Season 3, Episode 4 | Were the British Really That Bad? The Grievance Politics That Justified the Revolution

How did the Americans go from loyal British subjects to full-blown revolutionaries? Were the British really that bad, or were the colonists simply overreacting?

In this episode of This Constitution, Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon unpack the long and escalating list of grievances that transformed loyal British subjects into determined revolutionaries.

Moving beyond the myths of the Boston Tea Party, they trace a history of constitutional conflict, from the Proclamation of 1763 and the Stamp Act to the Boston Massacre. The conversation reveals how British attempts to reassert control, such as closing the Boston Harbor and dissolving local legislatures, were seen not as legitimate governance but as a fundamental attack on a 150-year tradition of American self-rule.

Discover the compelling "Dominion Theory" that American colonists advanced as a peaceful alternative to independence, and explore the pivotal moment when Britain's heavy-handed response to protest united the colonies and made revolution inevitable. If you've ever wondered whether the Founders were justified in their rebellion, this episode provides the evidence.

Tune in to explore how real grievances, not reckless rebellion, sparked the birth of American independence.

In This Episode

• (00:00) Introduction
• (00:44) Reading the declaration’s grievances
• (02:14) First Continental Congress and the Declaration of Resolves
• (04:29) Second Continental Congress and taking up arms
• (06:36) Lexington and Concord: the first shots
• (08:49) Colonial grievances as reactions to British actions
• (09:25) Colonial-British relations before the French and Indian War
• (10:54) The French and Indian War and its aftermath
• (11:11) Proclamation of 1763 and colonial expansion
• (12:41) New taxes: Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Townshend Acts
• (13:44) Homespun movement and boycotts
• (15:54) Boston Massacre and escalating tensions
• (16:34) The Tea Act and the Boston Tea Party
• (18:37) Internal colonial debate and Sons of Liberty
• (20:36) British reaction: the Intolerable Acts
• (21:39) Impact of the Intolerable Acts on colonial unity
• (22:34) Suspension of local governments and trial rights
• (24:13) Quartering of troops and widespread alarm
• (25:37) The Quebec Act and religious tensions
• (25:58) Why the Intolerable Acts were the breaking point
• (28:11) Dominion theory and alternative constitutional proposals
• (31:00) Missed opportunities for reconciliation
• (33:03) British conduct during the war
• (34:04) Conclusion: Were the British really that bad

Notable Quotes

• (03:21) “The keeping of standing armies in these colonies in times of peace, without the consent of the legislature of that colony, is against the law.” — Matthew 
• (06:48) “ General Gage... sent out from Boston a large detachment of his army, who made an unprovoked assault on the inhabitants at Lexington.” — Matthew 
• (13:56) “They would all meet in these spinning clubs and make homespun clothes and really shame other people who were buying any British-made goods.” — Savannah 
• (16:07) “The propaganda wheels are turning. The idea is not only are they taxing us, but now they’re actually shooting us.” — Savannah 
• (21:43) “The effect of this is that Boston’s going to starve. It’s a trade economy. You close Boston Harbor, you destroy the economy.” — Savannah
• (33:13) “They wound up sending German mercenaries, the Hessians  to fight on their behalf, and this actually results in widespread sexual violence against American women.” — Matthew 
• (34:04) “So to answer the question, were the British really that bad? Yes. Yes, they were.” — Savannah 

Transcript

Intro:

[00:00:05 - 00:00:16]

We the people, do ordain and establish this constitution. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:16 - 00:00:19]

Welcome to This Constitution. My name is Savannah Eccles Johnston. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:00:19 - 00:00:21]

And I'm Matthew Brogdon. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:21 - 00:00:39]

And today we are talking about grievance politics, or how did the Americans go from loyal British subjects to revolutionaries? Or another way to capture the point of this episode is, were the British really that bad? Was there actually any justification for revolution? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:00:39 - 00:00:44]

So should I spoil the ending? Yeah, yeah, they were that bad. Yes. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:44 - 00:00:56]

