Volume 21 Number 018. America s Revolution (91) The Intolerable Acts - III. Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts

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1 Volume 21 Number 018 America s Revolution (91) The Intolerable Acts - III Lead: In the 1700s the United States broke from England. No colony in history had done that before. This series examines America s Revolution. Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts Content: Soon after the passage of the socalled Intolerable Acts, particularly the closing of the Port of Boston, concern began to spread throughout the colonies. Great

2 apprehension was expressed in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Leading the effort were Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee whose measure decried the hostile invasion perpetrated on Boston and, in a manner designed to evoke memories of the English Civil War, called for a Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer, asking for Divine intervention to prevent a destruction of civil rights and the onset of Civil War. Such words were wellreceived in Puritan Boston, but Lord Dunmore, Virginia s governor, was not pleased and dissolved the House. Similar expressions of support for suffering Boston began to be heard in most of the colonies and a new level of intellectual sophistication started to be seen in support of the colonial position. A significant shift in the argument went beyond rejection of Parliament s attempts to

3 take the colonists property without consent. Previously the King had been seen as a captive of malevolent ministers, wise, just, being led astray. Now King George was described as being engaged in misrule, not that he was evil, but badly mistaken. The King, not Parliament, had authority in the colonies, but only limited in scope. He most certainly had no right to land troops on colonial shores. This growing sense of betrayal and defiance led to the almost universal desire to consult together for mutual support which led to the First Continental Congress. At the University of Richmond s School of Professional and Continuing Studies, I m Dan Roberts.

4 Resources Andrews, Charles M., The Boston Merchants and the Non-Importation Movement, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, 19 (1918). Brooke, John. King George III. New York, NY: Constable Publishing, Brown, Richard D. Revolutionary Politics in Massachusetts: The Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Towns, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Brown, Wallace. An Englishman Views the American Revolution: The Letters of Henry Hulton, Huntington Library Quarterly. 36 (1972). Christie, Ian and Benjamin W. Labaree. Empire of Independence, , A British-American Dialogue on the Coming of the American Revolution. Oxford, UK: Phaidon Press, Donoughue, Bernard. British Politics and the American Revolution: The Path to Ward, London, UK: Macmillan, Higgenbotham, Don. The War of American Independence. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, Jensen, Merrill, ed. English Historical Documents, Vol. IX: American Colonial Documents to London, UK: Eyre and Spottiswoode, Jensen, Merrill. Founding of the American Nation: A History of the American Revolution, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Knollenberg, Bernhard. Origin of the American Revolution. New York, NY: Macmillan, Labaree, Benjamin Woods. The Boston Tea Party. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Schlesinger, Arthur Meier. The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, New York, NY: F. Ungar Publications, Van Doren, Carl. Benjamin Franklin. New York, NY: Viking Press, Watson, J. Steven. The Reign of George III, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1960.

Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts

Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts Volume 21 Number 017 America s Revolution (90) The Intolerable Acts - II Lead: In the 1700s the United States broke from England. No colony in history had done that before. This series examines America