The Case Against the King

IN their Declaration of Independence the thirteen American colonies presented a scorching denunciation of their king, George III, on whom they blamed the sorry state of affairs which had deprived them of their traditional British liberties. He had caused the Revolution; he was a bad king, the villain of the story. The Americans listed explicitly the crimes of which he was guilty; in fact, almost two-thirds of the Declaration hammers at the king's specific sins. How long had this hatred existed? Was its documentation nothing but an emotional tirade well calculated to swing over the fence-sitters who had hitherto not been able to deny their king? Or, was it the climax of a gradual development which by honest logic had arrived at the conclusion that George III was personally intent on enslaving the British colonies? The colonists had acclaimed George III at his coronation-they had every reason to believe that he would be a good king. He had been educated in England; his tutor, Lord Bute, had instructed him in the duties of his office. George III presumably understood the position which the British king occupied in government; it was known that he took the job seriously. The very blundering colonial policy that developed after his accession to the throne was not foreseen by the colonists. But, expected or not, they could not overlook the meaning behind the passage of the Stamp Act and then, following its repeal, of the Townshend Acts whose provisions for taxation emphasized the evils inherent in the Declaratory Act. The neglect of their petitions, the dissolution of assemblies, and the quartering of troops were all overt indications of tyranny. Virginians, and surely they are typical of the other colonists, did not fail so to interpret them. Their newspapers, the Virginia Gazettes, 1 conclusively prove their awareness of George III's ultimate responsibility for colonial policy after 1767. For them, the Declaration of Independence with its vigorous

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