Right, so let's read a few of the listed grievances. The Declaration of Independence. Most of it is taken up by this list of 27 grievances against King George. I'm just going to read a couple of them and then we've got other lists of grievances. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:00:56 - 00:00:59]

So we got. Good. We got a lot of practice at grievances. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:59 - 00:01:55]

Yes, we were aggrieved. So here's a couple. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the rights of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants, only for protecting them by mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states. We're talking about British troops here. So British troops who are having to be quartered at the expense of the, of the American colonists, are then protected by mock trials for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world, for imposing taxes on us without our consent, for suspending our own legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. So there's just 27 of these. Here's all the things King George did that qualify him as a tyrant. And what's great is this isn't our first time, as you said, listing grievances. There are some delightful grievances in the Declaration for the causes of taking up arms. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:01:55 - 00:04:19]

There are. So we took two practice swings at this before the Declaration of Independence. Two big ones. I mean, there are actually a lot more. We'll talk about those later in the season. Actually, state and local governments get into this, too. We won't even. We won't even get into those. I mean, like, Americans everywhere had a meeting and went, how many things have they done wrong? Let's make a list. But our first swing at this comes in the First Continental Congress. The declaration is published by the Second Continental Congress, which meets in 1775 and 76, and then actually sees us through the war. But the First Continental Congress had met in 1774. This was our first attempt at convening a national body. And the result of the first Continental Congress was what is called the Declaration and resolves of the First Continental Congress. It's published in October of 1774, and its title in the books, if you find it republished like a PDF of some of the early pamphlets, it actually tended to carry the title Bill of Rights.

So this is actually the first document Americans published that we stick the label Bill of Rights on, because in addition to the grievances, it listed out what we thought the rights of American colonists, British colonists in America were, and then all the ways that those had been violated. So you can put it both ways. But some of these are pretty interesting. They're going to sound very familiar to our readers. It says that the keeping of standing army in these colonies in times of peace, without the consent of the legislature of that colony in which such army is kept, is against the law. Lawlessness. Then they cite bicameralism, right? They say the constituent branches of the legislature ought to be independent of each other. That therefore the exercise of legislative power in these several colonies by a council appointed during pleasure by the crown is unconstitutional, dangerous and destructive to the freedom of American legislation. 

So you've got them citing the authority of the British constitution, saying we don't combine legislative power all in one place. That's the British constitution. Parliament's divided in two. They're saying the King has done this. He supplanted our legislatures and put in place of them a council that he's appointed at his pleasure to make laws for us and govern us. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:04:19 - 00:04:29]

And by the way, later in this episode, we're going to walk through how these acts, these later called, some of them intolerable acts, are implemented. So how these grievances get. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:04:30 - 00:06:33]

Let's talk about the second swing, though. When the second Continental Congress meets, they don't jump right to independence. They spend 18 months trying to figure out how should we respond to all this. And this really important thing had happened in April 1775. You had Lexington and Concord. Shots were fired. The British occupied Boston. So in July of 1775, the British are in occupation of Boston. George Washington is in command of the Continental army across the river. Anybody looking from outside would say, boy, you guys are engaged in a full tilt civil war. Right? Armies lined up on either side of an American city fighting each other. And Congress is still not quite ready to say we're independent. But a lot of things are happening which demand a response. So two of these I'm going to mention, one of them is the colonies are starting to talk to foreign governments, and foreign governments are sort of like, well, if we're going to help you, are you still going to be British in a couple of years? Because that might be problematic. And secondly, as the 1774 Bill of Rights pointed out, some of these local governments are undergoing some reform. Like, the king has dissolved local governments. In some cases, local people set up new ones. So Congress has to answer this question, should we be framing new governments without the permission of the Crown? Because that sounds like something an independent country would do, and you can't really do if we're still British. And so they're not ready to make all these decisions, but they think, what could we do to stall? So they have to explain why it is we're not an independent country yet, but we've taken up arms and we are fighting. This is a delicate balance. So they write this document, which is John Dickinson, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson are all involved in writing this document, which is a declaration setting forth the causes and necessity of taking up arms. Okay, so what I want to read is actually their description of Lexington and Concord. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:06:33 - 00:06:33]

