The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

English common law was “legitimizing precedent,” “embodied principle,” and a “framework for historical understanding” (31) based on previous court decisions, customs, and usage. Common law impacted the Revolutionary generation’s thought, but it was not the primary influence on the conclusions drawn by the colonists during the crisis in Anglo-American affairs. Bailyn discusses common law in terms of the Revolutionary thinkers’ development of their concept of inalienable, natural rights, which were only minimally indicated in English law.

18th-century Commonwealthmen in Great Britain, such as John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, were admirers of the republican experiments of the 17th century and suspicious of the extension of ministerial power though patronage in the 18th century. Colonial Americans avidly read their writings, particularly Cato’s Letters (1720-1723), and created a coherent political ideology from their ideas that predisposed them to view British policy after 1763 not as ill-informed missteps but as evidence of a conspiracy to deprive the colonists of their rights and liberty. This ideology, combined with the colonists’ accumulated grievances, sparked the American Revolution, and led to the decision for independence from Great Britain.