American History

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: In the mid-1800s the major maritime powers, Britain and the United States, were locked in a fierce competition to provide regular and fast shipping service on the Atlantic routes for passengers, mail, and cargo. As the contest intensified the swiftest ship could claim the Blue Riband, the mythic reward for the fast Atlantic crossing. British shippers led by Samuel Cunard's sail and steam side-wheelers took the lead from the Americans because of generous subsidies from Parliament and because they were quicker to take advantage of innovations in ocean transport. Soon the Brits were launching all steam ships with iron hulls, swamping their American rivals. By the 1860s, distracted by a decade of Civil War and recovery and reluctant to spend tax-payers money subsidizing the Atlantic Ferry, the United States largely dropped out of the transatlantic routes and the race for the Blue Riband. The prize was mostly traded back and forth by several British lines.

Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts

Content: In 1767 the British Parliament passed what became known as the Townshend Acts, named for Charles Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer, a member of the government tentatively led by William Pitt. Pitt had a physical collapse and for two years his leadership was incapacitated. His absence left a power vacuum into which Townshend stepped. The son of a minor aristocrat, he had a troubled youth under his overbearing father and emerged a troubled adult, a brilliant orator in Parliamentary debate, but erratic and domineering in his behavior.

Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts

Content: George Mason, Virginia planter, politician and future delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention in 1787, and widely considered to be the father of the Bill of Rights, was an acute observer of the looming struggle between the American colonies and Great Britain. After the repeal of Stamp Tax, Mason reflected that the attitude of many Britons, particularly those in Parliament who passed and then repealed the tax, was not unlike that of an exasperated parent dealing with an errant child. With icy sarcasm seeming to drip from his pen he wrote of the British attitude, “.,…do what your Papa and Mama bid you and Hasten to return them your most grateful Acknowledgements for condescending to let you keep what is your own; and then all your Acquaintance will love you, and praise you, and give you pretty things;…but if you are a naughty Boy, and turn obstinate, and don’t mind what Papa and Mama say to you….and pretend to judge….yourselves capable of distinguishing between Good and Evil; then everybody will hate you and say you’re a graceless and undutiful Child; your Parents and Masters will be obliged to whip you severely….”

Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts

Content: The euphoria in America that followed the British Parliament’s repeal of the Stamp Tax in 1766 was attended by wild celebrations all over the colonies. It seemed to those who had rioted and railed in print against what was seen as an egregious violation of the constitutional rights of the British subjects who lived in North America, that at last Britain was seeing the light and was willing to accommodate the desire of Americans that they be accorded the respect due loyal subjects of King and country.