Introduction
American culture played a crucial role in American Revolution and its causes. This culture took its roots in traditions and values of colonizers, their unique beliefs and religious principles shaped by hardship and deficiencies faced in America. Many Americans opposed intrusion of the government in human rights issues and freedoms. Such notion as “American provincialism” means that American nation felt self-identification and distinctive features in contrast to European culture.
The Stamp Act (1865) was a starting point in self-identification of the nation. American provincialism was closely connected with equality seen as the counterpart of liberty, but here the radicals found themselves on more difficult ground, especially when they tried to relate theoretical concepts to the practical problems of reform politics.
Radical interpretations of the Revolution were refracted through a unique understanding of American society and its location in the imperial community. If their general principles logically directed Commonwealth men to an interest in the colonial dispute, the warmth of their understanding gave it a distinctive coloring (Ellis 2000).
Main body
Franklin perceived American Revolution as a product of unique cultural values and traditions created by colonists. These values involved ideas of liberty and freedom, equal rights and independent from Britain. In one form it was expressed in the ethical basis of political morality and behavior, and much of the radicals’ response to issues raised by the Revolution was grounded ultimately on what can be conveniently described as political theology.
In another respect it was manifested through the differential political status accorded to various religious denominations, and particularly through the alliance between the state and an established church. Refusal to conform to the established church was deemed to be evidence of seditious intent.
The state acted on the premise that a gift of entrenched privileges to the dominant sect would conduce to greater social and political stability and made such a grant to the Anglican church while denying it to the dissenting sects. In return the state received substantial moral and political support from all levels of the Anglican church. This association invaded most areas of public life and was deeply insulting to many loyal citizens; its power was formidable (Ellis 2000).
Franklin protected American policies and supported independence from Britain. As evidenced by this brief survey, the bonds of blood, common culture, and economic interest as well as political institutions linked the Atlantic communities of the first British Empire. America was independent of the mother country, Franklin declared in effect, for the colonies and England were “distinct and separate States,” connected only by the same “head, or Sovereign, the King….” (Ellis 2000).
Moreover, the several American “States” had “equal Rights and Liberties… being connected as England and Scotland were before the Union” of Great Britain. The imperial government soon became aware of Franklin’s doctrine when the Massachusetts legislature adopted his theory in a constitutional dispute with the royal governor in 1772-1773 (Ellis 2000). Governor Thomas Hutchinson fully appreciated the implication in the claim of the assembly when it contended, as Franklin had, that the colonial charters had created American states separate from Great Britain, and that the provincial assemblies, not the British Parliament, had exclusive jurisdiction in the New World.
As far as Franklin and the Massachusetts Whigs were concerned the Declaration of Independence three and a half years later merely proclaimed the separate “kingdom” of Massachusetts a republic. “Franklin himself acknowledged Washington’s supremacy” (Ellis 2000, p. 102).
Conclusion
Franklin’s doctrine of independence was soon known in England. Moreover, it was directly involved in the dispute over the appointment of the provincial agent when Hutchinson refused to recognize a sole agent for the lower house and successfully solicited an instruction from the Privy Council prohibiting the governor from approving such an agent.
References
Ellis, J. J. (2000). Founding Fathers the Revolutionary Generation. Knopf; 1st edition.