The Reluctant Rebels, by Lynn Montross (1950)

Of the 340 members of the Continental Congresses from 1774-1780, only one man was a constant. Charles Thomson. Read the published Journals of the Continental Congress which Thomson was responsible for keeping through all those years and you'll see, as this book title says, they were reluctant rebels. They didn't want to be independent. They were:

• Forced to resist a London government who had withdrawn the liberties they’d had since 1689.

• Forced to declare independence in 1776 from a London government and King who refused to restore those liberties to them. 

• Forced into a war to ensure that independence.

• Then, forced to resist the new American élite, to secure those liberties, in a new Bill of Rights in 1789, a century after the original.

• And despite all that, forced to accept new taxes when George Washington himself led an American army to crush their resistance in 1794.

 

Edward Rutledge to Thomas Bee, 25 November 1775 - "an abundance of letters from gentlemen in Ireland to their friends in Boston" – British Army recruitment efforts in Ireland, summer 1775

Context: War had started, at Lexington and Concord, on 19 April 1775. The Siege of Boston began too, with the Patriot colonists taking over the city, and seizing ships offshore...

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The father of Edward Rutledge (Wikipedia here) was from somewhere in Ulster, probably Co Tyrone. The family were likely to have been Border Reiver Routledges. He emigrated to South Carolina in 1735. 

Edward was born there in 1749. He was elected to the South Carolina General Assembly, and was later sent as a South Carolina delegate to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

While there, Edward wrote to fellow South Carolina Assembly member Thomas Bee (Wikipedia here), about the recent seizure of letters on a ship that arrived at Boston from Ireland. These letters revealed remarkable detail about British Army recruitment efforts there. Check this out (the bulleting format is mine, to hopefully help with accessibility) –

November 25th, 1775.

I should have done myself the pleasure of writing to you by the return of the express, but was so ill at that time, that I found it impossible. I am now much better, but still greatly distressed with a cough, which I see no prospect of getting rid of till I bend my course to a warmer and better climate. — So much for myself.

Some time last summer, the officers at Boston fitted out a large schooner, and despatched her to Ireland for a supply of tongues, wines, &c.;

On her return a few days ago, she was intercepted by one of our armed vessels in continental pay, and brought into harbour, with all her prog, and an abundance of letters from gentlemen in Ireland to their friends in Boston. These letters have been opened, and have afforded much amusement and some intelligence —

We find by them, 

• that the administration are determined, at all events, to attempt the reduction of America, 

• that Boston will be made strong by twenty-two or twenty-five thousand men, in the course of next winter and spring; 

• that Lord Kenmare has added to the king's bounty, that of ten and sixpence per man, for all who shall enlist under Major Roche; that the city of Cork has followed the example, but more extensively; 

• that Lord Bellamont has the direction of the recruiting parties in that part of the kingdom; that the Roman Catholic priests have been applied to, to stimulate their flocks against us, which they have promised to do if the regiments to be raised be officered by gentlemen of their religious persuasion; in short, 

• that all the powers of hell are to be let loose upon us.

 

On the other hand, intelligence, by the same conveyance, informs us: 

• that all the whigs in the kingdom, (a very few excepted) are warmly interested in our cause, 

• that the common people are not less well affected; 

• that several towns have resolved not to permit any officers to recruit amongst them, and have destroyed the drums of those who have been hardy enough to attempt it; and 

• that the dislike to the service is so great and so general, that those employed therein meet with little or no success...

The letter continues with Rutledge's thoughts on how events were shaping up in America:

"... we have lived in so unsettled a condition, for such a length of time, that I now wish to fight it fairly out, and either establish a connexion consistent with the principles of liberty, and placed upon a permanent basis, or have nothing more to do with them;— the latter I think most likely to be the case. 

The destruction of our towns, and the wanton manner in which it has been effected, a mode of warfare totally exploded among civilized nations, give us little reason to think that they will attempt to make peace; indeed if it be not soon set about, it will be in vain to wish for it for a long while; the minds of the people will be so inflamed by the acts of cruelty hitherto exercised, and daily committing against them, that they will not endure a connexion with men of such savage dispositions."

William Gerard Hamilton MP, 1767 - "every man is obliged to have a musket, a pound of powder ... you have no right to tax them"

William Gerard Hamilton (1729-96) was the Chief Secretary for Ireland and MP for Killybegs in Donegal. After all of the protests about the 1765 Stamp Act, and then its withdrawal, in 1767 Hamilton wrote a warning letter to John Calcraft:

"As to America, I wish we may not burn our fingers, and do our enemies work for them, by quarrelling among ourselves.

