One of the wonderful things I’ve discovered living in the US is Americans have different take on history to me. For example, up the road at Independence Hall they seem to think the Declaration of Independence signalled the birth of a nation rather than viewing it as an act of treason. And up in Boston I noticed ‘no taxation without representation’ was viewed as a legitimate claim. I can sort of understand that, but I wonder why us claiming taxes to cover their share of the costs for their wars with the French wasn’t legitimate too.
But fellow Brits, don’t be fooled by this into imagining that ‘mericans don’t know historical fact from fiction. Events may be interpreted a little differently and Sarah Palin may have a whole other perspective , but as Conan O’Brien illustrates in the skit below, Americans know but they just seem to laugh about it.
Please don’t ask me to explain why Americans do this because it’s still a puzzle to me. My best guess is, as I’ve noted elsewhere, there seems to be a greater willingness to dispense with historical accuracy if it starts getting in the way of other more important stuff like having FUN.
Interestingly though, after a dozen years living here, I appreciated and ROFLed when I watched the video in ways I don’t think I could ever have ROFLed when I was living in the UK. Maybe I’ve grown more accustomed to a less understated style of parody? Or maybe I’m starting to pick up on and enjoy more cultural references?
So here’s my question to folks who have been living abroad for a while. Have you found your sense of humour changing over time?
It wasn’t the taxes, it’s how the taxes were imposed. It’s certainly true that Americans had not paid their share of the Seven Years War (or as we call it, the French and Indian War). But we aligned ourselves with John Hampden, who in 1635 had made himself a hero of English liberty by defying Charles I over a sum of money that he would never have missed, taken for a purpose he probably approved of. His objection was constitutional: taxes were to be collected from Englishmen by Act of the English Parliament, and not otherwise.
And like the 18th-century Irish (before the Act of Union of 1801) and the Channel Islanders from King John’s time (if not before) to the present, Americans in the 18th century believed that our only connection with England was that we shared the same king, and that our legislatures held the same status as the English Parliament, each in its own territorial sphere, and were by no means subordinate to it. We conceded that in matters of imperial trade and external defense, Parliament had a de facto right to legislate for us, but we denied all other such rights. We were plainly no part of the realm of England, and the Parliament of England had no right to tax us or legislate for us at all. Consequently, if the King needed money from his American subjects, let him request supply from his American legislatures, according to the forms of the constitution.
Granted, after George III’s Proclamation of Rebellion in 1775, our argument was no longer with Parliament alone but with the King as well, though as late as the beginning of 1776 the Continental Congress was still proclaiming our allegiance to the King. After the Declaration of Independence, of course, the question “Treason or revolution?” had to be settled by the sword, for as John Harington had said two hundred years before, “Treason doth never prosper; what’s the reason? / Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
Was there a settled plan to enslave America (that is, the parts of it not already enslaved by the other parts)? Probably not. But the Declaratory Act of 1766, which said that Parliament “had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America … in all cases whatsoever”, certainly looked very ominous, and quite sensible Americans had plenty to say on the subject, particularly since its wording precisely paralleled the 1719 Declaratory Act for Ireland, which had imposed English sovereignty in Ireland (that is, the Anglo-Irish; the native Irish had nothing to say about it) in just the same way.
John, my eyes light up when I see you have responded to a post. Thank you so much for contributing all this (much needed) historical background.
I found the point you made about the connection to the king rather than parliament very interesting. There’s something I find curious about the period leading up to the War of Independence. For most Americans, Britain must have seemed a pretty irrelevant and distant entity that didn’t feature much in their daily lives. But the courts of law that would try people and punish wrong doings were British. Now presumably the legal system was something that would have touched more closely on people’s personal lives so there’s potential for resentment there. But when it came down to it, it was the issue of taxation rather than justice imposed by a foreign power that led to the wars. But was it perceived as the king’s justice?
Incidentally, my second favourite tourist site in Philly is Independence Hall. (Number 1 is the waterworks, but Independence Hall is a close second.) For Brits who may not know, it’s the building in which the both the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were written and signed after much debate and it used to be a British law court in colonial times. It’s a pretty unassuming building – just a charming little British court house. They run very good tours with knowledgeable guides. I like to take most of our foreign guests there and always learn something new – well worth a visit if you’re ever in town.
I’m glad you don’t mind that my comments are sometimes longer than your posts!
It’s true that the law of colonial courts was English law, but most of it was English common law and equity that we had inherited from England, rather than statute law, and what statute law there was would tend to be Pennsylvania or New York or Massachusetts statute law as the case might be. There would be few cases which turned on statutes passed in Parliament between the settlement of the colony and the Revolution. In addition, the judges were American and the juries were American: it was a New York jury that overturned the British doctrine of “the greater the truth, the greater the libel” in the John Peter Zenger case by allowing Zenger’s claim that in his newspaper he had printed the truth. British libel law now admits truth as an affirmative defense (that must be raised and proved by the defendant); American law, on the other hand, requires at the very least negligence, and in the case of public figures, either intentional lying or reckless disregard for the truth, before a libel judgement can be collected.
I certainly laugh at things in Japanese that I wouldn’t laugh at in English, and quite possibly more when it is a cultural reference that I wouldn’t have understood until recently. I always have the sneaking suspicion that at least half my laugh is just patting myself on the back for understanding…