Maggie's Farm

The Colonial list of grievances is not only lengthy, but well established as grounds not only for grievances but in removing the authority of England from the Colonies. This is part of the Western tradition of viewing Nations that grew out of Westphalia and required the understanding of Nations to be autonomous and their responsibilities not only to each other, but internally to their citizens (and conversely for citizens to recognize their limitations in giving up responsibilities, rights and means to carry them out to a National body). That stuff in the Declaration, that long, long listing of grievances is more than just that: it is putting forward that the internal laws of England had been broken by the Nation.

Out of that listing are many items that the common law, as given in understanding by William Blackstone's Commentaries on the English Law. Further that idea was not limited to Blackstone as England, itself, had incorporated the Law of Nations and the Law of War (by de Vattel and Grotius respectively) into its law system. If the Monarchy wanted to continue on in its sovereign role there was one very, very simple solution:

Respect the rights of these citizens under the common law and give them a forum for their grievances in Parliament.


'No taxation without representation' is not only a rallying cry, but a basic statement that the people involved in trade have some say over it under the common law system. In treating the Colonies in such a manner as to remove the concept of their having the right to be heard by the Nation, the Monarch was doing something absolutely at odds with how the colonists expected to be treated: he was treating them as foreigners living in a foreign nation under subjective rule by the Monarchy and not via the common law via Parliament.

If King George wanted the French and Indian wars to be paid off faster he could have given us the ability to be represented in Parliament so as to change the repayment rate.

Of course that is just a flashpoint that would bring the Revolution about, and the other things that had been going on, such as removing distributed autonomy for creating local law via representative administrative bodies and lesser courts, also served to change the basis of how that rule was constituted and seen. By shifting away from the concept of 'citizen' who is also 'subject' to pure 'subject' without right of recourse via representation, the Monarchy was doing something by fiat, with more than some approval by Parliament.

For the Revolution not to have happened, the English government (Monarchy and Parliament both) would have to uphold the institutions of the common law in the colonies. That long list of grievances is not only cumulative, but puts forward in plain language why these people feel wronged in a way that is clearly understood under the common law system: the Crown and Parliament were waging undeclared and private war on the colonies and the colonies would not put up with that any longer.

More along that line in this article I put together to understand the subject of Piracy, which also gets embroiled in this due to the nature of what England was doing at the time:
http://ajacksonian.blogspot.com/2007/08/piracy-terrorism-and-wider-view.html