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Aug 26, 2010 23:51:22 GMT -5
Post by Indonesia on Aug 26, 2010 23:51:22 GMT -5
Alright so I'm starting a new unit in my social studies class and since most of you are from America I figured posting here.. xD anyways... I'm asking if you all could give me a few points on the American Revolution if you don't mind ^^" I need the major points and events and I also need to know what happened in America that led them to the revolution. Thanks guys
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Aug 27, 2010 15:56:11 GMT -5
Post by UK on Aug 27, 2010 15:56:11 GMT -5
OHMY, HOW DARE THAT STUPID ACTION OF AN UNGRATEFUL SO-AND-SO BE TAUGHT IN SCHOOL? WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO? HAVE YOU DONE THE BRITISH BLOODY EMPIRE? THE SPANISH? NAPOLEON? Sheesh. I know little, but if you want to know other's involvments France, Spain and the Native Americans. Read it as France going: "Haha, Britain! America's annoyed at you! I'll go fuel it! Join me Spain, and make Britian's life a misery!" and Spain being all "Yeah, whatever. I'll help."
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Aug 27, 2010 23:12:00 GMT -5
Post by Indonesia on Aug 27, 2010 23:12:00 GMT -5
So err.. I've done studies bout the British Empire, the Spanish and the French Revolution. I'm learning bout the American right now... and after that the Russian revolution. I will be... posting loads about this asking for help. x___x that slightly makes sense... in a way.
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USAlex
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Aug 28, 2010 1:26:20 GMT -5
Post by USAlex on Aug 28, 2010 1:26:20 GMT -5
( UK: heh. How dare it be taught at school? We gave a whole year to learning about it. TOO BAD YOU CAN'T REGULATE IT!! bwahahahaha. It was one of my favorite classes. That's "favorite". No "u". Which I used specifically just now simply so that I could write it without the "u" in it. Oh, and yes we studied all those other things too.) Anyway, Indy, I think I can help. I might, just might, know something about this. What do you want, a summary? Or do you have specific questions? I could also recommend some good books on the subject. Ask whatever. Oh, and don't listen to the UK's answers. Obviously biased. And I'm totally not biased at aaaallll. ;D
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Aug 28, 2010 2:07:10 GMT -5
Post by Indonesia on Aug 28, 2010 2:07:10 GMT -5
ahahaha erm alex open your gmail i sent you some parts of it lol and err yeahh i thought you could help lol xP
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USAlex
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Aug 28, 2010 10:43:58 GMT -5
Post by USAlex on Aug 28, 2010 10:43:58 GMT -5
Ohhh, right. Email. I'm horrible at checking such things. I hope I will be able to help! Right as soon as I've completed my organic chemistry homework...
For now: this patriotic poem!!! Essentially, about the announcement of the signing of the Declaration. It is unknown who wrote this, but it is known that it was at least semi-contemporary to the Declaration itself, because it was published in a Philadelphia newspaper anonymously a bit subsequent to the signing. It was in my history textbook last year, and I wrote it down :/
I shall copy it here now:
Independence Bell ...........................
There was a tumult in the city, In that quaint old Quaker town, And the streets were rife with people Pacing restless up and down; People gathering at the corners, Where they whispered each to each, And the sweat stood on their temples With the earnestness of speech.
As the bleak Atlantic currents Lash the wild Newfoundland shore, So they beat against the State House, So they surged against the door; And the mingling of their voices Made the harmony profound, Till the quiet street of Chestnut Was all turbulent with sound.
"Will they do it?" "dare they do it?" "Who is speaking?" "What's the news?" "What of Adams?" "What of Sherman?" "Oh, God grant they won't refuse!" "Make some way there!" "Let me nearer" "I am stifling!" "Stifle, then! When a nation's life's at hazard, We've no time to think of men!"
So they surged against the State House, While all solemnly inside, Sat the "Continental Congress," Truth and reason for their guide; O'er a simple scroll debating, Which, though simple it might be, Yet should shake the cliffs of England With the thunders of the free.
