Why Patriots Supported The Revolution

5 Pages 1139 Words

When looking at the Revolutionary history of the United States in the 1700’s, it is clear that the patriots supported the war as a means of establishing authority and obtaining social balance. In order to better understand this point, one must examine the social history of the patriots, societal tensions at the time, as well as specific catalysts that led to the Revolution.
British founders applied their native social customs to establish an orderly society in the new colonies. By the eighteenth century, the British social ranking system was seen as the only proper means of relegating authority and assets in a manner that would maintain social homeostasis. The leadership elite comprised the upper crust, or top tier of the ranking system, of Colonial society, which was made up primarily of landowners, tobacco planters, lawyers, and descendants of proper British lineage. By design, their ranking system was an adaptation of the British social pattern, which the elite considered to be a model social precedent. This system would however show its flaws when the upper tier would be divided between England’s entrenched aristocracy and the colonial elite.
Over time, the physical and social distance between the Colonies and their mother country molded colonial society into a different mindset which began to adopt a Radical Whig ideology by the early1760’s. The Radical Whigs were a group of conspiracy theorists in England who had nothing but contempt for the King and the British aristocracy which it felt was corrupt to the core. England’s elite had its own ideas about how the colonies should be controlled and taxed. Their ideas applied restraints on the colonies, caused great frustration and unrest within their social ranks and spawned a patriotic resistance. The patriots supported the idea of a Revolution because, if successful, it would establish colonial legislative authority, and restore social balance.
The colonies had a thr...