throne; Henri VII, Compte de Paris. one political reason why French Bishops are so rabidly opposed to traditionalists, because they tend to also be monarchists.

[url="http://www.maisonroyale.org/"]http://www.maisonroyale.org/[/url]

anyway, there really is no case for returning the land because of who was ruling france when it was sold. and whether or not it was right for Washington to revolt against Great Britain, there is also no case for the original 13 colonies being put back under British rule: they gave up the right to rule us when they surrendered the revolutionary war.

I personally don't have much sympathy for the overturning of rule by the head of the church of england. It is better to have no state religion at all than to be under an anti-catholic religious state. but the taxation itself was not unjust: it was taxation to pay for wars which protected the colonies and as such it was the duty of the colonies to pay the taxation for their own protection. the colonists might as well have said "no protection without representation". the representation issue may have been a problem, it was not wrong for them to want to be represented in the British Parliament; but that they were taxed for being defended was certainly not wrong.

[ardillacid]

The way i understand it is that Parliament had no right to tax the colonies Mr. Al, they were under direct control of the king only

[Aloysius]

the tax imposed on the colonies was used for the defense of the colonies. as such, the taxation itself was completely legitimate.

I don't really recall how much power parliament had at this point.. we're talking about the late 18th century... the king certainly still had a great deal of power but parliament had some: the gripe of the colonists was that they didn't have any representatives from the colonies in parliament.