The Role of the British in Unifying the Colonists | Julie Silverbrook | Constitutional Conversations

0:00 So what would you say the British did to prompt the collective kind of gathering of the colonies together against them? So once they start imposing tariffs, non -importation requirements, and quartering soldiers, that’s when the people across the colonies start saying, well, gosh, if we’re going to defend

0:23 ourselves against the greatest empire on Earth, are on earth to go back to the way that things were, right, that period of solitary neglect to go back to the way that things were, right? where we’re engaging in our own self -governments within our own colony, we need to band together to press the British government for at the very least concessions. And that’s really what the First Continental Congress is about. It’s about people coming together to say to the British government,

0:48 basically, we’re not cool with what’s going on here. We want to go back to how things were. Here’s a list of grievances. Can we meet halfway, right? Can we find a way forward? They send this to the British government. Things don’t really change. Then Lexington and Concord happens, and this sends

1:10 electric shockwaves through the colonies. They had already planned after the First Continental Congress to have a Second Continental Congress to kind of gauge how much the British government had responded to their initial set of grievances. At this point, after Lexington and Concord, it’s becoming pretty clear that reconciliation is going to be

1:31 difficult. There are still people within the Continental Congress and a large population within the colonies that would like to see reconciliation happen. So there is actually something sent to the king called the Olive Branch Petition, which is basically saying whoa, whoa, whoa, things have gone far enough. Let’s cool things down. But

1:54 at the same time, they’re putting together a Continental Army, Battle of Bunker Hill happens. And so the king then declares the colonies an open rebellion, at which point there really is no going back. And that’s when there are resolutions to, you know, cut the Gordian knot, cut ties.

2:16 with the British, and declare independence. And even more than that, there’s a resolution from May 10th in which the Continental Congress actually calls on the colonies to create whatever forms of government they need to have their governments operate during the revolution. And this actually kicks

2:40 off this incredible period of state constitution writing. in the colonies and this is really the framers have these beautiful quotes about this. It’s basically the first time in human history that people are getting the opportunity to choose what form of government they would like to live under and they are doing it actively during revolutionary hostilities

3:01 like the the New York Provisional Congress has to move a couple of times while they’re actively writing their state constitution, so it’s a really extraordinary period. of time where I think Americans really become constitutionalists, period, first of all, and then I also think