Far aloft in that high steeple Sat the bellman, old and gray; He was weary of the tyrant And his iron-sceptered sway: So he sat, with one hand ready On the clapper of the bell, When his eye could catch the signal, The expected news to tell.
See! See! The dense crowd quivers Through all its lengthy line, As the boy beside the portal Hastens forth to give the sign! With his little hands uplifted, Breezes dallying with his hair-- Hark! with deep, clear intonation, Breaks his young voice on the air.
Hushed the people's swelling murmur, Whilst the boy cries joyously: "Ring!" he shouts, "Ring, grandpapa! Ring! oh, ring for Liberty!" Quickly, at the given signal, The old bellman lifts his hand; Forth he sends the good news, making Iron music through the land.
How they shouted! What rejoicing! How the old bell shook the air, Till the clang of freedom ruffled The calmly gliding Delaware! How the bonfires and the torches Lighted p the night's repose, And from flames, like fabled Phoenix, Our glorious liberty arose!
That old State House bell is silent, Hushed is now its clamorous tongue; But the spirit it awakened Still is living--ever young: And when we greet the smiling sunlight On the Fourth of each July, We will ne'er forget the bellman Who, betwixt the earth and sky, Rang out, loudly, "Independence!" Which, please God, shall never die!
.........................
Soooo....yeah. I thought it was cool they didn't know who wrote it. Oh, and damn straight we'll "ne'er forget the bellman". --highfive to the imaginary bellman--
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Aug 28, 2010 16:04:31 GMT -5
Post by UK on Aug 28, 2010 16:04:31 GMT -5
Ye brave honest subjects who dare to be loyal, And have stood the brunt of every trial, Of hunting shirts and rifle guns; Come listen awhile and I'll tell you a song; I'll show you those Yankees are all in the wrong, Who, with blustering look and most awkward gait, 'Gainst their lawful sovereign dare for to prate, With their hunting shirts and rifle guns.
The arch-rebels, barefooted tatterdemalions, In baseness exceed all other rebellions, With their hunting shirts and rifle guns: To rend the empire, the most infamous lies, Their mock-patriot Congress, do always devise; Independence, like the first rebels, they claim, But their plots will be damned in the annals of fame, With their hunting shirts and rifle guns.
Forgetting the mercies of Great Britain's King, Who saved their forefathers' necks from the string, With their hunting shirts and rifle guns, They renounce all allegiance and take up their arms, Assemble together like hornets in swarms, So dirty their backs, and so wretched their show, That carrion-crow follows wherever they go, With their hunting shirts and rifle guns.
With loud peels of laughter, you sides, sirs, would crack, To see General Convict and Colonel Shoe-Black, With their hunting shirts and rifle guns. See cobblers and quacks, rebel priests and the like, Pettifoggers and barbers, with sword and with pike, All strutting the standard of Satan beside, And honest names using, their black deeds to hide, With their hunting shirts and rifle guns.
This perjured banditti, now ruin this land, And o'er its poor people claim lawless command, With their hunting shirts and rifle guns. Their pasteboard dollars prove a common curse, They don't chink like silver and gold in our purse, With nothing their leaders have paid their debts off, Their honor's, dishonor, and justice they scoff, With their hunting shirts and rifle guns.
For one lawful ruler, many tyrants we've got, Who force young and old to their wars, to be shot, With their hunting shirts and rifle guns. Our good King, God speed him! never used men so, We then could speak, act, and like freemen could go, But committees enslave us, our liberty's gone, Our trade and church murdered; our country's undone, By hunting shirts and rifle guns.
Come take up you glasses, each true loyal heart, And may every rebel meet his due dessert, With his hunting shirt and rifle gun. May Congress, Conventions, those damned inquisitions, Be fed with hot sulphur from Lucifer's kitchens, May commerce and peace again be restored, And Americans own their true sovereign lord, Then oblivion to shirts and rifle guns. GOD SAVE THE KING.
See the capitals at the end, you disloyal anarchist? Do you see them? Please realise that I really couldn't care less about what your favourites are. See the 'u'? The 's'? The 'couldn't'?
