The Causes of the Revolution of 1776
01/23/2018Albert Jay Nock
It was said at the time, I believe, that the actual causes of the colonial revolution of 1776 would never be known. The causes assigned by our schoolbooks may be dismissed as trivial; the various partisan and propagandist views of that struggle and its origins may be put down as incompetent. Great evidential value may be attached to the long line of adverse commercial legislation laid down by the British State from 1651 onward, especially to that portion of it which was enacted after the merchant-State established itself firmly in England in consequence of the events of 1688. This legislation included the Navigation Acts, the Trade Acts, acts regulating the colonial currency, the act of 1752 regulating the process of levy and distress, and the procedures leading up to the establishment of the Board of Trade in 1696.1 These directly affected the industrial and commercial interests in the colonies, though just how seriously is perhaps an open question — enough at any rate, beyond doubt, to provoke deep resentment.
https://mises.org/library/causes-revolution-1776