There are, in the different provinces, above a million of people, of which we may suppose at least 200,000 men able to bear arms; and not only able to bear arms, but having arms in their possession, unrestrained by any iniquitous Game Act.

In the Massachusetts government particularly, there is an express law, by which every man is obliged to have a musket, a pound of powder, and a pound of bullets always by him: so there is nothing wanting but knapsacks (or old stockings, which will do as well) to equip an army for marching, and nothing more than a Sartorius or a Spartacus at their head requisite to beat your troops and your custom-house officers out of the country, and set your laws at defiance.

There is no saying what their leader may put them upon; but if they are active, clever people, and love mischief as well as I do peace and quiet, they will furnish matter of consideration to the wisest among you, and perhaps dictate their own terms at last, as the Roman people formerly in their famous secession upon the sacred mount.

For my own part, I think you have no right to tax them, and that every measure built upon this supposed right stands upon a rotten foundation, and must consequently tumble down, perhaps, upon the heads of the workmen."

Nationality is not the same as Liberty

 On 28 February 1776, Patrick Henry walked away from an offer to be a colonel in the Continental Army. He had famously announced "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!" less than a year before, at the Second Virginia Convention in St John's Church in Richmond on 23 March 1775. He was the commander of all of the patriot militias in Virginia. So why a demotion? Orthodox histories have presented it as a personal affront, but it was an ideological difference.

Henry's focus was on the rights of the people in America. His objective was not to merely replace London rule with a new ruling class of American élites. As Tad Stoermer says in a recent YouTube video:

"the patriot resistance drew on mostly ... the idea that a community exists to promote the mutual safety and prosperity of its members - all of them - and that authority is only legitimate when it serves that purpose. Rights were what the community used to defend itself against power that had stopped serving it and started serving itself".

The danger of this year's USA250 commemorations is that they will reinforce nationalisms – American, British, and Irish – rather than explain rights and liberty. 

Here in the constitutional ambiguity of Northern Ireland, that means being dragged into the "two tribes" mire. People are so invested in their binary choice of nationality that they can't think beyond it. And challenging that binary risks a backlash.

Northern Ireland / the island of Ireland is a poisoned society – but there are many lucrative careers in poison management.

Nationality is not the same as liberty.

The Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge, North Carolina, 27 February 1776

It was the backcountry's equivalent of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. It was the last "Highland Charge"...

Thomas McKean, two weeks before the Declaration...

Thomas McKean's father was born in Ballymoney, and according to a 1970s biography, both of his grandfathers had come to Ulster from Scotland, and were involved at Derry and the Boyne. On his maternal side, his grandfather carried battle scars for the rest of his life.

McKean wrote this letter about two weeks before the Declaration of Independence, which he would be involved in finalising the wording of on 2-4 July, rallying the Associators militias of Pennsylvania:

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To the Associators of Pennsylvania :

Gentlemen: —

The only design of our meeting together was to put an end to our own power in the province, by fixing upon a plan for calling a convention, to form a government under the authority of the people. But the sudden and unexpected separation of the late assembly, has compelled us to undertake the execution of a resolve of Congress, for calling forth 4500 of the militia of the Province, to join the militia of the neighboring colonies, to form a camp for our immediate protection.. We presume only to recommend the plan we have formed to you, trusting that in a case of so much consequence, your love of virtue and zeal for liberty will supply the want of authority delegated to us expressly for that purpose.

We need not remind you that you are now furnished with new motives to animate and support your courage. You are now about to contend against the power of Great Britain, in order to displace one set of villains to make room for another. Your arms will not be enervated in the day of battle with the reflection, that you are to risk your lives or shed your blood for a British tyrant; or that your posterity will have your work to do over again. You are about to contend for permanent freedom, to be supported by a government which will be derived from yourselves, and which will have for its object, not the emolument of one man or class of men only, but the safety, liberty and happiness of every individual in the community. We call upon you, therefore, by the respect and obedience which are due to the authority of the United Colonies to concur in this important measure. The present campaign will probably decide the fate of America. It is now in your power to immortalize your names, by mingling your achievements with the events of the year 1776 — a year which we hope will be famed in the annals of history to the end of time, for establishing upon a lasting foundation the liberties of one quarter of the globe.

