5 Comments

I must say that I always look with great anticipation when I check Substack for your work. You never disappoint. I’m also savoring your book: John Adam’s & The Spirit of Liberty. I would’ve finished it had it been available on Audible, but it’s such an important book that I relish annotating my hard copy so I may reference your wonderful insights.

If Broadway should ever discover your work on John Adams, you will be able to claim the credit for the musical Adams: The Least Sexy Founding Father.

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It is pretty easy to see how the reaction to these various British acts, led to specific provisions later included in the US Constitution. Ominously, the American Deep State seems to be reviving the actions of their predecessors here in our post-Constitutional State.

I hope you will reconcile this John Adams with the later champion of the Alien and Sedition Acts which arguably put the US on a similar road.

As an aside, the first shots of the Seven Years War were fired by troops under the command of a junior officer of the British colonial government who probably exceeded his orders by bushwhacking a French patrol out of Ft. Duchesne at a place later named deJumonville Gulch after the loser. The British Foreign Minister remarked "That young man certainly set the world on fire". It was George Washington.

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I have always been fascinated by the numerous aspects which led to the American Revolution and enjoy reading your essays concerning our founding.

One aspect is I've often wondered is how the different Acts the British Parliament put on the American colonies differed from what they taxed their numerous other colonies around the world. What hidden circumstances caused America to want to break away while Canada and the British West Indies didn't. The colonies that Britian possessed in the British West Indies for instance paid less in taxes probably because the sugar plantations there were owned by absentee owners who spent most of their time living in England. They married into British society, had British titles and even became members of Parliament thus controlling their livelihood. American tobacco plantation owners meanwhile were quite happy living in America and being left alone. While the tobacco industry in America was an important means of income as an export it didn't compare with the revenue sugar produced. Having that inside connection didn't hurt either.

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You’re cooking now!

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Reading these two chapters was a wonderful experience. It is an adventure to learn the actual meaning of words I've heard for over 75 years.

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