Okay. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:06:34 - 00:07:40]

Okay. So this had happened in April. This is July. They got to describe what happened at Lexington Concord, because we call it the first battle of the Revolutionary War. We haven't declared independence. So what are they going to say? What are they going to say about this? So they pinned this on General Gage, who's the British general in charge of Boston. It says he made. He sent out from that place, from Boston a large detachment of his army, who made an unprovoked assault on the inhabitants of the said province at the town of Lexington, as appears by the affidavits of a great number of persons. So you can see this sort of like, we went out and got affidavits, some of whom were officers and soldiers of that detachment. It says they murdered eight of the inhabitants and wounded many others. From thence, the troops proceeded in warlike array to the town of Concord, where they set upon another party of the inhabitants of the same province, killing several and wounding more, until compelled to retreat by the country people suddenly assembled to repel this cruel aggression, including old Sam Whitmore. That's the country people…

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:07:40 - 00:07:41]

Who we spoke about in a previous episode. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:07:41 - 00:08:49]

He did. That's right. So he's showing up again. Hostilities thus commenced by the British troops have been since prosecuted by them without regard to fate or reputation, the inhabitants of Boston being confined within that town by the general, their governor. So they describe Lexington and Concord as an unprovoked act of violence, an attack on the private citizens of these two towns. And that elides the fact that they were met and resisted by the militia of the towns. So there's this very careful framing of. Look at these bullies out shooting the townspeople. And we've got American farmers in the field just doing their best to defend themselves from this British aggression. So this is sort of indicative. More complaints about keeping up armies in peacetime, deprivation of the jury trial. It's a big deal. So you get a lot of familiar. Americans are developing these statements of grievances. Actually, what this reads like is an indictment, a bill of indictment that a grand jury would come up with. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:08:49 - 00:09:18]

Right. But what I think is important to note here is they're not just coming up with these grievances. These grievances actually are happening. They're tied to acts, either literal legislative acts of the British Parliament signed by the king, or acts by generals and troops here in the state. So they're always reactive to things that the British are doing. So to prove this, we're going to walk through some of the history of the relationship between the colonies and the British government. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:09:19 - 00:09:21]

Give me a history lesson. What did the British do? 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:09:21 - 00:09:21]

What did they do? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:09:21 - 00:09:25]

That was Lexington and Concord. That seems bad shooting people. But it wasn't all shooting people. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:09:25 - 00:09:37]

Right. Well, let's. First we should probably explain what was it like, the relationship between the British and the colonists before the French and Indian War? Because this is kind of a big turning point. So why don't you. You want to take that first? What's the relationship like? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:09:37 - 00:10:59]

Sure. Well, generally speaking, we've talked about this in other episodes, but generally speaking, the colonies have their own forms of government. They have their own internal systems of taxation. Great Britain had confined itself largely to regulating international trade, the interaction of the colonies with other countries. What revenue the British took out of North America, they tended to take in terms of taxes or duties on that foreign external commerce. And there weren't a lot of British laws that directly regulated what Americans did internally. Now, Americans regarded themselves as bound by the various statutes of parliament. The common law was binding. So we had a very similar system of criminal laws or laws of property and so forth. Don't really differ a lot. In fact, in most colonies, the agreement was that the crown had. Was that colonies could roughly govern themselves, craft laws and regulations for their own government, as long as those didn't conflict with the laws of England. And so that actually left them with quite a bit of freedom. They couldn't refuse to comply with stuff Great Britain did, but they could do lots of other things. So there's a kind of federalism actually here. Right. Operating kind of like states. And the, you know, British are like a distant central government. So that's what kind of prevails. And then we got the French and Indian War. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:10:59 - 00:11:08]

Right. And the French and Indian War is not really a North American conflict in its biggest. It is. It is a massive European conflagration. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:11:08 - 00:11:10]

Yeah. People like to say it's the First World War. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:11:10 - 00:11:36]