Remember the honor of our colonies is at stake. Should you desert the common cause at the present juncture, the glory you have acquired by your former exertions of strength and virtue, will be tarnished; and our friends and brethren, who are now acquiring laurels in the most remote parts of America, will reproach us and blush to own themselves natives or inhabitants of Pennsylvania.

But there are other motives before you. Your houses, your fields, the legacies of your ancestors, or the dearbought fruits of your own industry, and your liberty, now urge you to the field. These cannot plead with you in vain, or we might point out to you further, your wives, your children, your aged fathers and mothers, who now look up to you for aid, and hope for salvation in this day of calamity, only from the instrumentality of your swords.

Remember the name of Pennsylvania. Think of your ancestors and of your posterity.

Signed by the unanimous order of the conference,

Thomas McKean, President.

June 25. 1776.

William Findley on the separation of Church and State

(below is from the Online Library of Liberty, here).

"All who are acquainted with the nature of government, must at once see the absurdity of considering civil government, and the government of the church of Christ, as different branches of the same government.

In all free governments, the governing power is separated into different departments or branches, such as, the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary. These three being exercised by one person, or by one body of men, is, in the opinion of the celebrated Montesquieu, the definition of tyranny….

Now, I enquire, what place or department, in this machine of government, has he left for the ecclesiastical branch, wherein to operate?

It could not act in passing laws—that belongs to the legislature.

It could not execute laws—that belongs to the executive.

It cannot be employed in applying the law to cases as they arise—this belongs to the judiciary. 

Ecclesiastical government, as instituted in national churches, by human authority, is in so far, the ordinance of man; but few of these governments give that branch much share even in its own government".

William Findley

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William Findley reminds us that there is no place within the checks and balances of the modern constitutional state for “ecclesiastical government” to influence the operation of civil government. It may serve a use for the voluntary members of a particular church or religious body to have an “ecclesiastical government” which governs their affairs and their affairs only, but given the enormous civil and military conflicts which emerged during the Reformation the presence of a “4th” branch within the civil government to serve the needs of “the church” would undermine the civil peace which had emerged as a result of religious toleration and “the separation of church and state”.

"the African Trade is injurious to this Colony" - The Rowan County Resolves, North Carolina, 8 August 1774

(pic above: 'Scotch Irish' township in Rowan County, North Carolina - Wikipedia here).

The Rowan County Resolves were drawn up in the town of Salisbury in North Carolina, and were the first to be issued in that colony. The "African Trade" wording is ambiguous, but it seems like the objection was economic rather than moral/ethical. Once again, this is a set of county Resolves which affirms loyalty to the King – but total opposition to the policies of Parliament.

Samuel Young (1735-1793) had been born in County Antrim, Moses Winslow was born and bred in Rowan County, William Kennon would also sign the Mecklenburg Declaration in May 1775. Kennon was a graduate of Princeton and probably wrote the Rowan County Resolves.

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Proceedings of the Freeholders in Rowan County.

August 8th 1774.

At a meeting August 8th 1774, The following resolves were unanimously agreed to.

Resolved, That we will at all times, when ever we are called upon for that purpose, maintain and defend at the Expense of our Lives and Fortunes, his Majesty's Right and Title to the Crown of Great Britain, and his Dominions in America to whose royal Person and Government we profess all due Obedience & Fidelity.

Resolved, That the Right to impose Taxes or Duties to be paid by the Inhabitants within this Province for any purpose whatsoever is peculiar and essential to the General Assembly in whom the legislative Authority of the Colony is vested.

Resolved, That any attempt to impose such Taxes or Duties by any other Authority is an Arbitrary Exertion of Power, and an Infringement of the Constitutional Rights and Liberties of the Colonies.

Resolved, That to impose a Tax or Duty upon Tea by the British Parliament in which the North American Colonies can have no Representation to be paid upon Importation by the inhabitants of the said Colonies, is an Act of Power without Right, it is subversive to the Liberties of the said Colonies, deprives them of their Property without their own Consent, and thereby reduces them to a State of Slavery.

Resolved, That the late cruel and Sanguinary Acts of Parliament to be executed by military force and Ships of War upon our Sister Colony of the Massachusetts Bay and Town of Boston, is a strong Evidence of the corrupt Enfluence obtained by the British Ministry in Parliament and a convincing Proof of their fixed Intention to deprive the Colonies of their Constitutional Rights and Liberties.

Resolved, That the Cause of the Town of Boston is the common Cause of the American Colonies.

Resolved, That it is the Duty and Interest of all the American Colonies, firmly to unite in an indissoluble Union and Association to oppose by every Just and proper means the Infringement of their common Rights and Privileges.

