The American Revolution Or War For Independence?

American Revolution or War for Independence? The United states gaining Independence against Britain is one of the most important events in American history. What many people call a revolution, others just call a war on independence. This an argument many have today when comparing the American war to other revolutions for example; The French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution. When analyzing whether it is a revolution it is important to form a definition of what exactly makes a war a revolution and what makes it just a war of independence. A revolution is when there is an uprising of citizens for a radical change in government and in social class structure. A war for independence is just a separation from a mother country to create a new
There was no real central government formed and the laws for Democracy had not been set. One of the main concerns for the new nation was paying back debt. Soon states began to print their own money to start paying debt back, this in turn was bad for the upper class. This was bad for them because soon lower classes were accumulating more and more money, giving the elites less power. This crisis for the elites led to the constitutional convention. The first convention the Constitution was written and sent to all states for approval. The states rejected because it took away too much of democracy. So, for a compromise the Bill of rights was added to protect individual liberties, except for slaves. The rest of the Constitution protected the rights of the rich and elite from protection of property and several other reforms. Already from the Constitution America is starting to fall back to the monarchy ways, by allowing the rich to write law and protect their rights over the lower class. States were no longer allowed to print their own money and had to stick to the contracts created by the central government. This takes away from states total democracy and gives them less freedom which in turn gives the people less freedoms and rights. Soon after another conflict emerged about the United States future which was the Jeffersonian Vision versus the Hamiltonian vision. Also known as the anti-federalist vies and the
Before the war with Britain the monarchy was at the top of the social classes and slaves were still at the bottom. After the war only one thing changed in the social classes and that was the monarchy was taken out and America became an independent country. There is no radical change or mix up of the social classes and they remain very rigid. There was no change in slavery social class although there was a start to new ideologies for the slaves for the fight of freedom very little was done for them in the war. Berlin quotes Tom Paine in "'How can Americans complain so loudly of attempts to enslave them, while they hold many hundreds in slavery?"" (Berlin 100). This is important to quote too point out because it shows that America was not looking to change their social classes in their fight for independence and instead looked to keep social class just separate. This is not a radical enough change in the social class to be considered a revolution. When comparing the American war with the French Revolution. In the French Revolution the lowest class revolts against the rich elites to bring a new form of government and social class. This is a complete radical change in the French society. The American fight for independence sparked ideas for slaves all over Berlin even states "No place was touched more deeply