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Aug 28, 2010 22:10:51 GMT -5
Post by Indonesia on Aug 28, 2010 22:10:51 GMT -5
o_______o this feels like the revolution all over again. Thankies~~ 8] this will help... for now.
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USAlex
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Aug 30, 2010 6:14:55 GMT -5
Post by USAlex on Aug 30, 2010 6:14:55 GMT -5
THIS IS NOT THE PLACE FOR YOUR LOYALIST PROPAGANDA, UK. LET FREEDOM RINGGGGG~~~ (XD)
Anyway. My Chem homework is done now, so here's the (abridged version) of the answer to the question you emailed me, namely, "can you please tell me what events led to the revolution and why?"
It's rather complicated. Much more than just taxes or whatever. Although that was part of it.
First of all, the colonies had been governing themselves, mostly for a good long while, and had been writing their own constitutions and running local governments in a mostly democratic way. To understand why, look at the reasons why a colonist would choose to move to America (it was not a lightly taken decision, the gigantifreaken ocean was not nice to cross). The people who chose to move and made it were self-enterprising and or were generally disliked. From people seeking religious freedom (the Church of England was a bitch to anyone not mainstream), to those seeking a way to own land and escape the ever-increasingly-defined class system in their homelands, everyone had one major thing in common: they didn't like being told what to do. Once arrived in America, being a semi-wilderness, they soon had a second thing in common: armed with weapons.
Even way prior to Thomas Paine, Common Sense, rioting, Boston Massacre, and all that stuff, people were somewhat rebellious. For example, way back when Winthrop was still taking notes on the new settlements (17th c.), there was a conflict in which some colonists took down the English flag (the white one with the red cross), because they thought it represented a "corrupted" form of Christianity. Naturally, as with anything here, some other people strongly disagreed, mostly because they feared getting in trouble, because they were supposed to fly said flag, and they were in a port, where ships would arrive every so often. So, the village leaders organized a compromise: only fly the flag when an English ship was arriving. Pretty shady, if you ask me. And that was a whole century away from the revolution.
Still, nobody did anything because there was no major reason to bother. Until much later. Then, there was the French and Indian war (1754-1763), which was fought between France and many Native Americans on the one side, and Britain and colonial America and some other Native Americans on the other. George Washington was a leader in this one on our side! Fighting took place along the frontier area, as essentially the war occurred because of some fail-diplomacy and poorly conducted expeditions. So anyway, the British and the American colonists won in the end, because we were cool like that. But the important thing about this war is that it nearly doubled Britain’s national debt, and that in the process of organizing the new territory in what is now Quebec, some provisions were made to accommodate Catholicism, which freaked out the (mostly) Protestant colonies (so much for valuing religious freedom, right?). Lots of other things about the French and Indian war led to the Revolution, as well. For example, that "Join or Die" cartoon Franklin made was actually created to encourage the 13 colonies to collaborate in fighting the French, not the British. Then, after stuff started to fall apart, it took on new meaning. On another point, the military experience and more collaborative forms of governance that the war encouraged in the colonies led revolt to be a more feasible option.
And then there arrived the taxes. Now, the main reasons the Americans did not like the taxes was that: (1) they were taxes. Nobody likes to pay those. (2) we didn't have representation in Parliament, so it was unfair. And we could make a really neat slogan out of that. (3) The war was sort of dumb and not our fault. It was seen as an extension of ridiculous European politics. Now, it was completely true that we hadn't been paying taxes equal to that of our fellow citizens across the ocean, but it was the principle of the thing that was the problem. Again, remember that self-governance, through largely democratic forms of government, had been in practice here for a long time, so to be reminded of something that went completely contrary to the principles that had been fostered here was pretty angering.
Committees of correspondence were put together, petitions were sent, none were really answered. Some notable individuals, such as Edmund Burke, defended the colonies in British Parliament, but for the most part nobody cared, as was evidenced by the passing of more taxes and laws. The Navigation acts were particularly bad. Patrick Henry said, "that a King, by disallowing Acts of this salutary nature, from being the father of his people, degenerated into a Tyrant and forfeits all right to his subjects' obedience".