Right, Right. But now you got to pay for it. You got to pay for a huge war. And they turn to the colonies to pay their fair share. And the colonists don't like this. There's a couple of things to happen.First you get 1763, the Proclamation of 1763, which restricts colonists moving beyond moving west of the Appalachian Mountains, which the colonists who are deeply land hungry say, wait, then why did we fight this war? What was the point of this? We want that land. And then. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:11:36 - 00:11:39]

And what was so egregious about this? 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:11:39 - 00:11:39]

Wait for which side? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:11:40 - 00:11:53]

For Americans. Why is this such a big. I mean, it's not theirs. Why was the limitation on spreading to the westward occupying. I guess they were talking about like the Ohio River Valley and that kind of stuff. The American Midwest. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:11:53 - 00:11:55]

Why is that? So why is it such a big deal? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:11:55 - 00:11:56]

I mean, they. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:11:56 - 00:12:10]

Well, they want the land. Right. You want to move west. This is basically how you're allowing this great equality of conditions. Is there's land that people can move to? And also, is there something about the spread of Protestant Christianity, among other things? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:12:10 - 00:12:41]

There's a little bit there, yeah. George Washington has a personal grievance over this because he was, as an officer, he was promised by the Virginia, because he's the leader of Virginia's militia during the French and Indian War. Part of the boon for doing that was supposed to have been the acquisition for officers of property these areas. That's part of the bounty of having fought. And when the British say, no, you can't expand out there, this is actually pulling back on what many regarded as a promise of expansion. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:12:41 - 00:14:23]

Right. So not only can you not expand and that brings in money, but you're actually going to be losing money through a series of new taxes, which aren't just taxes on imports anymore. We're also starting to move into direct taxes. So we get the Sugar Act 1764. We get the Stamp act of 1765. And this one is interesting. Basically all paper goods, dice, cards require a stamp, like a government approved stamp that shows you've paid the tax on those things. You're going to make the lawyers angry here. And you get the Townsend act of 1767, which is a tax on paper, tea, glass, and these are all imported goods. This is going to spark a boycott movement across the colonies. Basically, you don't have the right to directly tax us like this. Why should we have to pay for these wars that really are fought in Europe? Let's not talk about the origins. Here's some of these boycott examples. So there is a homespun movement which starts among American women. And this is published in one of the newspapers. There's a poem about it first. Then throw aside your top knots of pride where none but your own country linen of economy boast Let your pride be the most to show clothes of your own make and spinning. So they would all meet in these spinning clubs and make homespun clothes and then really shame other people who were buying any British made goods or from any merchants who were selling British made goods and sometimes using violence to enforce these boycotts. So it starts this real angry sentiment across the colonies and it's really about money. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:14:23 - 00:14:28]

Yeah, I don't actually know the economic facts here and just how much it was really costing Americans. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:14:28 - 00:14:30]

It was more the principle of the thing. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:14:30 - 00:14:35]

Yeah, I think it's a great deal of it is the offense, the indignity. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:14:35 - 00:14:35]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:14:36 - 00:14:46]

And it was combined too, with the perception that it wasn't just the taxes, but that even the trade that was happening was redounding to the benefit of certain commercial monopolies. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:14:47 - 00:16:33]

Great Britain. Yes, we'll get to that. The Tea act in a little bit. So a couple of points here. These boycotts actually work. These are repealed and replaced with new acts in their place. So they're actually working. And second, it's that idea of harming American business and stamping all over Americans. Right. To tax themselves locally that gets. Gets people pretty angry. So we get. This leads us to the Boston Massacre, 1770. So what's happening in the Boston Massacre is you actually need troops around to enforce all of these very unpopular acts. So they're just around British troops. And by the way, they're having to be quartered at the expense of the public, but not in people's homes, but at the expense of the public. And then they're not getting paid enough. So they're also taking local jobs, which makes people angry. So you're losing jobs. You're having to pay more. Though, from what I understand, the Stamp act wasn't actually that economically impactful and you just have British troops kind of loitering around, and you begin to have these clashes between Boston working men and the soldiers. And one of these leads to an actual firing clash. There's some snowballs thrown, and then five Americans are dead. And this is the Boston Massacre. And so now the propaganda wheels get turning, and the idea is not only are they taxing us when we didn't think they had the right to do that, not only are they making us pay for their wars and their empire, which we shouldn't have to do, and they're taking our jobs and they're making us, forcing us to pay for quartering their troops, but now they're actually shooting us, and they're just some dumb teenagers who are throwing snowballs. So this is the Sam Adams propaganda machine going, this leads to the TEA Act. You want to tell us about the TEA Act? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:16:34 - 00:16:43]

