Republicanism and the Fear of Corruption

Why did ordinary taxes provoke such alarm? Bernard Bailyn and Gordon Wood showed that colonists absorbed an English opposition tradition, sometimes called 'Country' or 'Commonwealth' thought, expressed in works such as Cato's Letters (1720–1723). This tradition warned that power naturally seeks to expand, that ministers corrupt Parliament through patronage, and that standing armies threaten liberty. Read through this lens, the Stamp Act and the soldiers in Boston looked like steps in a deliberate plot to enslave the colonies.

Classical republicanism added the ideal of virtuous citizens placing the public good above private interest. Thomas Paine's Common Sense (January 1776) pushed the argument further by attacking monarchy itself. Compared with France, where Enlightenment universalism and Rousseau's ideas loomed larger, American ideology was rooted more in English constitutional history and Protestant suspicion of concentrated power.