Carl Degler A New Kind Of Revolution Analysis

"A New Kind of Revolution"
Carl N. Degler

In his article "A New Kind of Revolution", author Carl N. Degler explains how government institutions had evolved in colonial America before 1763, and how it was threatened by new English actions and Britain's desire to re-gain control over the colonies. English policies and practices were the structure that helped shape colonial government, but the original policies of mother England had many differences to that of colonial policy that can be seen in many way both micro and macro. By the 1850's, many of the English practices and policies had been forgotten, and a unique American government had formed. Colonial governments still resembled those in England in many areas. All but four of the colonies
This gave America an even more unique identity from the English, as they were no longer speaking the same but rather America had developed something unique on their own, this trend is still painfully obvious today. The colonists also believed themselves to be the hope of the world, or like the puritan ideal of a city on a hill, when they stood up to the tyrannical villain that Great Britain was believed to be. By the early 1760's the colonists were ready in a cultural sense to break away from Britain. The French and Indian War was a major turning point in helping the colonists decide to break away. After the war Britain had a large debt, and in order to pay it off they decided the colonies would play a larger role than what they were. They passed the Sugar Act which lowered duty on molasses to raise money and shortly afterwards passed the Stamp and Townshend Acts to increase revenue. These new policies caught Americans off guard. After the war they expected to return to the uninterested administration the mother country once followed. After the first acts were passed they began to complain and
The process of creating the first real constitution began with the mass meeting of America's most prominent "demi-gods", the most prominent of which was George Washington, at Philadelphia on May 17, 1787. The first to arrive in Philadelphia was the young James Madison. In all, seventy-four delegates from different states were selected to attend the convention, and fifty-five actually appeared. All the delegates would not attend all the sessions. The convention was held in the paneled assembly room on the east side of the ground floor of the Pennsylvania State House, (the same room where the declaration of independence had been signed not long before. The convention was not only notable for who attended, but also who curiously did not. Among the names of the non-attendees were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, both of which were foreign ministers, Jefferson to France and Adams to England. But Adams' presence was none the less felt at the convention as he had recently published "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government", a document which analyzed the constitutional structures of six American states. The types of men attending the