JONAH BEVAN

MS. WILBRANDT

American Experience

Nov. 25, 2014

“What Is America”

America is a country that was founded by people who were willing to give up everything including their lives to fight the most powerful and tyrannical country in the world, Great Britain for their freedom. The American Revolutionary War won the colonist the opportunity to form their own government. These new citizens wrote some of the most important documents in order to form a new government that they hoped would allow them freedom, justice, and rights. If they had used just the list of grievances that Thomas Jefferson had written as part of the Declaration of Independences, then they would have had a great outline of what they wanted to avoid or remedy in their new country. They didn’t waste time, and quickly formed a government after discussing whether they should have a government of the whole country, or a government of state governments. They knew that they wanted a government that could represent the interests and rights of the free colonists. They had been under the rule of Great Britain, but now their government would be in the colonies and would be their responsibility. The colonists were facing many changes during the war and even more after the war. They had to change more than the government when they gained their independence from King George III. They now had all the land west to the Mississippi, no church of England as the center of their religious life, no England as their economic customer, and no real organization for a government. For the Americans in 1781, America is the land of opportunity and change.

Just as the colonists had been brave about declaring and fighting for their independence, they were brave when they faced all the opportunities they found in front of them as new citizens of America. As written in the Declaration of Independence, we now could take advantage of our new status as a new nation and “that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.” Each of these declarations Thomas Jefferson wrote provided opportunities but also required that many decisions had to be made. Britain, before the revolution, had decided which foreign countries the colonist could be associated with and even how they could associate with the colonists. We found ourselves aligned with France in Yorktown and throughout the war. We took the opportunity to have allies of our own choosing like France after the war. The colonists now also had the opportunity to manage their own economy. Britain had levied many taxes on the colonies in the form of the Currency Act, the Sugar Act, and the Townshend Acts. It was now up to each state to decide how to take advantage of the opportunity to make money, who owned the land and how, and whether or not to create taxes. The war lasted six years and turned the colonists away from thinking of themselves as British colonists. Following the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775 the patriots declared that they were no longer colonies but states and the new states seized the opportunity to write their own constitutions. They wanted elections to determine who was in the government and what that state government would do. The Articles of Confederation in 1777 listed the states names and then said that they were “The United States of America”. Each state had the opportunity to decide how they would govern their state, and be united as a country. So the new states wrote their own constitutions which gave them more opportunities to individualize their governments and be more helpful to their own state’s people. Declaring independence from Britain, fighting the war against them, and winning that war gave the new Americans many opportunities to create the world that they had always wanted.

The colonists had fought for change and now they had it. Everything they had wanted was theirs. The problem with all this change was that they had to make so many decisions very quickly and many changes happened as a direct result of their independence. The Church of England could no longer be the new American church because they were no longer British. The former colonists made new foreign alliances with France and other countries, even their relationships with native americans were their responsibility now. Foreign policy was no longer dictated by Britain. Another huge change for the former colonists was that now each citizen was free to travel and settle wherever they wanted. The United States now extended to the Mississippi River and further north because Britain no longer restricted their boundaries. In The Articles of Confederation each person in each state is declared a citizen and has rights and responsibilities. The biggest change in being declared a citizen is that each citizen has the right to a trial and judicial proceedings. One of the grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence is that Britain had not given the colonists fair trials. Even though each state had authority over itself, they were all part of a united country and had responsibilities to that country. Article XII of the Articles of Confederation explains that if the government of these uniting states makes a debt it is the responsibility of each state to help pay it. These articles were adopted in 1781 and spelled out many of the changes that were necessary for the country. Each state was writing their own constitution which required them to think about how this new government would operate. During the American Revolutionary War and after the war, the people found themselves facing many changes. These changes affected every aspect of their lives, where they could live, how they would be tried, how they would be taxed and make their money, if they could vote, and how their government locally and nationally would function. The colonies had now changed into a country and that was only the beginning of the all the changes.

The new Americans of 1781 found themselves in possession of a new country full of opportunity and change, and the whole world was watching them to see what they would do with it. The Declaration of Independence stated that the colonists were seizing the opportunity to free themselves of Britain’s tyranny and change their lives forever. They also declared themselves united in the changes about to come in this declaration. The Articles of Confederation addressed many of the changes facing the citizens of the newly formed United States and defined those changes. One of the founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton, called America the “Grande Experiment” and just like any experiment America was filled with opportunity and change.

Bibliography

1)Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, Mrs. Wilbrant, November 17, 2014

2)Articles of Confederation,<

3)American Revolution, <

4)Revolutionary War Timeline,<

5)Societal Impacts of the American Revolution, <

6)Declaration of Independence, “The Charters of Freedom”, <

7)The Virginia Declaration of Rights, <