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Economic Burden: Spark to the American Revolution?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Joseph D. Reid Jr
Joseph D. Reid Jr
Affiliation:
Southern Methodist University
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Extract

Unfortunately, what follows does not answer the title question—although I conclude that the preponderance of current evidence answers yes, that economic burden did spark the Revolution. Rather, what follows elaborates the ingredients required for a definitive answer and, as a by-product, illuminates why the historical treatment of the origins of the American Revolution remains a muddle.

Type
Papers Presented at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , March 1978 , pp. 81 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1978

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References

1 For agreement that understanding the Revolution is a muddle, and a survey of the many current understandings, see Greene, Jack P., ed., The Reinterpretation of the American Revolution, 1763–1789 (New York, 1968)Google Scholar , and his “The Plunge of the Lemmings: A Consideration of Recent Writings on British Politics and the American Revolution,” South Atlantic Quarterly, 67 (Winter 1968), 141–75Google Scholar . Wahlke, J. C., ed., The Causes of the American Revolution, rev. ed. (Boston, 1962)Google Scholar more completely surveys older interpretations. Gipson, L. H., The British Empire before the American Revolution, vol. 13 (New York, 1967)Google Scholar, part III, surveys past interpreters.

2 Bailyn, Bernard, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, 1967)Google Scholar; Palmer, Robert, The Age of the Democratic Revolution: The Challenge (Princeton, 1959).Google Scholar

3 Egnal, M. and Ernst, J. A., “An Economic Interpretation of the American Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. ser., 29 (Jan. 1972), 3–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 This is done more fully in my “Understanding Political Events in the New Economic History,” Journal of Economic History, 37 (June 1977), 307–19.Google Scholar

5 For a recent and explicit application of the demand-and-supply model of political activity to the Revolution, see Gunderson, Gerald, “Economic Frictions within the British Empire,”a paper presented to the Duke University Bicentennial Conference “Evolution and Revolution: Development in the United States and Canada,”October 1976,Google Scholar or his text, A New Economic History of America (New York, 1976)Google Scholar; to the world, see Friedman, David, “A Theory of the Size and Shape of Nations,” Journal of Political Economy, 85 (Feb. 1977), 59–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 As demonstrated by Tiebout, Charles, “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures,” Journal of Political Economy, 64 (Oct. 1956), 418–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Of course, in such a case there would be no violence associated with a change of government.

7 For the content of rebel protest, see Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution; Becker, Carl L., The History of Political Parties in the Province of New York, 1760–1776 (Madison, 1960)Google Scholar; Knollenberg, Bernhard, Origin of the American Revolution: 1759–1766, rev. ed. (New York, 1965)Google Scholar, and Growth of the American Revolution: 1766–1775 (New York, 1975)Google Scholar; and Morgan, Edmund S. and Morgan, Helen M., The Stamp Act Crisis, rev. ed. (New York, 1963)Google Scholar. It is usefully surveyed in Wood, Gordon S., “Rhetoric and Reality in the American Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. ser., 23 (Jan. 1966), 3–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar. British rhetoric between 1763 and 1767 is reported in Thomas, P. D. G., British Politics and the Stamp Act Crisis (Oxford, 1975)Google Scholar; later British rhetoric is summarized in Lawrence H. Gipson, The British Empire, vol. 9, and Palmer, Democratic Revolution, and is analyzed in Greene, “The Plunge of the Lemmings.”

8 Louis M. Hacker, “Economic and Social Origins of the American Revolution,” in Wahlke, The Causes of the American Revolution.

9 Dickerson, Oliver M., The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution (New York, 1963).Google Scholar

10 See my “On Navigating the Navigation Acts with Peter D. McClelland: Comment,” American Economic Review, 60 (Dec. 1970), 949–55Google Scholar; and Thomas, Robert, “A Quantitative Approach to the Study of the Effects of British Imperial Policy upon Colonial Welfare: Some Preliminary Findings,” Journal of Economic History, 25 (Dec. 1965), 637CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Harper, Lawrence A., “The Effect of the Navigation Acts on the Thirteen Colonies,” in Morris, R. B., ed., The Era of the American Revolution (New York, 1939)Google Scholar, and “Mercantilism and the American Revolution,” Canadian History Review, 3 (Mar. 1942), 1–15Google Scholar; Smith, Adam, The Wealth of Nations (New York, 1937)Google Scholar; and Walton, Gary M., “The Burdens of the Navigation Acts: A Reply,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 26 (Nov. 1973), p. 87, n. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 As argued by Loschky, David J., “Studies of the Navigation Acts: New Economic Non-History?” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 26 (Nov. 1973), 689–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Ransom, Roger L., “British Policy and Colonial Growth: Some Implications of the Burden from the Navigation Acts,” Journal of Economic History, 28 (Sept. 1968), 427–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Shipping figure from Shepherd, James F. and Walton, Gary M., Shipping, Maritime Trade, and the Economic Development of Colonial North America (Cambridge, England, 1972), p. 122.Google Scholar

