3. The Americans had several other advantages:
a) better Generals
b) more motivation,
c) style of fighting (guerrilla warfare; the British Army's
Red Coats were a big disadvantage),
d) the British had to supply the war from too far away
Most Europeans (including many Britains) saw the
establishment of the United States and the
ratification of the Constitution as symbolic
the U.S. became a model for European intellectuals,
leaders, and philosophes
4. The British actually took some lessons from the
colonies
reforming Parliament to make it a less aristocratic and
more truly “democratic” assembly
leading to the Yorkshire Association Movement that
began in 1778 under the leadership of Christopher Wyvil
Nevertheless, Parliament acted on these concerns,
passing a series of reforms:
a) a 1780 resolution to limit the monarch’s power
b) a 1782 measure for economic reform which lessened the
monarch’s patronage power
5. A period of secular and rational thought in
Europe and the New World;
this era combined the ideas of the Renaissance
with those of the scientific revolution
Europeans began to look critically at their own
society in an effort to improve it
every thought, idea, and notion of Truth had to
be tested by a standard of reason
6. Newton
Locke – tabula rasa
Rejects Judeo-Christian notion of original sin and
believes that a person is born with a blank slate,
shaped almost entirely by his/her environment
Thus…
Each person can take charge of his/her own destiny
– need not wait on God
7. Francois Marie Arouet
Voltaire
Denis Diderot
David Hume
Cesare Beccaria
8. Edward Gibbon – an English historian who published “The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” in 1776
examined the early history of Christianity and explained the rise of
this great faith in terms of natural causes rather than in religious or
miraculous ways
Scientific Advances -- the scientific method became widely
used in all branches of science
a) Joseph Priestly -- English minister and scientist; discovered
oxygen in 1774
b) Benjamin Franklin -- Pennsylvania printer; Renaissance Man;
used kite in thunderstorm to discover electricity
c) Captain James Cook -- English explorer; three voyages to
explore and chart the South Pacific;
not in search of gold;
on scientific missions sponsored by the Royal Society of London;
first European to reach Australia, Tahiti, New Zealand, and Hawaii
9. Adam Smith -- professor at the University of Edinburgh in
Scotland
disagreed with mercantilism
felt that any government regulation interfered with the production
of wealth
any economy would prosper the most if left alone by the
government
proposed "laissez-faire" economics (French for "hands off")
published The Wealth of Nations in 1776
leading to a greater emphasis on capitalism in the world
based his arguments on three natural laws:
a) the law of self-interest (people work for their own good and for
selfish reasons),
b) the law of competition (increased competition led to more efficiency
and higher quality)
c) the law of supply and demand (goods are produced and priced
according to need/demand of the consumers)
10. French economic reformers like Francois
Quesnay and Pierre Dupont de Nemours who
believed that the primary role of the
government was to protect property and to
permit freedom in the use of property.
