[Sidenote: Oppression not grievous.]
[Sidenote: Restraints on trade.]
[Sidenote: Resistance to one-man power.]

In looking back over this crisis, it is difficult to see that the
colonists had suffered grievous oppression. The taxes had not taken four
hundred thousand pounds out of their pockets in ten years. The armies had
cost them nothing, and except in Boston had not interfered with the
governments. The Acts of Trade were still systematically evaded, and the
battle of Lexington came just in time to relieve John Hancock from the
necessity of appearing before the court to answer to a charge of
smuggling. The real justification of the Revolution is not to be found in
the catalogue of grievances drawn up by the colonies. The Revolution was
right because it represented two great principles of human progress. In
the first place, as the Americans grew in importance, in numbers, and in
wealth, they felt more and more indignant that their trade should be
hampered for the benefit of men over seas. They represented the principle
of the right of an individual to the products of his own industry; and
their success has opened to profitable trade a thousand ports the world
over. In the second place the Revolution was a resistance to arbitrary
power. That arbitrary power was exercised by the Parliament of Great
Britain; but, at that moment, by a combination which threatened the
existence of popular government in England, the king was the ruling spirit
over Parliament. The colonists represented the same general principles as
the minority in England. As Sir Edward Thornton said, when minister of
Great Britain to the United States, in 1879: "Englishmen now understand
that in the American Revolution you were fighting our battles."