Well, Parliament had privileged the East India Company and at this point set up what I take to be a monopoly. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:16:44 - 00:16:45]

The failing East India Company. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:16:45 - 00:17:48]

We should make that clear, that mercantilism is failing this point. And they give them a trade preference, not just a preference, an exclusivity, that basically the Americans can only import tea that comes from the East India Company. And so this is setting up a subsidy. I mean, it'd be like, you can only buy a Toyota. You're only allowed to get Apple phones. Right. You can't buy your phone from the Koreans. You have to buy it from us. So these kinds of monopolistic practices of the government basically subsidizing and setting up someone as the dominant actor in a market is offensive to Americans. They think of it as. It's not even just themselves. It's not like they, through their own legislature, had chosen to give exclusivity to some business. But here you have this distant foreign legislature that said, nope, you want to buy tea, you can only buy it from them. So they wind up committing an act of vandalism, more or less, and show up on a boat and throw all the tea in the river. 73. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:17:48 - 00:17:56]

Right. So we should have a couple of caveats here. The first is that the British did not think this would be controversial, the Tea Act. They kind of thought that, I mean. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:17:56 - 00:17:58]

Where else are you going to get your tea? 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:17:58 - 00:18:07]

Right, Right. They thought this was a no big deal kind of situation. But the Americans viewed it probably incorrectly, as an attempt to reassert Parliament's right to tax directly. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:18:08 - 00:18:08]

Right. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:18:08 - 00:18:37]

So they're going to respond to this and not distinguish between their taxing imports versus a direct tax. So that first there's a misunderstanding there. Then they're going to throw it into the. Into the harbor, which is, yes, it's an economic problem, but the British are going to blow this way out of proportion. And we'll talk about that in a second. But there's also going to lead to another boycott movement, which is. If you're drinking tea, it's seen as unpatriotic. Yeah, right. You are collaborators in some sense with the British, if you're willing to drink tea. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:18:37 - 00:19:31]

Some American statesmen are uncomfortable with some of what is going on. George Washington is deeply uncomfortable with the Boston Tea Party. John Adams defends it, sort of somewhat reluctantly. He comes out in defense of it, but only because he says it wasn't actually private property. It amounted to the property of the British government. And so it was a legitimate act of resistance against government. They weren't actually destroying someone's private property. So he was very careful to say this. This is just some act of vandalism where we took some merchant's tea and threw it in the river. And that was very important for him. So there's an internal debate. I mean, Americans are trying to work out when you're doing these boycotts and when you're doing other things, boycotting goods is one thing. Dragging somebody out of their business and setting it on fire, that feels like another thing. Throwing somebody's goods in the river and destroying it, that seems like it might hedge into mob violence. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:19:31 - 00:19:34]

The Sons of Liberty crossed over that line on a regular basis. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:19:35 - 00:19:46]

Let's be clear, you know, the Sons of Liberty would sort of send a note to some merchant, was still business and saying, you've been summoned to appear at the Liberty Tree at noon on such and such a date, you know. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:19:46 - 00:19:46]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:19:46 - 00:19:58]

And you fail to appear at your peril. And the threat was, you either show up and tell us, okay, I'll leave off doing trade with Great Britain. I'll, you know, I'll join the boycott or. Or there'll be reprisal. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:19:58 - 00:20:00]

Yeah, it's a gang violence reprisal. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:20:00 - 00:20:31]

That's what it is. It is. It's gang violence. It looked an awful lot like so for a lot of American statesmen at the time who were attached to rule of law and self government, this sort of principled view, some of this lawlessness, some of these excesses. And they were especially true in New England. I mean, this is weird because we think of New Englanders as sort of the home of the Protestant work ethic and self government and all this, but it's also the most Democratic for the colonies. And it brought with it all of the defects and warts of democracy. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:20:31 - 00:20:31]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:20:31 - 00:20:36]

So sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between a majority and a mob. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:20:36 - 00:20:44]

Right. So it's the British reaction to the Boston Tea Party, which is an act of kind of gang violence. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:20:44 - 00:20:47]

They didn't actually hurt anybody in the British in the Tea Party. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:20:47 - 00:20:49]

Okay, The Tea Party was economic violence. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:20:49 - 00:20:57]

The Tea Party was controversial as an act against property. But it was far from the sort of like, right, Nobody got killed at the Boston Tea Party. Nobody's business burned down. Yeah. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:20:57 - 00:21:52]

But it's the British reaction to this that turns everybody else against the British. Because before the British reaction, there's a lot of, as you say, from George Washington, okay, this goes too far, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But the reaction from the British is going to turn all of the colonists and unify the colonists against the British. So here's their reaction. So these are the intolerable acts, 1774. First step, you're going to close the Boston harbor until a couple things happen. Restitution, economic restitution is made to the East India Company, and it's shown that trade can happen peacefully through the harbor. And the Massachusetts colony is willing to show that it can be obedient to the king's commands. So once those things happen, then the Boston harbor can reopen. The effect of this is that Boston's going to starve. It's a trade economy. But if you close Boston harbor, you are going to destroy the economy. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:21:52 - 00:22:21]

Boston's an island. A lot of people, geographically, Boston sits on a little island in the harbor. In fact, it was much smaller then than it is now. Like, they've actually built out what used to be water. Most of the city landfill sits on what was part of Massachusetts Bay. So it's a tiny island in a big body of water. And you cut it off, you're in trouble. All the agricultural goods are coming from western Massachusetts, from outside the city. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:22:21 - 00:23:34]

Right? Okay. So this is gonna be the first thing that's gonna give some sympathy to Boston. Look what you've just done to Boston's economy. Number two, the British are going to restrict town councils, local town councils, to only being able to meet once a year. And the Massachusetts council is going to be now made up solely of appointments. So the governor and the crown are going to appoint the members of this council. So you are eradicating at the colony level, self government, and you are severely restricting it at the city level. And few things make people more angry than Shutting down their town councils. That is the heartbeat of democracy in New England at this point. So this will be viewed as a threat, by the way, this doesn't apply anywhere else. It doesn't apply through the rest of the colonies, but they're going to view it as a threat of what they could do to the rest of the colonies. So this is going to get the Virginians up in arms, then? This is not a good one. The governor is given the power to move trials outside of the colony or back to the British mainland. This only applies to Massachusetts, though. They're going to view this as a gross violation of this long held right from Magna Carta, of a trial by a jury of your peers. So that's the next problem. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:23:34 - 00:24:02]

And then it's interesting, too, because what they think is being violated there is not the right of the accused. I mean, usually we think of it in terms of I've got a right to be tried in my own community by my peers, so hauling me off Great Britain to be tried is a problem. But they also object to the Crown letting British troops who perpetrate crimes be tried outside the colony. So it's also a right of the community, right, that it's a jury that comes from us that gets to decide guilt. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:24:02 - 00:24:02]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:24:02 - 00:24:13]

So that. That what we think of as an individual right of the accused, actually for them, works both ways. This is the community's right to hold people accountable, not just some judge appointed by a distant authority. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:24:13 - 00:24:25]

Right. And by the way, you see that in the declaration's 27 grievances, remember, for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us, for protecting them by mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:24:25 - 00:24:32]

I mean, I personally never saw a problem mock trial. I mean, it seemed like it's a fun exercise. It gets kids involved in the. The legal process. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:24:33 - 00:25:23]

