Page 139 - American Stories, A History of the United States

whigs in mid-eighteenth century though loosely associated group of aristocrats who called themselves Whigs had set
5.1 britain, the Whigs were a political policy and controlled patronage. King George II (r. 1727–1760) had accepted their
faction that dominated Parliament. dominance. So long as the Whigs in Parliament did not meddle with his beloved army,
Generally, they opposed royal
influence in government and he had let them run the nation.
5.2 wanted to increase the power of George III destroyed this time-tested arrangement. He selected as his chief minis-
Parliament. in America, a Whig ter the Earl of Bute, a Scot whose chief qualification for office was his friendship with
party coalesced in the 1830s in the young king. The Whigs who dominated Parliament were outraged. Bute had no ties
opposition to President Andrew with the members of the House of Commons; he owed them no favors.
5.3 jackson. the American Whigs
supported federal power and By 1763 Bute, despairing of public life, left office. His departure, however, neither
internal improvements but not restored the Whigs to preeminence nor dampened the king’s enthusiasm for domestic
5.4 territorial expansion. the Whig politics. Everyone agreed George could select whomever he desired for cabinet posts,
party collapsed in the 1850s. but until 1770, no one seemed able to please him for long. Ministers came and went,
often for no other reason than George’s personal distaste. Because of this chronic
instability, bureaucrats who directed routine colonial affairs did not know what was
expected of them. In the absence of clear long-range policy, ministers made narrow
decisions or did nothing. With such turbulence around him, the king showed little
interest in the American colonies.
The king, however, does not bear the sole responsibility for Britain’s loss of empire.
The members of Parliament who actually drafted the statutes that gradually drove a
wedge between the colonies and Britain must share the blame. They failed to resolve
Parliamentary
sovereignty Principle that the explosive constitutional issues of the day.
emphasized Parliament’s power to The central element in the Anglo-American debate was a concept known as
govern colonial affairs. parliamentary sovereignty, the doctrine that Parliament enjoyed absolute legislative

PoliTiCal CaRToons cartoons became a popular way of criticizing government during this period. Here,
King George iii watches as the kilted Lord bute slaughters the goose America. A cabinet member holds a basket of
golden eggs at rear. At front left, a dog urinates on a map of british America.
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