United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
mother-country than in any other continental colony. The Tory element was
powerful, yet the best and strongest men of the slave-holding class were
patriots, and furnished several popular leaders of ability,--the colony
ranking second only to Virginia, in the southern group, during the struggle
with the home government. Georgia was but newly settled, and the English
colonists were still strongly attached to their native country; she was
therefore more loyal than her neighbors. The settlers from New England,
with the political shrewdness peculiar to their section, succeeded in
committing Georgia to the patriot cause; but the mass of the people
remained lukewarm, and when English rule was overturned there was much
lawlessness. The community was immature, and had not yet learned the art of
self-government.
Sidenote: in the Middle Colonies;
The Navigation Acts and the impressment of seamen bore hard on
Pennsylvania, and there was no lack of complaint against other forms of
ministerial interference with colonial rights. But the Quakers, who were
chiefly of the shopkeeping and trading class, had not experienced the long
and painful struggle for existence that had been the lot of most of the
other colonists. They had been prosperous from the beginning; and being
conservative, timid, and slow in disposition and action, were not easily
persuaded to make material sacrifices for the sake of political sentiment.
Thus Pennsylvania was an uncertain factor in the revolt. New Jersey, with
no Indian frontier, no foreign trade, and but light taxes, had few causes
for complaint against England. Her rulers were thrifty, conservative
farmers, who were disposed to be loyal; yet as they were of pure English
descent, and tenacious of their liberties, they were gradually drawn into
an attitude of opposition to English rule. New York was the only one of the
middle group of colonies which stood stoutly against England. Since the
days of Andros the people "caught at everything to lessen the prerogative."
New York city, as the second commercial port on the coast, was naturally a
seat of opposition to the navigation laws. But the Tory minority were
nowhere more active or determined than in New York.
Sidenote: and in New England.
The New Englanders were pure in race, simple and frugal in habit,
enterprising, vigorous, intelligent, and with a high average of education.
They were small freeholders, possessed of a democratic system which had
powers of indefinite expansion, and were trained in a political school well
calculated to produce great popular leaders. Their political principles,
developed by a century and a half of contention with the home government,
pervaded the colonial revolt, and were carried out in the national
government in which it resulted. The New England Confederation of 1643 bore
fruit in the Stamp-Act congress of 1765, and still more in the
Confederation of 1781 and the Constitution of 1787.
130. Results of the Half-Century (1700-1750).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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