Okay, so then, number four, quartering. Now you're going to have to quarter all of these troops, which are being sent to maintain order at the community's expense. But now they can't be quartered, you know, far away in a cheaper place. They have to be quartered in either empty barns or empty houses at the community's response. So not only are they going to be standing armies, but they're going to be living, like, really among you, like in that barn right there at your expense. This is a massive threat, not just to the Bostonians, but to all the colonies. I believe this is the only one that applied throughout all the colonies. The first three are only applied to Boston. It's Boston Harbor, Boston city councils or Massachusetts city councils. And the right to move trials outside of the Massachusetts Bay Colony also didn't have a large. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:25:24 - 00:25:26]

Didn't have as large of a military presence elsewhere. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:25:26 - 00:25:28]

Right. But it does apply elsewhere. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:25:28 - 00:25:37]

But it would. Theoretically they're thinking if they send a regiment of troops into Richmond, suddenly all the residents in Richmond are going to have to house them. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:25:37 - 00:25:46]

Right. So this becomes a huge problem for the British because these four responsives. There's also a fifth, the Quebec act, but that's not really tied to what. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:25:46 - 00:25:47]

They had about the Quebec Act. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:25:47 - 00:25:52]

Well, now there's a bunch of Catholics and the Protestants can't move that way. And it's. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:25:52 - 00:25:58]

Alexander Hamilton makes a big deal out of this and his farmer refuted essays. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:25:58 - 00:26:29]

Right. But. But this isn't actually a reaction to the Boston Tea Party. So this British overreaction to the Boston Tea Party is going to turn all of the other colonies who were once kind of hesitant. The Bostonians are a little nuts. It's going to turn them into revolutionaries as well. Why. Why does this do it when all the other things didn't do it, when the Stamp act didn't do it and the Townshend act didn't do it? But why this? Why does this finally turn, for example, Virginia against the British? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:26:29 - 00:27:22]

I mean, I think it's the suspension of local governments. This is the huge thing. And there's several other charges in the Declaration that point at the same thing he says they where he has allowed local governments to continue to meet. He's called together the representatives of the people at distant and inconvenient places, far from their records. There are actually some British rejoinders to this that I think Thomas Hutchinson writes a response to this. He had been the British governor of Massachusetts Bay. He says they were asked to meet at a pub, a tavern 15 miles away, and suddenly this is an abrogation of self government. But the dissolution of Massachusetts Bay's legislature is a huge deal. The threat from the Crown that they would dissolve all these local governments, I think are the nail in the coffin. Well, in terms of this, listen to. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:27:22 - 00:27:41]

Jefferson's language on this. From the list of grievances, he has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. So basically you're dissolving these houses because they're calling you a tyrant, which you are see list of other grievances. Right. So it's the local government thing that gets people angry. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:27:41 - 00:28:11]

Yeah, I mean every, every tyrant is fine with Local assemblies that are compliant and nice to them. I think that this is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Because they see the displacement completely of local self government in favor of military rule. So Great Britain is willing to institute martial law over what had been a self governing colony for 150 years. I mean, the General Court of Massachusetts been meeting in Boston since the 1630s. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:28:11 - 00:28:17]

What else could the British have done? How should they have reacted to the Boston Tea Party? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:28:17 - 00:31:59]

Well, there were some constitutional demands that colonists actually made. They did have an alternative. They had an argument they were advancing. They were not arguing for independence. So they argued for what they called the Dominion theory of the British Constitution. That theory went something like this. The Crown, the King, the monarch is responsible for the whole British Dominion, the whole Empire, Canada, North America, the British Isles. Everywhere British rule extends, the Crown extends. The question was, what about the legislative authority? Because the legislative authority in the British Constitution is the King in Parliament. It takes both the Crown and Parliament to make an authoritative law. So who stands in the shoes of Parliament when you go from Great Britain to Ireland, to North America to Australia, eventually to Canada. And their argument was that legislative authority is to be local and representative. So the authority of the Crown extends everywhere. And the legislative authority though has to stem from local self rule. So if you want to raise taxes over that population, you should go consult with their local legislature with the acceptance and consent of the Crown. 

