h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of my personal favourites yet to be done by Harry Turtledove is, at the time of the American Revolution the colonists cried "No taxation without representation" So, what if Britain had had a slightly more savvy PM who had offered them representation. What level of representation would it have been, would it have satisfied the colonists (who were generally just wanting to make money with as little interference as possible). And, if no USA then less support for the French revolution, so maybe no Napolean, and hence no collapse of Spanish America, and possibly still great Empires today. My knowledge of all these events is not brilliant, but I've always felt that it would change the world considerably if Britain had given its colonies the vote.

Well, i myelf being an american, know that is was not just no taxation w/out representation that spawned a revolution. The pamphlet 'common sense' distributed widely also argued that the fact that such a small country (not saying that England isn't big but it ain't exactly China either) should have such a vast amount of control over the world. This also expressed some natonalist aspects as well. Many of the original colonists were criminals, or religious nuts that England didn't want ( i really don't like to many of them either) i.e the puritans and the war that they had over there. That and the fact that a colony that far away cannot forever feel totally alighned with a country. And about that no french revolution, from a marxist point of view it was inevitable, and the french revolution got little or no help from america. The greatest impact america had on france was their aid in the american revolution only increased the expanding debt of the king that was initially created with the building of versailles and the 7 years war. So either way aristocratic fraance was bound to fall. ( french revolution arguably started off when the king called the assembly of notables to raise taxes and they denied him the right to tax them thus he was foced to call the estates general, ect. ect. all goes to hell)

So what would have happened if america had gotten some represntation? Well my guess is the revolution would have been postponed 20 or so some odd years, but may have been a little bloodier on both sides due to the rapid outgrowth of technology.

oh, and yes i am a genious
and a humble one at that

That's all well and good, but the real question here is "did they ever get any representation at all?" The answer is OF COURSE NOT...They were just looking for a good scrap and have continued to ever since. Every twenty years or so it's time to go smack someone around and feel generally good about doing it.......Once the new government was in place, one of the very first acts was to pass the "Whiskey Tax" intended soley to insite revolt (and did a jolly good job of it) so that the "power" of the new regime could be displayed whilst putting down these rowdy rebels....Alexander Hamilton - 1 common people- 0 Good Show old chap!

Well, there is a lot of uninformed opinion loitering around in this one...

The simple fact is that the colonists were acting out a rebellion that was already taking place *within* England, and in Parliament. The social contract proponents were already fighting within Parliament and the English press long before the colonists were incited. Was Thomas Hobbes American? John Locke? John Wilkes? For more history on this topic, check out my article Seeds of the American Revolution, coming soon to a University project near you: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A424072

If the Americans had been granted delegates to Parliament, it wouldn't have changed anything, because they would never be able to wield enough votes in a body that considered America's interests as subordinate to the needs of the British Isle to change the eventual outcome. And they weren't really challenging their right to representation in Parliament, they were challenging that body's authority over them. Because they had no representatives, they felt, Parliament had no right to govern them. Given the chance, the Americans would likely have created their own provincial parliament, and remained under the authority of the British crown.

And isn't that what was done to keep Canada, New Zealand, and Australia in the empire?

So, to answer the question at the beginning of this thread... what if the Americans were granted representation in Parliament? Nothing much would have changed, although John Adams would probably be an MP from Massachusetts, and the revolutionary firebrand would probably have found himself in a cell in the Tower, nestled between John Wilkes and Thomas Paine.

BTW, the support France gained for their revolution from the US was not physical or monetary, but ideological. Ben Franklin was quite a celebrity during his ambassadorial stint in Paris, and Thomas Paine was living and writing in Paris as the revolution drew nigh. Paine's work "The Rights of Man" contributed as much to the French Revolution as "Common Sense" did to the American effort.