Was the american war for independence inevitable?

The Revolutionary War was not inevitable because America could have gained its independence in a more diplomatic way. Australia, Canada and Jamaica gained their independence from Britain without going to war. The colonists would have gotten their independence but it would have taken longer; and they would have had to deal with the taxing and restrictions on trade for a little longer. The colonists needed Great Britain less and less as the population grew, so it would have been difficult to keep absolute control like they wanted to. The revolutionary war was not inevitable because America would have been independent eventually.
The definition of inevitable is that war was unavoidable and that there was no other solutions other than war. There are many other examples of…show more content…
As the population and economy grew Great Britain would have had a harder time controlling a more successful and productive country. Thomas Paine said “Small islands, not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.” He also wrote, that given time the United States had enough Resources and would soon have enough money to rival the Royal Navy. As time went on the U.S. would have enough money and products being produced that it would have been better to make them independent, and help them along in being a new successful country and trading partner.
The Commonwealth organization and the rising economy would have made American independence without war a more reachable opportunity for Americans as time went on. The aggravations of the British would have needed to be dealt with longer but the war would not have happened. The Revolutionary War was definitely not inevitable because of the other options and solutions that were

Writing with the benefit of hindsight in 1818, John Adams, one of the central figures in the American Revolution, recalled that Americans were committed to independence in their hearts long before war broke out in America in 1775. Adams' comment suggests that American independence was inevitable: this was not the case. In 1763, Americans joyously celebrated the British victory in the Seven Years' War, revelling in their identity as Britons and jealously guarding their much-celebrated rights which they believed they possessed by virtue of membership in what they saw as the world's greatest empire.

Americans had contributed significantly to the recent victory both militarily and financially, yet within a dozen years of the British victory war broke out between British soldiers and Massachusetts militiamen at Lexington and Concord. Between 1763 to 1775, successive British governments took decisions which resulted in the loss of the 13 rebellious colonies in America. If John Adams was correct and revolution was in the hearts of Americans years prior to 1776, then it was the actions of British ministers which made independence first a possibility and then a likelihood.

The British victory in the Seven Years' War had been costly in human and financial terms. In 1763, George Grenville, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, reckoned that Britain's budget deficit was in excess of £122 million. Desperate to find new sources of revenue, Grenville looked to the colonies and viewed from cash-strapped London, the North American settlements were very attractive.

So in 1765 Grenville, acting as prime minister, proposed a far-reaching tax for Americans and Parliament adopted a Stamp Act in March of 1765. Under the terms of the Act, scheduled to take effect on 1 November, almost anything formally written or printed would have to be on special stamped paper for which a tax must be paid. Among the items covered by the tax were wills, deeds, diplomas, almanacs, advertisements, bills, bonds, newspapers, playing cards and even dice. Anyone who was involved in any legal transactions, purchased a newspaper or pamphlet or accepted a government appointment would have to pay the tax. In short, the Stamp Act would affect nearly all Americans. Grenville intended, with the full agreement of Parliament, that the Stamp Act should not only raise revenue, it should clearly demonstrate that the British government through Parliament exercised political sovereignty over the colonies.

Unsurprisingly, Americans responded negatively to the Stamp Act, arguing that they had contributed to their own defence during the late war by providing manpower, money and supplies to the British war effort. They argued that they already paid taxes which were raised locally - each colony had its own assembly which levied local taxes. Colonists in America felt that they discharged their obligations when they paid colonial taxes and they resented being compelled to pay taxes levied by a Parliament in which they were not represented. Moreover, they contended, the distance between America and Britain precluded American representation in Parliament. And so, in the spring and early summer of 1765, most of the colonial assemblies adopted resolutions condemning the Stamp Act.

The government in London was unimpressed by the constitutional arguments made by the colonists or the petitions and resolutions adopted by their assemblies. If the Americans wanted to register their dissatisfaction with the Stamp Act, they would have to resort to less subtle means.

