American Scripture

Most of the action in American Scripture takes place during a period of transition in the American colonies’ public discourse, which culminated in the Second Continental Congress proclaiming Independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776. The American War for Independence was unprecedented: No colony had ever separated itself from its parent country and established a republican form of government nearly from scratch, yet this is what the majority of the 13 colonies’ delegates set out to do. Before the conflict began, American colonists were proud of being British subjects because they enjoyed the same rights as the people in the Mother Country; and they thought their country’s system of government was the best in the world. It was a shock, therefore, when Parliament and King George began to tax colonists—who had no representation in Parliament—to replenish funds depleted by the Seven Years’ War. The colonists felt their rights were under attack, but they knew this wasn’t the first time British subjects had to defend their rights.

There was regular discord in England for hundreds of years, and most conflicts involved either the royal line of succession or the country’s established religion—or sometimes both at once.