The Immigrant: The American Revolution

The American Revolution was a political conflict where colonists in new American colonies fought against English authority, and founded their own country, the United States of America. Being continents apart, colonial America and Britain were very different and required new ways of life. America was seen as a safe haven for anyone and everyone. Religious toleration and new economic opportunities were a big part of its rise. New lifestyles were made and new laws and systems were beginning to form. Soon people began questioning the government of England and its rules. They contrived new ideas of their own government that will assure equality for everyone. In the end, colonial America was formed from the queries of English rule, by its …show more content…
England monitored America and exploited the work of Americans for their profit. They controlled trading, taxed very high and often, and many times used Americans for their own use in personal conquests. Immigrant Thomas Paine wrote one of the most influential pamphlets in the history of political writing. His pamphlet Common Sense entailed his thoughts on English government and the situation colonial America was facing. He states the general idea of equality and what it takes to break it, “Mankind being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance; the distinctions of rich, and poor, may in a great measure be accounted for…” (Thomas Paine, Common Sense, p. 104). Paine is revealing a point, that colonial American government cannot coexist with the English government. Whereas America is striving for equal opportunities for all, England has a set system for the people in power passed through generations. Other political writers, such as Noah Webster say what he thinks makes America so different from England is that America is “Removed from the fears of a foreign invasion and conquest, they are not exposed to the convulsions that shake other governments; and the principles of freedom are so general and energetic, as to exclude the possibility of a change in our republican constitutions.” (Noah Webster, On Equality, p. 122). Webster is trying to say America is lucky because it is outside of the influence of most other countries. Living outside and looking at England and all of Europe gives Americans new perspective on the differences of lifestyle and warnings of what not to do. Americans did not feel a bond with Europe at