HIS271Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: American Exceptionalism, Strict Constructionism
Document Summary
The british lost the war partially because they didn"t at all care about the loyalists- there was very little support given to the loyalists during the war. There was also a huge amount of support from the spanish and french, the former of whom who obstructed the british in the caribbean and the latter who blockaded the atlantic ocean. Hector st. john asked what is this american? in a series of pamphlets called letters from an american. He set forward american exceptionalism, uniqueness, and the melting pot. The articles of confederation were stalled because of competing claims to western frontier as well as extreme debt by the american congress and increasing inflation. Britain and spain also continued to have unstable boundaries with the united states. The individual parochial interests of the united states gave it very little muscle abroad. When the massachusetts government tried to tax the people with hard currency it provoked shays" rebellion.
