A Government That Seeks to Help

The government was eager to help its constituents, but this was disproven from the beginning. Peter Oliver recalled that just before the creation of the Declaration of Independence, the:

“…Upper and lower House consisted of men generally devoted to the interest of the faction. The foundations of government were subverted; & every Loyalist was obliged to submit to be swept away by the torrent. Protection was not afforded to them; this rendered the situation most disagreeable. Some indeed dared to say that their souls were their own, but no one could call his body his own; for that was at the mercy of the mob…”

Since only wealthy Caucasian men loyal to the Patriot agenda could become part of the state governments, many colonists were excluded from participating in their state assemblies even since the formation of these state assemblies.

Furthermore, if any colonists wished to express their grievances to their state assemblies, and if those grievances contradicted the beliefs of the Patriot movement, they would be labeled as Loyalists, or Tories for short, and be subjected to extreme harassment from a mob of Patriot supporters who were neighbors of these Loyalists, or from the state assemblies themselves.

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In retaliation for denying the state oath, Loyalists faced imprisonment, and/or their lands were taken from the state (Jasanoff 2008).

Additionally, another example of the oppressing rule that was the newly formed council could be found in the Southern colonies. Once the eradication of the royal government was successful, the rebel congress created their councils to execute their agendas.

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This was done to remove any possible opposing factions that could have become an obstacle to the Patriot movement. Persecution against Loyalists was swift, forceful, and very common, an oath called the Continental Association was created, in which its users were forced to pledge their support for the Patriot movement (Piecuch 2010). Throughout South Carolina and in Savannah, Georgia, many Loyalists, from politicians in the state assemblies to the farming communities, when they refused to whole-heartedly support the Patriot movement, were subjected to harassment, persecution, and even direct attacks by supporters of the Patriot cause (Piecuch 2010). Some of these victims held neutral political opinions regarding the revolution, and yet often suffered harassment from their neighbors who supported the Patriot cause, because these neutral colonists chose not to take the state oath of supporting the Patriot movement.

Because of this constant harassment and threat to their way of life, the colonists who identified themselves as either Loyalists or neutrals faced a hard choice: they could either stay to participate in Loyalist militia campaigns intent on fighting the growing Patriot threat (Piecuch 2010), or they could escape to other British controlled territories within Colonial America.

Updated: May 21, 2022
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A Government That Seeks to Help. (2022, May 21). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/a-government-that-seeks-to-help-essay

A Government That Seeks to Help essay
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