So, those were the ideas, and fueled on by events such as the Boston "Massacre", the closing of the Harbor (oh no they didn't), and how Parliament repealed the acts, only to pass NEW ONES in a sneaky way that they so didn't think we would see, but we did....war was not far away. Town meetings were restricted, troops were quartered, the soldiers were tried overseas in unfair courts...all of this made people angry. Not everyone, it has been estimated that about 15%-20% were neutral or loyalists, but a wide majority. Then there were boycotts and protests, and even more restrictions were then created. Which caused yet more anger. Leaders, intellectual, governmental, and military, began to immerge, the Continental Congress convened, and all things moved toward war.
But where did these ideas come from? Rights to property and representation and fair treatment by one's government and so forth? First of all, from the English themselves. One of the major complaints by the colonists (soon to be revolutionaries), was that they were not given their full rights as Englishmen. What they were referring to was mainly the provisions (and traditions) set out by the Magna Charta and Bill of Rights of 1689. Sir William Blackstone, an English jurist, published books on the subject, which were very much read in America and referenced by almost all American founders and revolutionaries in connection to why they were separating. Go read the Magna Charta, and you will find that we stole a few (-cough-lots-cough-) of the clauses and made them into the American Bill of Rights. Things from the Magna Charta and English Bill of Rights of 1689 also made their way into the Constitution. But that's later. Essentially, those were the things we were fighting for.
The other major source of revolutionary ideas were the new philosophies and values put forth by Enlightenment thinkers during the 18th c. For example, John Locke's "life, liberty, and property" directly became Jefferson's, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Rousseau's Social Contract theory gave the revolutionaries the argument they needed to insist that it was the people's right to, "alter or abolish" any government that became corrosive to their rights.
So that's that. I would recommend reading at least some of Paine's "Common Sense", Jefferson's, "A Summary View of the Rights of British America", the Declaration, and, although less known, John Dickenson's, "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" to better understand the general sentiment that preceded the war. I hope this helps, and wish you luck with your studies.
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USAlex
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Aug 30, 2010 6:19:43 GMT -5
Post by USAlex on Aug 30, 2010 6:19:43 GMT -5
wait...was that a legit poem, or did you just write that? ...I'm guessing it's legit and from the time period. Could I know who wrote it so I could dislike them forever? (and laugh, cause, heh, they lost..oh, and they sound so sure they would win but..obviously not.)
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Aug 30, 2010 7:16:05 GMT -5
Post by Indonesia on Aug 30, 2010 7:16:05 GMT -5
that is alot of words. thanks alex ~
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Aug 30, 2010 13:32:19 GMT -5
Post by UK on Aug 30, 2010 13:32:19 GMT -5
From the Pennyslvania Ledger, 1778, I believe.
I'm sure you were completely confident at the start of the Vietnam War, were you not, dear? And Iraq/Afghanistan.
I take my leave now so I don't show what little knowledge about America I possess. so you can discuss without my loyalist views being included.
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USAlex
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Aug 31, 2010 18:26:20 GMT -5
Post by USAlex on Aug 31, 2010 18:26:20 GMT -5
D: Ix-nay on the Vietnam-nay D:
Added note: we're not losing Iraq/Afghanistan. I have no rational argument as to why, but it simply is not acceptable, therefore it shall not occur.
And, to be polite, you are aware I was joking (about hating people, etc), yeah?
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Aug 31, 2010 21:32:44 GMT -5
Post by Indonesia on Aug 31, 2010 21:32:44 GMT -5
not time for war darlings ;P
err alex, mind going in detail with the taxation and boycotts?
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USAlex
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Aug 31, 2010 21:52:32 GMT -5
Post by USAlex on Aug 31, 2010 21:52:32 GMT -5
Sure. As much detail as I recall, or have time to look up, anyway. Would you prefer I answer now and not have it be all that detailed, or wait about one day and have a rather complete list?
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