13 The estimated burden as a share of enumerated southern exports is the average of the burden from my “Navigation Acts,” pp. 953–54, Table 1, when the elasticity of supply is one and the elasticity of demand is one, multiplied by 1.14 to reflect the colonists' loss on enumerated exports consumed elsewhere within the Empire. The percentage decrease in demand for colonial shipping is assumed equal to the percentage decrease in output, which is equal to the percentage increase in price upon repeal of the Navigation Acts when the elasticity of supply is one. I earlier estimated that increase as (1.25)d/s+d−1 where d is the absolute elasticity of demand and s is the elasticity of supply (p. 953, equation 14 and n. 10).

14 Morgan and Morgan, Stamp Act Crisis, pp. 99–119.

15 Dickerson, Navigation Acts, ch. 4 and pp. 296–97.

16 Harper, Navigation Laws, pp. 19–49.

17 For a fascinating illustration, see Franklin's, Benjamin “Marginalia in a Pamphlet of Josiah Tucker, ‘A Letter from a Merchant in London to his Nephew in North America,’” in W. B. Willcox, ed., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 17 (1770), pp. 348–80Google Scholar. I am indebted to Alan Martina for bringing this example to my attention.

18 Dickerson, Navigation Acts, pp. 201–3.

19 Dickerson, ibid., p. 192, believes that the Stamp Act burden was expected to fall most heavily on ocean shipping. The consignment of stamps among the colonies, however, suggests that all commerce, not just ocean shipping, was expected to bear the burden. This conclusion is based upon a comparison of the distribution of stamped paper given in Dickerson with the distributions of population, maritime trade, and ocean trade given in Bruchey, Stuart, ed., The Colonial Merchant: Sources and Readings (New York, 1966), pp. 12, 16–20.Google Scholar

20 See Gipson, The British Empire, vol. 9, and P. Thomas, British Politics, for example. For contemporary support, see Schuyler, Robert L., Josiah Tucker: A Selection from His Economic and Political Writings (New York, 1931), passim.Google Scholar

21 See Andrews, Charles M., The Colonial Background of the American Revolution (New Haven, 1961)Google Scholar; Becker, Political Parties in the Province of New York; and Henderson, H. J., Party Politics in the Continental Congress (New York, 1974).Google Scholar

22 Quote from Palmer, Democratic Revolution, pp. 207–8.

23 Andrews, Background of the American Revolution, p. 135.

24 See Andrews, Charles M., “The Boston Merchants and the Non-Importation Movement,” Transactions of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 19 (1916–17), 159–259.Google Scholar

25 Henderson, Party Politics.

26 Origin of the Revolution.

27 Greene, Jack P., The Quest for Power (New York, 1963), 153–65; quote on p. 160.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., p. 164.

29 Virtue, G. O., “British Land Policy and the American Revolution: A Belated Lecture in Economic History,” University of Nebraska Studies, N. S. 11 (1953), 1–58.Google Scholar

30 Greene, Quest for Power, 443–44. Knollenberg, Origin of the Revolution, ch. 17.

31 Greene, Quest for Power, ch. 6; and Morgan and Morgan, Stamp Act Crisis, pp. 47–48. Also see Egnal and Ernst, “Economic Interpretation of the Revolution”; and Greene, J. P. and Jellison, R. M., “The Currency Act of 1764 in Imperial-Colonial Relations, 1764–1776,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. ser., 18 (Oct. 1961), 485–518CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Shepherd and Walton, Shipping, Trade, and Development of North America, discuss the colonies' balance of payments (ch. 8) and estimate the colonies' accumulated debt and deficit from the British trade (pp. 131–32). Data in Weiss, Roger W., “The Issue of Paper Money in the American Colonies, 1720–1774,” Journal of Economic History, 30 (Dec. 1970), p. 778CrossRefGoogle Scholar imply that the price inflations associated with colonial emissions were small: Rhode Island, everybody's worst offender, experienced an annual price rise of 6.4 percent between 1740 and 1750.

32 See Becker, Political Parties in New York, p. 87; Greene, Quest for Power, pp. 330–42; and Knollenberg, Origin of the Revolution, ch. 4.

