The author begins his analysis of the American Revolution from Lexington Green, the event that is marked by historians as the fountain-head of the revolution. According to the author, the men who fought at Lexington were naïve to revolutionary ideas that were to hit the continent in the subsequent years. The Parliament’s excessive exercise of authority over the colonies had circulated amongst them a realization to protect their rights but the beginning of a radical revolution was yet far from consideration. The author qualifies the encounter at Lexington as the “transition between thought and action.” It was thus the point whereon Americans set out on their twenty-five year old quest for principles. Security of personal property, coupling of taxation and representation, equality among men and nationality were the headlines of the Revolution. On

During the struggle to limit Parliamentary authority, more radical ideas mushroomed among the colonists. Galloway went so far as to suggest the formation of an American Parliament, subsidiary to the British Parliament to regulate colonial governance. The general emerging idea was the demand for equal rights comparable to their counterparts in Great Britain. The colonists were unwittingly and steadily moving towards the notion of human equality. Repudiation to the Parliament had elevated the rank of their assemblies to that of the Parliament itself. The theme of the American Revolution takes a turn towards “equality.”

What lay beyond the Revolution was the era of experimentation where these principles were put to practice and discrepancies in them were rectified. The quest is never ending, according to the author, as long as the freedom of any individual shall be threatened, the expedition shall last.

The final theme of the revolution that has carried itself to the present day is “nationalism.” Nationalism was a gift of the revolution that the colonists had not anticipated. Repudiation of the British Parliament has infused among the colonists a sense of identity, a sense of pride in being American. The British efforts to curb the ideas of independence further strengthened the roots of this nationality. The colonists were united on the forum of a common objective. This sense of nationalism gave way to the flourishing of a truly American culture, historical writing, verse and paintings. The Revolutionary war had brought several weaknesses of the colonists to light. Getting the colonies to agree on a viewpoint was a tedious task. They lacked the co-ordination needed to develop a strong nationhood. Once independence had been achieved from the British Crown and the principles of equality had been laid down in the Declaration of Independence, the issue of governance of the thirteen disparate colonies came to question.

The colonists were apprehensive of a strong central authority that could intervene in state affairs, hence the Articles of Confederation adopted i

Some topics in this essay:
American Revolution, Articles Confederation, Lexington Green, Parliament Paine’s, Liberation Parliamentary, Sons Liberty, American British, Negroes Indians, British Parliament, Common Sense, american revolution, parliamentary taxation, authority colonies, thirteen disparate colonies, britain colonists, according author, human equality, exercise authority, thirteen disparate, central authority, revolutionary war,