On 14th August, an angry mob attacked the house of Andrew Oliver - the local man rumoured to be responsible for collecting the tax. Then on the 26th they damaged the houses of colonial officials and completely destroyed the home of the colony's Lieutenant Governor. The demonstrations spread throughout the colonies and, through threats, intimidation and violence, American opponents of the Act rendered it a dead letter by the autumn.

Commercial boycott

Having nullified the proposed tax on the streets, American protestors wanted to secure the repeal on the offending legislation in Parliament. In October several colonies sent delegates to New York to attend a 'Stamp Act Congress' which proposed a commercial boycott as means to pressure Parliament to act. American opponents of the Stamp Act would refuse to purchase British goods in order to put commercial pressure on Parliament to repeal the act.

The tactic worked. In March 1766, Parliament acquiesced and repealed the Stamp Act. Parliament simultaneously declared:

In other words, although Parliament was repealing the Stamp Act, it retained its right to govern America. Many Americans took a different view. The Boston loyalist Peter Oliver - the brother of Andrew Oliver who had suffered during the riots of August 1765 - wrote bitterly of the repeal:

Oliver was one of the few supporters of British rule in America who understood its limits and could explain its failure. Having given in to colonial pressure, Parliament ceded the authority it was trying to assert.

Paradoxically, it was Parliament, supposedly the guardian of British liberty, which seemed to endanger the liberties of Britons in America in 1765. In the aftermath of the Seven Years' War, British political leaders and imperial administrators sought to assert greater control over the far-flung parts of the empire and in so doing they came into conflict with the political traditions and assumptions of the colonists who resisted what they saw as unconstitutional parliamentary innovation. The American Revolution began in a dispute over finance in which the British government advocated change and the colonists sought to maintain tradition. As the imperial crisis developed neither British nor American political leaders demonstrated a willingness or ability to compromise.

George Grenville resigned from the Chancellorship in July 1765 at the height of the Stamp Act crisis. His successors over the next decade confronted the same problem of trying to raise revenue in America. In 1767, Parliament adopted a wide range of customs duties which revived American opposition so that protests and rioting ensued and British troops were moved from frontier posts to the major seaports, especially Boston, where the resistance was concentrated.

Boston Tea Party

In another climbdown, in March 1770 Parliament repealed the duties, with the symbolic exception of the tax on tea. Relations continued to deteriorate and the American resistance became more intransigent. In December 1773 in the famous 'Boston Tea Party' protestors destroyed £10,000 worth of tea in protest of the tea duty. In consequence, Parliament adopted a series of punitive measures and Massachusetts was placed under military rule in 1774.

By the spring of 1775, political resistance gave way to violence as war between the British and colonists broke out. The conflict quickly spread. In 1776 the colonists declared themselves independent and in 1783, following a prolonged and bloody war, Britain was forced to recognise the independence of the United States.

When Parliament sought to re-establish its sovereignty by force it undermined the loyalty, affection and tradition upon which that authority had rested. Indeed, between one-fifth and one-third of the colonists remained loyal to the crown once the war broke out. Many of these, however, switched allegiances to the rebels when they experienced or learned of the heavy-handed tactics employed by the British army in America. Had the British managed to 'win' the military conflict they would have had to resort to a degree of force antithetical to their ultimate objective - the reestablishment of British authority in the colonies.

Had American independence not been inevitable then a political settlement would have been found between 1765 and 1775. It was not. In fairness to the imperial administrators and politicians who 'lost' the colonies, they were confronting an unprecedented political, economic and diplomatic challenge in seeking to govern the empire and balance the books in the aftermath of the Seven Years' War. They handled the issue of American taxation in a relatively clumsy manner, but they learned their lesson.

In 1776 the English radical Thomas Paine argued that the colonies should declare themselves independent because 'there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island'. During the nineteenth century the island in question would come to rule a large portion of the world. Its leaders would never again attempt to impose direct taxes on its colonies.