Resolved, That a general Association between all the American Colonies, not to import from Great Britain any Commodity whatsoever (except such things as shall be hereafter excepted by the general Congress of this Province) ought to be entered into and not dissolved till the just Rights of the said Colonies are restored to them, and the cruel Acts of the British Parliament against the Massachusetts Bay and Town of Boston are repealed.

Resolved, That no friend to the Rights and Liberties of America ought to purchase any Commodity whatsoever, except such as shall be excepted, which shall be imported from Great Britain after the general Association shall be agreed upon.

Resolved, That every kind of Luxury, Dissipation and Extravagance, ought to be banished from among us.

Resolved, That manufactures ought to be encouraged by opening Subscriptions for that purpose, or by any other proper means.

Resolved, That the African Trade is injurious to this Colony, obstructs the Population of it by freemen, prevents manufacturers, and other Useful Emigrants from Europe from settling among us, and occasions an annual increase of the Balance of Trade against the Colonies.

Resolved, That the raising of Sheep, Hemp and flax ought to be encouraged.

Resolved, That to be cloathed in manufactures fabricated in the Colonies ought to be considered as a Badge and Distinction of Respect and true Patriotism.

Resolved, That Messrs Samuel Young and Moses Winslow for the County of Rowan, and for the Town of Salisbury William Kennon Esqr be and they are hereby nominated and appointed Deputies, upon the Part of the Inhabitants and Freeholders of this County and Town of Salisbury, to meet such Deputies as shall be appointed by the other Counties and Corporations within this Colony at Johnston Court-House the 20th of this Instant.

Resolved, That at this important and alarming Crisis it be earnestly recommended to the said Deputies at their general Convention that they nominate and appoint one proper Person out of each District of this Province, to meet such Deputies in a general Congress, as shall be appointed upon the Part of the other Continental Colonies in America, to consult and agree upon a firm and indissoluble Union and Association for preserving by the best and most proper means their Common Rights and Liberties.

Resolved, That this Colony ought not to trade with any Colony which shall refuse to join in any Union and Association that shall be agreed upon by the greater Part of the other Colonies on this Continent, for preserving their common Rights and Liberties.

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A full list of the signatories of the Rowan County Resolves is on the Wikipedia page here.

The Hanover Resolves, 4 June 1774 - "our cause we leave to heaven and our rifles".

Loads of local documents, called Resolutions, or, Resolves, were published in the years before the Declaration of Independence. The communities spoke before the country did.

Charles Thomson organised the communities of Pennsylvania to put pen to paper. The first set of Resolves in Pennsylania were from Hanover County, on 4 June 1774. They were written by Colonel Timothy Green whose father, Robert Green, was from County Antrim. They wanted a "closer union" but in the event of the London government "attempting to force unjust laws upon us by the strength of arms, our cause we leave to heaven and our rifles".

The official marker plaque is at Old Derry Presbyterian Church, in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Robert Green had been one of its founders. In 1737 its minister was Rev Richard Sanckey, "a native of the North of Ireland".

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Twelve of the Pennsylvania Resolves are summarised in A Bid For Liberty, the resolutions and declarations of independence adopted in the colony of Pennsylvania, 1774 to 1776, published in 1957.

• It is on HathiTrust here.

The Whigs are Alright - "America and the Irish Revolutionary Movement in the Eighteenth Century" by Michael Kraus (1939)

George Taylor was one of the three Ulster-born signers of the Declaration of Independence. A later biographer wrote that "“He is of course almost forgotten, even in the country where he used to reside; but the old men of the neighbourhood who recollect him, when asked about his character, reply, that ‘he was a fine man and a furious whig’.”

Limited monarchy.

Sovereignty of the people.

Parliament first.

Liberty before loyalty.

Covenant.

They were neither unionists nor nationalists. They were Whigs.

• Benjamin Franklin's essay, Some Good Whig Principles, is online here

• In his 1944 book The Scotch-Irish in Colonial Pennsylvania, Wayland Dunaway wrote:

In time, the radical Whigs became known as the Constitutionalists and the moderate Whigs as the Anti-Constitutionalists. The Scotch-Irish, almost to a man, espoused the cause of the radical Whig party, furnishing its principal following and leadership throughout the Revolutionary struggle.

The actual means by which Pennsylvania was transformed from a proprietary province into an American commonwealth was the new political organization developed by the Scotch-Irish in alliance with the eastern radical leaders of the continental Revolutionary movement.