33 Palmer, Democratic Revolution, p. 155.

34 The colonists' burden was .35 of the British citizens', and the colonies' population was a quarter of Britain's, so an equal per capita tax to generate the same revenue would be at [(.35 × .25) + (1 × 1)] ÷ (1.25) = .87 the existing British tax, which is (.87/.35) = 2.5 the existing colonial burden. Gunderson, in A New Economic History and “Economic Fluctuations,” likewise stresses prospective taxes.

35 Population of the five leading port cities plus half the population of Virginia, divided by the total population of the 13 colonies, is equal to .263. Data from Bruchey, Colonial Merchant, pp. 11–12.

36 Knollenberg, Origin of the Revolution, pp. 89–90.

37 R. Thomas, “Effects of Imperial Policy,” pp. 634–36, estimates the value to the colonists of British protection on land at £145,000, or the cost of the successful rebels' standing army after the Revolution. Thomas estimates the value of British protection of colonial sea commerce at £206,000, for a total annual benefit from British protection of £351,000, or three and a half shillings per colonist. Using Thomas's alternative higher estimate of colonial benefit from all British services (maintenance of diplomats, payment of tribute and policing of Barbary pirates, and the like) of £487,000 raises the benefit per colonist to four and a half shillings. The equalized per capita tax of (.87 × 26 shillings) less the existing colonial burden of (.35 × 26 shillings) is equal to 13.52 shillings.

38 Obviously, I reject the argument that the “rights of men” included as a major subset a right to economic freedom, so that economic and constitutional motivations to the revolt are inherently indistinguishable. Colonists distinguished: recall the slightness of protest over the appointment of colonial supreme court justices, for example.

39 See Andrews, Background of the Revolution, pp. 21–25; Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the Revolution; Gipson, The British Empire, 9, 1–15; Greene, “The Plunge of the Lemmings”; Knollenberg, Origin of the Revolution, pp. 38–48; and Palmer, Democratic Revolution, pp. 161–81.

40 Andrews, Background of the Revolution, p. 26; Gipson, The British Empire, 9: 305–416; and Henderson, Party Politics, pp. 1–61, stress the colonists' disunity.

41 Andrews, “Boston Merchants”; Becker, Political Parties in New York; Greene, Quest for Power; Morgan and Morgan, Stamp Act Crisis.

42 Paine's summation of Common Sense in the Crisis, reprinted in Richard Hofstadter, (1958), p. 53.

43 Andrews, Background of the Revolution, p. 136. Gipson, The British Empire, vol. 9, and Thomas, British Politics, argue that the colonial rhetoric was seen as self-serving in Britain, and not as indicating forceful colonial opposition. Certainly, this is how Josiah Tucker interpreted colonial rhetoric; see Schuyler, Josiah Tucker, passim.

44 Egnal and Ernst, “Economic Interpretations of the Revolution”; Greene and Jellison, “Currency Act of 1764.”

45 Henderson, Party Politics, pp. 1–61.

46 Brown, Wallace, The King's Friends (Providence, 1965), pp. 249–83Google Scholar, argues that loyalism and immovable wealth were correlated from evidence that claimants for indemnities in England were disproportionately former large property holders or city merchants or royal officers in the colonial governments. Needless to say, a record (1) of what people claimed they lost ex post (2) taken only from survivors (3) who went to England is likely to be biased, although such a correlation makes a lot of economic sense if the loyalists expected Britain to prevail or compensate. Examining a form county near New York City, Keesey, R. M., “Loyalism in Bergen County, New Jersey,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. ser., 18 (Oct. 1961), 558–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar, finds that no economic criteria distinguished loyalists from rebels; but her county (Bergen, New Jersey) was so homogeneously peopled that it is not much of a test. What she does show is that farmers preferred to sell to the highest-price buyer, regardless of his or their politics—even Brown's emigres fit that mold. See Smith, Paul H., “The American Loyalists: Notes on Their Organization and Numerical Strength,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. ser., 25 (Apr. 1968), 259–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a geographical distribution of loyalists; and Egnal and Ernst, “Economic Interpretation of the Revolution,” for a discussion relating rural support for the Revolution to economic interests.

47 See Barrow, , “The American Revolution as a Colonial War for Independence,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 25 (July 1968), 452–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a like stress of unity between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, but the argument that this unity stemmed from the homogeneity of reflected ideological aims.

48 Cf. Becker, Political Parties in New York, 106–9; and Henderson, Party Politics.

49 Smith, Wealth of Nations, pp. 586–87, and Lockridge, Kenneth A., “Social Change and the Meaning of the American Revolution,” Journal of Social History, 6 (Summer, 1973), pp. 403–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar