-----Twelve years ago, we Americans won independence from our “Mother”, England, in a brutal and bloody war that lasted 8 years, but cost the lives of far too many of our sons. This war that England forced upon us took a terrible tole on us, both economically and spiritually, but we can finally claim to have freedom. No longer will we have to put up with England’s stranglehold on our trade, their oppressive ruler-ship and unjust taxes. Instead we are a continent that cries out in the face of the British tyranny, a place of freedom and fairness, a place where everyone is equal, no one standing above another, with no chance of the corruption of the central government that is so rampant in England. My business can now reach a broader market with Britain’s polices and acts abolished. My fellow Delawareans and I have been ready to rule ourselves for a long time, with our strong economy and healthy government, and we can finally do so.
-----My business of buying the inner colonies’ grain and other produce and selling it to markets across the ocean is flourishing now that we are out from under the cloud that was British rule. We merchants of Delaware have always found a lucrative business in trading with the more inland Americans, and then with the various English merchants (and only the English merchants). Now though, we still have the trade with the inland people, but also with French, and Spanish merchants, who don’t completely control what they pay for our goods and we for theirs. The Navigation Acts that Britain had set were slowly destroying my business, as the English merchants knew that I could not sell my goods to any other people, allowing them to demand absurdly high prices for their goods, while paying only paltry sums for my own. Is that how a Mother should treat her children? Does it seem decent that a country half a world away should be able to so control the economic well-being of so many people, all because a piece of inconsequential paper saying that we could not legally trade with any other sovereign nation? Larry Sawers published the article The Navigation Acts Revisited, which reads, “The Navigation Acts reserved all commerce between the colonists and Europe to British Citizens (which included therefore the colonists themselves). Certain ‘enumerated’ goods bound for Europe from the colonies had first to be landed in a British port and then re-exported. Similarly, ‘enumerated’ imports from Europe had to routed through England. The Navigation Acts also mandated the subsidy of certain commodities in the colonies such as naval stores and indigo, and forbade the manufacture of other goods such as fur hats.” With such stringent rules that made it so that we had to pay England a substantial sum to get our goods to any buyers from other countries, many merchants were having a hard time keeping their money from running out. My business, and that of many of my neighbor merchants required a constant flow of trade between the inner colonies and from that to the English, so when most of the inner colonies’ products that they desired to be sold were being taken as taxes, our business took a turn for the worst. How could I not be proud that I was part of the Revolution that broke us away from England and her constraints?
-----Now, there is no way that one could claim that there were not financial problems that occurred after our bid for freedom and liberty won out. Immediately after the war our economy in the State of Delaware suffered severely, as we had to create our own currency, to further separate ourselves from the British. This combined with many soldiers returning home and demanding their promised land grants deeply scarred our economy, but not irreparably so. We have already started to recover, and the process has been helped with our new found freedom to trade with new countries, countries that until now had been forced to buy our goods at incredibly high prices from England. My business has almost completely recovered, and with the inner colonies once again shipping their surplus food to me for processing and shipping I expect that I will soon be fully back on my feet.
-----Besides our economic situation vastly improving after our break from England, our governmental system is working splendidly. I am told that we were the first colony to develop and implement a State Constitution, one that encompasses our ideals and laws. Part of our Constitution of Delaware has been entirely too long in coming, and including Article 26, which states that “No person hereafter imported into this State from Africa ought to be held in slavery under any presence whatever; and no negro, Indian, or mulatto slave ought to be brought into this State, for sale, from any part of the world.” Slavery has been a stain on our country’s economy and image for entirely too long, and I can only hope that all of our Sister colonies have similar statements in their constitutions. Our own Declaration of Independence stated that all men were created equal, and no matter their skin color, all people are still people. Another right that has been far too long in coming to fruition has been the freedom for every man to choose his own way to worship. This is covered in Article 29 of our Constitution, in the words of, “There shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this State in preference to another; and no clergyman or preacher of the gospel, of any denomination, shall be capable of holding any civil once in this State, or of being a member of either of the branches of the legislature, while they continue in the exercise of the pastorial function.” It is about time that every man is allowed to worship God in his own way, without the requirement of a Church to dictate how he does so.
-----It has taken twelve years, but we Americans are finally beginning to truly form a nation. It took a war, and has led to many compromises that have displeased many people, but now those who fought for so long are now starting on the upward slope leading to creating a country recognized as more than the bastard son of England. We are succeeding in forming our country because we already had a system of government that could stand without the crutch that was England, and because we gained so many trade options with other countries. Without this, there is no way that our country could have succeeded in our bid for liberty. The citizens of Delaware have been ready to separate from England for a long time, and I am glad that we finally have. It is my hope that our Sister Colonies’ economies will recover as well as ours has, and that their governments will work as well as ours does.
Smith, Barbara. "Food Rioters and the American Revolution." The William and Mary Quarterly 51 (1994): 3-38.
Sawers, Larry. "The Navigation Acts Revisited." Economic History Review XLV(1992): 262-268.
Declaration of Independence, July 4 1776. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/declare.asp
Thomas Paine, Common Sense: Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs http://www.bartleby.com/133/3.html
Constitution of Delaware; 1776. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/de02.asp
The American Promise
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