Now, there were quite a few folks in British politics who thought this was a good idea. In fact, eventually this becomes the British Commonwealth. Technically, the Crown is actually still the head of state for all of the 17 countries in the British Commonwealth. Still the Crown remains a head of state for them though the authorities become more and more symbolic and less real. But this is what the British wind up doing with the British Empire eventually. Parliament handles the external affairs for the whole British Union. In effect, the Crown oversees local self government at a distance and people are relatively self governing communities at the local level. This is what the colonists asked for. You can read like James Otis argued for this. John Dickinson wrote a whole series of essays. They were arguing about what the British Constitution required in the colonies. 

And so this is not a situation where you've got a bunch of disgruntled colonists that just want a revolution, right? Just want to change everything. This is very much about preserving a kind of status quo and finding a way to fit the status quo into the British Constitution without changing it radically. And they have concrete proposals for doing that. This persuades. I mean, Edmund Burke thought this was a good idea. Quite a few British Whigs thought this was a good idea. Once armed conflict starts, it becomes very difficult because, you know, even British statesmen who are sympathetic. But by all accounts, even in. There are petitions in Great Britain, even after the publication of the Declaration of Independence, there are petitions from British citizens. Estimates are as much of a third of the population of Great Britain was actually sympathetic with the American cause. There's actually tremendous political support for the idea that actually we don't want to be responsible for the internal affairs of the North American colonies. Why would we? Does Parliament really want to spend its time with that? And so the colonists were making what could have been a compelling argument what Great Britain winds up doing eventually anyway. So it's not the case that they're disgruntled. Great Britain did all these things, and now we have an inevitable sort of. We're inevitably just sort of running down the slope now to war. That's not at all the character of the situation, I think. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:31:59 - 00:32:07]

But by reacting the way they react to the Boston Tea Party, they are showing that they are unwilling to accept this Dominion theory. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:32:07 - 00:32:09]

Yeah. They galvanized American opposition. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:32:09 - 00:32:21]

Right, right. So if they had not reacted like this, particularly as it relates to suspending both the colony legislature and the town councils, we may never have gotten to 1776. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:32:22 - 00:32:24]

No, no. We'd be in a much different situation. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:32:24 - 00:32:25]

Right. Okay. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:32:25 - 00:32:29]

So I don't know if the British Empire would have lived this long, but it certainly would be a very different. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:32:29 - 00:33:03]

World from what it is. So these list of grievances, the point we're trying to make in this episode is one, this 27 list of grievances in the Declaration of Independence are tied to real legitimate grievances. These are real things. And there were chances that for the British to back off. There were olive branches offered, they rejected them. There was a chance for this to not happen and to correct for many of these grievances, but they didn't take that chance. And by the time you get to 1775, that path is really closed. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:33:03 - 00:34:00]

And their conduct in the war didn't help either. I mean, they do wind up in a war with North America, but by sending the Hessian troops, they were short on troops. They wound up sending German mercenaries, the Hessians, to fight on their behalf. And this actually results in quite widespread sexual violence against American women violations. What they saw as the sort of dignity of American colonists, even against Loyalists. I mean, this was part of the problem. Even American Loyalists suffer to some extent at the hands of British troops. An occupying army. It's not a pretty thing. An 18th century occupying army is not a pretty thing. And British command structure, unfortunately, is fairly callous about some of this stuff. This is just part and parcel of war and sort of get over it. So I think at every stage, the British, quite mistakenly, cause a galvanization and a uniting. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:34:01 - 00:34:03]

Yeah, the gulf gets wider. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:34:03 - 00:34:04]

Yeah. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:34:04 - 00:34:08]

Right. So to answer the question, were the British really that bad? Yes. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:34:08 - 00:34:08]

Yeah. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:34:08 - 00:34:09]

Yes, they were. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:34:09 - 00:34:13]

I don't want to be ruled by Parliament. 

Outro:

[00:34:13 - 00:34:54]

The Constitution is more than parchment under glass at the National Archives. It's a blueprint for American self government that shapes every part of our civic life, from the rights we cherish to the laws we live under. We explore the ongoing battle over the meaning and relevance of America's founding document. This Constitution will equip you to engage the most pressing political questions of our time. Join us every two weeks as we hash out constitutional questions together. This podcast is ordained and established by the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University, the home of Utah's Civic Thought and Leadership Initiative.