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Alex Levy

Mr. Gerard

Revolutions

October 3, 2011

Day 3: Mobilization of the Patriot MovementBrinkley, pages 109-113

1. How did colonists mobilize popular support for the Revolution?

The colonists formed various organizations for converting popular discontent into action

organizations that, in time, formed the basis of an independent government. They created

and distributed recruiting posters, which promoted the attraction of patriotism and the

defense of liberties and independence of the United States.These posters appealed toones vanity, by showing men in handsome clothing and offering them what seemed to be

large amounts of money for their services.

2. How did they seize authority?

In colony after colony, local institutions responded to the resistance movement by simply

seizing authority. Committees of correspondence were established, which made possible

continuous cooperation among the colonies.

3. To what degree were those actions ethical?

The British certainly felt that these actions were both unethical, as well as illegal and

probably treasonous. After all, the British government owned the American colonies,and all of the American citizens were technically British citizens and therefore subject to

British laws.

The American colonists certainly felt that their calls and complaints to the BritishParliament were going unanswered, and those that were answered were rejected. The

Americans felt that they were in fact governing themselves and had no need for some far

off country telling them how they should conduct their lives and forcing them to send atribute to England in the form of tax dollars.

4. How did Americans and British come to violence?

The colonists and the Continental Congress felt it was in their best interest to stockpile

weapons and gunpowder in order to be prepared if war should break out between the

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American colonists and the British. The British soldiers in Boston heard that farmers and

townspeople in Massachusetts had been gathering weapons and supplies and decided to

make a surprise visit to Lexington and Concord to seize the supplies. Boston patriotswere watching the British soldiers and warned the minutemen of the British

movements. When the British arrived in Lexington, shots rang out; eight minutemen

were killed, and ten were wounded. When the British moved on to Concord, they foundthat the weapons and supplies had been removed and hidden by the colonists. On their

return back to Boston, colonists hiding behind trees and rocks killed dozens of the British

troops. The beginning of the war had begun by the first shots heard round the world.

5. If, as Brinkley states, most white Americans had come to see in the British policies

evidence of a conspiracy to establish a tyranny in the New World, were their actions

morally justified?

The actions of the Americans were not morally justified for many reasons. First,

theoretically, the British government owned the land, and the owner of property has theright to do with it what it wants. Second, the British and then the American colonists

took the land from the American Indian by force of arms and claimed it for their own.Third, if the white Americans thought that the British were being tyrannical in their

treatment of the colonists, the colonists should have looked in the mirror and would have

seen what they were doing to the black people, who were living in the colonies as slaves

to these unethical white Americans. Fourth, women were not considered citizens andwere not considered equal under the laws of the land, yet no one seemed to care about the

ethics of that issue either. As the expression goes, People in glass houses shouldnt

throw stones. That means that the people who are claiming the moral high groundshould not be hypocritical; they should do what is morally right as well.