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This essay from 1939, by Michael Krauss, is excellent.

Although as you'll see below, TW Moody wasn't quite as impressed.

"And who were these people?" - Edward Burgett Welsh (1881-1968)

"... And who were these people? Huguenots from France; men of Reformed faith—continental Presbyterians, that is, from the Palatinate and Switzerland and the Low Countries; Lutherans who remembered the agonies of the Thirty Years' War; German Baptist groups who had suffered at the hands of all the others in Europe; Presbyterians and Seceders (who also were ultra-Presbyterians) from Scotland and Ulster. To a lesser degree the same was true of the Congregationalists from England. Of all those who came to America as victims of religious persecution and settled outside New England, the Scots from Ulster were by far the most numerous.

In Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, they were either predominant or holding a balance of power when the Revolution came on. The events following the killing time in Scotland, which ended in 1688, and those following the siege of Londonderry and the Battle of the Boyne, 1689 and 1690, started a flood of emigration to America.

This went on in increasing volume for half a century, and after a lull it started again in 1773. The great port of entry for the Scotch-Irish was not Boston, New York, Baltimore, Charleston, or even Philadelphia, though many did land at each of these places, but little old Newcastle, Delaware. There are old tombstones here in Allegheny County on which the proud inscription, "landed at Newcastle on the Delaware," can still be deciphered.

These American Presbyterians of 1776 were at most only three generations removed from the hideous miseries of Londonderry and of Lord Claverhouse and his dragoons. By every fireside the hate and fear of religious and civil oppression was kept alive. My mother was born in Ohio in 1843. Her mother had come from County Down as a little child. Yet even my mother was fed in her childhood with those stories of the killing time, and to her the names of Claverhouse and Satan were then synonyms. The defiance John Knox had flung in the face of Queen Mary, and those brave words of his spoken in behalf of his people, "if princes exceed their bounds, Madam, they may be resisted and even deposed," had had no little to do with shaping the convictions and nerving the arms of rough backwoodsmen on the American frontier.

And stung by the lash of the Stamp Act, the closing of Boston harbor, and the like, convictions began to shape themselves into words and deeds..."

- From Some Presbyterian Backgrounds of the Declaration of Independence (1941; online here)

Tad Stoermer on nationalistic "mythology dressed up as education"

 He's speaking about America, but it could be any western entity, including Ireland...

The Greenwich Tea Burning of 1774 – and the Ewing sword from the Boyne

Boston gets all the attention, but almost exactly a year after the Boston Tea Party, there was another almost identical event, this time at Greenwich in New Jersey, on 22 December 1774. Wikipedia page is here.

One of those who took part, disguised as a Native American, was Dr Thomas Ewing (1748-1782). 

"There is record of one James Ewing who was born at Glasgow, Scotland about 1650. His son Findley removed to Londonderry, Ireland in 1690 and there married Jane Porter. 

Findley Ewing was a staunch Presbyterian and an ardent advocate of liberty. For his distinguished bravery at the battle of the Boyne, a notable struggle between William III and James II, he was presented with a sword by King William. 

This token of military merit, afterward found its way to this country and was worn during our Revolutionary War by Dr. Thomas Ewing an army surgeon and great grandson of its original owner. 

By him it was bequeathed as a highly prized family treasure to his son Dr. William Belford Ewing".

• Photo of the Greenwich Tea Burning monument from this website; among those named on it are Thomas Ewing and James Ewing.

 

The Fort Gower Resolves, Virginia Gazette, 5 November 1774

A group of militia officers returning from Dunmore’s War composed the Fort Gower Resolves in the relative remoteness of the western bank of the Ohio River, on 5 November 1774. These were published in the December 22, 1774, issue of the Virginia Gazette. As you'll see below, theses Resolves, like all of the community documents which predate the Declaration of Independence, proclaim loyalty to King George III - while also asserting the officers’ preparedness to defend their rights. This is seen as the first time colonists expressed in writing their willingness to take up arms in defence of their liberties. 

It's a covenant – we give the King our allegiance, as long as he gives us our liberty.

Of course, it was the King's government, then a Tory Party government, which had withdrawn the colonists' liberty. And thanks to the 1689 Bill of Rights, the King could not override Parliament.

Also, I wonder if the men in Fort Gower appreciated the historical, revolutionary, significance of the date of 5 November...

