Happy 4th of July! This is a good time (or possibly a very bad time) to ask: Was it really better overall that the colonies won the American Revolution? I’m not sure how to weigh the evidence.
The British colonial government ended slavery in its remaining American colonies in the 1830s; this was 30 years before the U.S. did – and only because the South brought the issue to a head by starting the Civil War. Also, the British colonial government was more likely than the United States to respect treaties with Indian groups. Indeed, the taxes to which the colonists famously objected were to pay the military costs of the colonists’ push west into Native American lands. Today Britain has universal health care and has elected women as prime minister. (But they do drive on the wrong side of the road.)
On the other hand, the British government didn’t fully extend its democratic principles to the colonists and other subjects, and it had an official religion and a hereditary monarch with more authority than the mere figurehead of today, among other problems. Also, Britain eventually became the world leader in imperialism, which continues to have deleterious effects on its former subjects. But the United States has a pretty strong record of dominating/controlling other countries for its own benefit, as can be seen throughout the world but especially in Latin America.
Of course, the principles expressed in the Declaration and embedded in the Constitution, among other foundational documents, have inspired change here and around the world – probably in Britain, too. And it’s not just the words: the U.S. has actually adhered to those principles more than occurs in most other places. But our system of government was not invented out of whole cloth, without precedents; instead, much (but not all) of it recapitulated or tweaked existing British practice. One of the major differences is that the British legislature has more power over the executive, which doesn’t seem like such a bad system in these days of presidential presumption.
I could go on, but, in sum: I’m glad I don’t have a vote in the matter, because to me the right choice isn’t obvious.
Tracy Duvall 