The American Revolution was Justified
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 3 votes and with 13 points ahead, the winner is...




- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Judges
2 forfeitures equal 1 loss.
BOP is shared.
This debate is to address the topic of was the American Revolution (meaning the war and everything that accompanied it) justified. Taking that the Americans started the American Revolution aka started the physical battle, it is safe to say that the argument will really encompass, was America justified to fight against Britain for independence.
No more rules, this debate will be pretty relaxed.
Long story short, the case Pro is making seems largely nebulous whereas Con's case is more defined, which gives him the advantage. When you're talking about "justified" as you both did in this debate (there's been a rash of topics using this word in reference to history lately and, frankly, I think all of them could do with better discussion of that word, its context in these topics, and how each side could use it), those definite impacts are going to stand out because it's an issue of net benefits, i.e. were the American colonies/world better off for having had the American revolution? When you frame it like that, the side that can better articulate both its link story and impacts is going to come out ahead.
So let's dive into those.
Pro's position largely comes down to three points: colonists were justified in rebelling against 1) taxation without representation, 2) violations of other rights, and 3) a status quo that would yield a much greater US in the future. The last of those really isn't relevant, no matter how many times Pro restates it. Long-term changes that the US chose to make are not directly connected with the Revolution at any point in the debate. Pro cites the Constitution (I don't see a direct quote, but he mentions it), but doesn't provide the kind of direct link required to make a case for the impetus of the Revolution itself being directly tied to the later outcomes like banning slavery. Points 1 and 2 give Pro a little bit of ground, but they're nebulous because it's never clear what the negative impact was. I buy that the British government was oppressive, but I don't know what that means for the colonists living under that oppression. Con points out the taxation only amounted to 1-1.5%, and while that might still be difficult to manage, it's up to Pro to demonstrate how. I also don't see a response to Con's point about how this amount was justified, since the British spent more on the colonies than they were bringing in from taxation. Similarly, telling me that a lack of representation is damaging is not enough - you have to give me specifics on how it harms the people who lack it. Pro keeps referencing "a series of events that demonstrated the British government's failure to protect the colonists' rights and interests," but I see more of a specified path to revolution from Con than I do from Pro (Pro provides a link in R1 that provides some of the surrounding events, but Con is the first to mention The Boston Massacre and I don't see the path up to that incident or anything that came after from Pro). It's all very vague, and while these points suggest that there were justifications, none of them have any weight. Even if I consider the future of the US, how do I weigh that as a justification against the harms Con cites? Pro gives me no indication.
As for Con's case, he largely turns Pro's impacts by referencing specific events and weighing his impacts. If I buy the slavery point Pro was making, Con tells me it would have happened earlier if the colonies were still colonies. He tells me the Native Americans would have been better off as well. I've got quibbles with these points, but I don't see responses from Pro. Moreover, he gives me much more direct harms: the cost of war (lives and dollars) and the loss of support from England (military and otherwise) are solid points that, again, go unaddressed. I don't think that these points are necessarily going to win the day in this debate regardless of what Pro had done, but I need something to counterbalance all this, and I'm not getting much, and when these impacts are largely or entirely conceded, they loom large on my flow. It doesn't help that Con suggests a number of other possible methods to manage the relationship without war, and while I think that's largely extra topical, Pro does nothing to argue that back, so I'm left thinking that Pro's arguments may have justified doing something, but not necessarily revolution.
All this leads me to vote Con. I also award Con sources because, frankly, he's doing a lot more across all the points. Pro's single source doesn't help him much.
PRO wastes more than half of his opening argument by incompletely revisiting the definition of JUSTIFIED and summarizing the history of the Revolution. As CON will point out, the definition of JUSTIFIED was provided as part of the tournament. If you are going repeat that term, do so in the DEBATE DESCRIPTION and failing that, make sure your definition matches the definition agreed to as part of the tournament. PRO's partial definition seems like parsing a condition that was previously agreed.
PRO tries to tilt the burdens a little by suggesting he need only prove that the US had a reasonable cause, while CON must prove not JUSTIFIED. In fact, both have a burden to prove JUSTIFIED/not JUSTIFIED and a reasonable cause strikes this voter as a slightly lower standard. CON correctly holds PRO to a better than status quo standard.
Nevertheless, PRO does give us two justifications:
British dictatorship.
raising taxes on almost everything
PRO also adds some ends to justifiy the means:
American wealth and power
Americans stopped slavery and segregation
Became a home for many immigrants
CON lists the justifications for the American Revolution as twofold:
Taxes
Boston Massacre
This voter find both arguments superficial and non-comprehensive. CON correctly sets aside PRO's post hoc arguments as legitimate justifications. PRO correctly faults CON's understanding of the weight of taxes and the Boston Massacre relative to public mood. While I don't buy even one of CON's many claims of dropped arguments, I have to side with CON's understanding of JUSTIFICATION. JUSTIFICATION happens in the moment of action, not after the results can be appreciated. A police shooting that follows the correct rules of engagement is justified, even if the result is the death of an innocent person. A police shooting done out of fear or haste is unjust even if lives were saved. The ends never justifies the means.
Ultimately, it is CON's superior understanding of JUSTIFICATION that wins him this debate.
As an American, I am sad to see the original great geopoltical expression of the Age of Enlightment reduced to a few practical considerations. Jefferson wrote one of the most famous and beautiful doctrines in World History to give voice to Colonists' reasons, of which taxes ranks only 13th out of 26 causes and for which tyranny is generally applicable to all. CON correctly faults American hypocrisy when Jefferson declares "all men were created equal," but nobody can take from Americans the foundation of a great nation on that great and radical principle and certainly nobody can say that Americans have not struggled with the meaning of that profundity daily and ever since.
Both sides were pretty weak on sources in an subject where the scholarship could not be more plentiful. Still, I am giving sources to CON because of some significant counterfactual errors made by PRO. PRO gets George III's name wrong. PRO falsely claims that the US was a leader in abolition and de-segregaton when in fact the US famously fought a civil war over the issue decades after most of Europe had adopted Napoleonic views of human rights. Racism is one of the most core chracteristics of Americanism and while there are certainly different kinds of racism I don't think there was ever a time when the US could be said to rank amoung the least racist countries in the world.
This has to be one of the toughest debates I have ever voted on. This debate could have easily been a tie, but I think I will have to favor CON ever so slightly. The reason for this is that in the 1st round, PRO sets up his argumentative framework as America being prosperous and powerful as a result of the insurrection against Britain, and therefore was justified. What I expected to see was many more arguments about the ideas behind the Magna Carta, the efficiency of local representation, and the rule of local oligarchs (rich white farm owners as CON discussed) being more efficient than distant oligarchs. I saw none of that from PRO and instead tried to lay out a moral framework for the revolution completely dropping the utilitarian argument that he started in round one. Then the debate shifted to moral arguments....
Since CON defeated him on the moral grounds (especially on the slavery point) I'll have to award this one to CON.
I'll add a vote after my finals on Friday
bump
I think you'd be very good at arguing the Pro side of this, especially after reading your vote.
To me, one of the great WHAT IFs of world history is what if Great Britain had trusted the wisdom of Voltaire and Hume and Smith and simply offered the whole franchise to the Americas, India, Africa, Middle East- as subjected people rose up and demanded equality, what if Great Britain had simply recognized that equality (that was, essentially, the philosophy of the English elite in the late 18th century). Instead of fighting for control and eventually losing the US, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, SIngapore, India, South Africa, Egypt, etc what all those peoples were still citizens of the greatest nation ever, with London its capitol? There may still have been world wars but they would probably have come earlier with smaller death toll but I think the UK would have been so dominant that perhap we'd now have something more one world government. Would one world government as defined by England be a sustainable and enduring model? Hard to say with certainty, but I do think that British stinginess with the Imperial citizen franchise cost England a real shot at still being the world's one great superpower.
I haven’t forgotten about this guys, I’m working on it.
Heh, I always try to vote first before reading the comments as I want to try to be unbiased.
Four
Three
Thanks! I felt it was a bit below my usual standard, but I think I did enough to uphold my part of the debate.
Don't want to say too much before the judges vote, but excellent job.
I'm definitely guilty as well—perhaps why I'm more keen to notice those kinds of things.
Yes, it was. I'm a real dunce when I wake up in the morning.
I assume "Please vote PRO!" was a typo?
"1. America"
That's right. Second place is for chumps.
Countries that played a role in American revolution
1. America
2. England
3. Cherokee nation
4. Italy
5. France
6. Spain
America won because there was a bigger chess match going on. England just could not hit America with everything they had.
R1 SOURCES:
1: https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/magna-carta-muse-and-mentor/no-taxation-without-representation.html
2: https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/legislativescrutiny/parliament-and-empire/parliament-and-the-american-colonies-before-1765/the-stamp-act-and-the-american-colonies-1763-67/
3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C.
4: https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/colonial-life-today/early-american-economics-facts/
5: https://pressbooks-dev.oer.hawaii.edu/ushistory/chapter/confronting-the-national-debt-the-aftermath-of-the-french-and-indian-war/
6: https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/boston-massacre
7: https://www.britannica.com/event/American-Revolution
8: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/american-revolution-faqs
9: https://www.ushistory.org/us/23b.asp
10: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/06/13/cost-of-war-13-most-expensive-wars-in-us-history/39556983/
11. Ibid 4
12. https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/legal-and-political-magazines/british-view-americas-slave-trade
"World History"
So the history of America
Yeah, but I first learned about the American Revolution in World History.
World history? I think you mean American history.
The American Revolution is one of my favorites in World History.
I LOVE this subject!