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At a Meeting of the Officers under the Command of his Excellency the Right Honourable the EARL of DUNMORE, convened at Fort Gower, November 5, 1774, for the Purpose of considering the Grievances of BRITISH AMERICA, an Officer present addressed the Meeting in the following Words:

GENTLEMEN,

Having now concluded the Campaign, by the Assistance of Providence, with Honour and Advantage to the Colony, and ourselves, it only remains that we should give our Country the strongest Assurance that we are ready, at all Times, to the utmost of our Power, to maintain and defend her just Rights and Privileges. We have lived for about three Months in the Woods, without any intelligence from Boston, or from the Delegates at Philadelphia. It is possible, from the groundless Reports of designing Men, that our Countrymen may be jealous of the Use such a Body would make of Arms in their Hands at this critical Juncture. That we are a respectable Body is certain, when it is considered that we can live Weeks without Bread or Salt, that we can sleep in the open Air without any Covering but that of the Canopy of Heaven, and that our Men can march and shoot with any in the known World. Blessed with these Talents, let us solemnly engage to one another, and our Country in particular, that we will use them to no Purpose but for the Honour and Advantage of America in general, and of Virginia in particular. It behooves us then, for the Satisfaction of our Country, that we should give them our real Sentiments, by Way of Resolves, at this very alarming Crisis.

Whereupon the meeting made Choice of a Committee to draw up and prepare Resolves for their Consideration, who immediately withdrew; and after some Time spent therein, reported, that they had agreed to and prepared the following Resolves, which were read, maturely considered, and agreed to, nemine contradicente, by the Meeting, and ordered to be published in the Virginia Gazette.

• Resolved, that we will bear the most faithful Allegiance to his Majesty King George III, whilst his Majesty delights to reign over a brave and free People; that we will, at the Expense of Life, and every Thing dear and valuable, exert ourselves in Support of the Honour of his Crown and the Dignity of the British Empire. But, as the Love of Liberty, and Attachment to the real Interests and just Rights of America outweigh every other Consideration, we resolve, that we will exert every Power within us for the Defence of American Liberty, and for the Support of her just Rights and Privileges; not in any precipitate, riotous, or tumultuous Manner, but when regularly called forth by the unanimous Voice of our Countrymen.

• Resolved, that we entertain the greated Respect for his Excellency the Right Honourable Lord DUNMORE, who commanded the Expedition against the Shawnese; and who, we are confident, underwent he great Fatigue of this singular Campaign from no other Motive than the true interest of this Country.

Signed by Order, and in Behalf of the whole Corps.

BENJAMIN ASHBY, Clerk.

"No Kings"? 1776 was a Revolution against Parliament

Pic above from this website.

The "No Kings" protests in the USA over the past months are a curious contradiction. It's a great present-day slogan, but it's not historically true. Thanks to the 1688 Glorious Revolution, almost a century before, in 1776 King George III was pretty much just a figurehead. The problems and tyrannies that the Colonists faced were because of the London Parliament, which from 1770-83, had a Tory Party majority.

Which is why, for a decade, in multiple documents – from The Stamp Act Congress of 1765 to the Second Continental Congress which began in 1775 – the Colonists listed their grievances against what Parliament was doing and appealed to the King to intervene. But even if he'd wanted to, he couldn't. He had no executive power. Since 1689 Britain had been a limited monarchy. Parliament had all the power.

• The timeless preamble to the eventual Declaration of Independence made six comments about Government, and then turned its attention to "the present King of Great Britain". It then listed a series of 27 grievances against him, saying that "our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people".

As James Wilson would say in 1787, “The people of [America] did not oppose the British King but the parliament—the opposition was not [against] a unity but a corrupt multitude.”

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In The Royalist Revolution; Monarchy and the American Founding (Harvard University Press, 2015) Professor Eric Nelson explains this essential point, especially in the current "No Kings" protest era. As the Amazon summary says – The Founding Fathers were rebels against the British Parliament, not the Crown. Here's an intelligent review of the book from the Harvard Law Review.

"No Kings" is potent and relevant for our day, but it inverts the history.

Kings can be tyrants – but Parliaments can also be, and have been, tyrannies.

• Excellent article from September 2025, entitled On the Law of the Declaration of Independence by Professor Adam Tomkins of the University of Glasgow, is online here

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PS – 1776 was primarily a rebellion against a London government that the Founding Father John Ja described as  “wicked Ministers and evil Counsellors”. It is no coincidence that the 1688 Declaration of William Henry Prince of Orange spoke of "evil counsellors" on 20 occasions, and of "wicked Counsellors" with "wicked designs" and "wicked ends".