Critique of The Birth of the Republic

Critique of The Birth of the Republic. In his book, The Birth of the Republic, Edmund S. Morgan puts forth an account of the quarter century span, from 1763-1789, in which the American Republic was born. This work provides a detailed description of what historians call “The Revolutionary Era” in American history. Morgan seems to be making the argument that while the revolution may have begun for economic reasons, and that the founding fathers may have stood to gain financially from it, it eventually became about more than just money and economics. The revolution became about the fight for equality of all men. The first major point of his book is to put forth an analysis of the relationship between English Parliament and the new American colonies. Morgan goes into detail about how most of the new settlers in America were of English decent. He speaks of how many of them had pride in being English and felt a certain loyalty to their government back home. Because of their loyalty to Great Brittan, there was a very comfortable relationship between British Parliament and the new colonies at first. Morgan then point out how this comfortable relationship quickly dissolved due to excessive taxation on the American colonies. This excessive taxation was hard enough for the colonist to bear, but once they were denied equal representation in government the relationship between the homeland and new land quickly became agitated. Morgan puts for the details of specific laws and acts that were put into place to tax the colonies. He goes into great detail about a number of taxes and legislations that were put into place by English Parliament to tax the colonists and which were the catalyst for such early revolutionary groups like the Sons of Liberty. Morgan discusses the specifics and impacts of: The Sugar Act, The Stamp Act, The Declaratory Act, The Quartering Act, Townshend Act, The Boston Massacre, and the Coercive Act. Through analyzing these acts and events Morgan shows