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Revolution Dbq

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Revolution Dbq
"The Revolution was affected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people...This radical change in the principles, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution." Explain the meaning of this 1818 statement by John Adams (referring to the Revolutionary era) and assess its validity.

Philosophical words, Once Again
In a letter to Hezekiah Niles on February 3rd of 1818 John Adams, once again, spoke his mighty, philosophical words. "The Revolution was affected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people...This radical change in the principles, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution." Prior to that, on the 24th of August, 1815, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson he also stated: “What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760–1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington.” When John Adams made these statements, he was trying to display how just the foundation of a thought was forming within the minds of many Americans, 15 years prior to the revolutionary war, how without this one common thought of the majority of the colonies, the war would have never happened, and how the war affected the ones who were now independent and had no one to rely on. In 1607, the 13 colonies were established by Great Britain in North America. That was the spark that ignited a very long fuse to a giant bomb. In 1775, the citizens of these colonies were fed up with the way King George III was ruling over them and finally acted upon it. However, the thought of a revolution was created over 15 years prior to that. King George III was constantly violating the rights of the people who lived outside the borders of the United Kingdom, across an ocean, separated by

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