WI: British give the Americans seats in Parliament

[Equuleus]

What if during the crisis over tax powers in the early 1770s the British give the concession of letting the Americans into the parliament. Now population wise they would get about 20% of the parliament, assuming the British cut the American voting power in half to keep them from having too much say and using the excuse they have some devolved Governments already.. The Americans are hopelessly outvoted and they will get taxes rammed home on them, and London will be less willing than historical to make concessions given that the colonists now have a stake in parliament.

The question is, how does the crisis evolve now? Are British concessions on representation enough to side line the American secessionists? Or do the likely higher taxes push things to go about the same as historical?

 

[Tripwire]

What if during the crisis over tax powers in the early 1770s the British give the concession of letting the Americans into the parliament. Now population wise they would get about 20% of the parliament, assuming the British cut the American voting power in half to keep them from having too much say and using the excuse they have some devolved Governments already.. The Americans are hopelessly outvoted and they will get taxes rammed home on them, and London will be less willing than historical to make concessions given that the colonists now have a stake in parliament.

The question is, how does the crisis evolve now? Are British concessions on representation enough to side line the American secessionists? Or do the likely higher taxes push things to go about the same as historical?

This has been done to death, but in the early 1770s the American secessionists probably consisted of about .2% of the population.

Anyway, I was just reading The Wealth of Nations not too long ago, and Adam Smith personally thought Parliament should form an imperial Parliament giving the colonies representation in proportion to the taxes they paid, but that if the colonies peacefully separated from the mother-country and paid for themselves, that would be alright too, and would benefit both countries.

However, reading the book also makes it obvious that the ARW had little to do with taxes or representation, and everything to do with mercantilist economics. The tea tax was about as responsible for the ARW as a Dutch admiral refusing to salute a British warship was responsible for the Anglo-Dutch wars.

 

[Lemon flavoured]

I'd say part of it depends on how many seats they got. If they just said one seat per colony it wouldn't really change things.

Also, at the time with the lack of easy transport links between North America and Europe the fact is that people probably wouldn't be that well represented by an MP who can only visit his constituency a few times a year.

 

[Emperor of Halton]

The American revolutionaries weren't resentful about the taxes they had to pay as such, (after all Americans had the best quality of life at the time, with the highest salaries and the lowest taxes) it was the fact that they had no say in how they were taxed. So I don't believe that being outvoted in Parliament would lead to revolution because at least they would have a say.

 

[Thande]

I don't think it would help that much: given the travel time and distance problems at the time, as well as the privileges MPs got (the Rev. Paley, he of pocketwatch disproves evolution fame, claimed that if the American colonial legislatures had got the same privileges, the Revolution would never have happened) any American representatives they sent to Westminster would pretty soon take on the character of the same 'distant faceless rulers' that the British MPs already had. Especially since elections were only held every seven years in the 18th century and few seats were seriously contested, with most held up by big family interests.

Basically I think the only sops that would have satisfied the colonists would be either to transfer some taxation powers to the colonial legislatures or set up a unifying body with a federal American parliament--though the latter at the time would be very controversial.

 

[Faeelin]

I agree with Thande. I am actually now convinced that aborting the American Revolution is nigh impossible...

 

[VictorLaszlo]

rotten boroughs act in 1762

The redistribution of seats in parliament would have reqired an act similar to the reform act of 1832. In 1772 it would already have too late to swing opinion in the colonies enough to avert a revolutionary movement, but had it been done 10 years earlier, many of the leading figures of the american revolution in OTL would possibly have been elected MPs for their colonies in TTL. Without their guidance, the civil unrest would most likely never have developed into a revolution.

 

[Tripwire]

I agree with Thande. I am actually now convinced that aborting the American Revolution is nigh impossible...

Eh, I'm not sure I agree. If the whole taxation thing would have been dropped in 1770, the colonies wouldn't have had anything to riot over, and Parliament wouldn't have retaliated, and the colonists wouldn't have taken up arms, and...

At any rate, once Laissez-faire economics became mainstream, the ARW almost definitely wouldn't have happened, but the pressure was high for Parliament to levy taxes, as many people thought the colonies were costing money and weren't contributing anything in return, and hardline politicians were angered that the colonies had managed to get the Stamp Act repealed. Those taxes then turned into the snag that exploded into warfare as parliament tried to assert its authority, even though the only tax at the time of the war was a tiny one on tea.

So, I'm going to say in regard to the ARW happening:

Likely? Yes, considering the politicians who were in office. Inevitable? No.

 

[elder.wyrm]

Eh, I'm not sure I agree. If the whole taxation thing would have been dropped in 1770, the colonies wouldn't have had anything to riot over, and Parliament wouldn't have retaliated, and the colonists wouldn't have taken up arms, and...

It wasn't just taxation they were angry over. They were angry over the Navigation Acts. They were angry over the Quebec Act. They were angry over the Proclamation Line. They were angry over the Massacre and the Intolerable Acts. They were angry over a whole host of things.

Ultimately they were angry over what they saw as the King of Great Britain not fulfilling the duty for which he was crowned, that is, pursuing the good of his subjects. They felt like he was actively harming them and, in a day when Locke and the Commonwealth men were incredibly popular amongst the chattering classes, that meant he had given up his right to rule.

 

[Thande]

I agree with Thande. I am actually now convinced that aborting the American Revolution is nigh impossible...

I wouldn't go that far, but you need a POD before the 1770s.

 

[V-J]

This is way, way, way far out ASB stuff. The government won't even enfranchise Manchester, and you think they'll enfranchise Albany?

 

[Thande]

This is way, way, way far out ASB stuff. The government won't even enfranchise Manchester, and you think they'll enfranchise Albany?

Ah, but there's always the slim possibility that enough British politicians get convinced (e.g. by Ben Franklin) that some of the colonies have enough worthy gentlemen to deserve representation, whereas everyone knows Manchester is a wretched hive populated by presumptuous self-made men who are proud of their handiwork and the drunken underclass.

Besides, it's not that Mancunians (who met the property qualifications) couldn't vote for Lancashire county MPs, it's just that the city didn't have MPs to itself. Whereas in America they had no Westminster representation at all.

 

[V-J]

It's not a question of 'quality of elites', for wont of a better phrase (although that being said, the British upper classes of the day regarded the Americans generally, as far as I can gather from what I've read, as a sort of cross between mountain men and brigands) but one of precedent; new enfranchisement creates demand for more of it.

A modification is a modification, it doesn't matter where it is. New constituencies would be opposed as violently in the Americas as they were at home. More so, in fact, because the colonies were quite pointedly distinct from Britain itself, and therefore have not even the essential basis for representation in Parliament that the new towns do. The Americans are colonials, not Britons in the strict sense of the word.

 

[Tripwire]

Ah, but there's always the slim possibility that enough British politicians get convinced (e.g. by Ben Franklin) that some of the colonies have enough worthy gentlemen to deserve representation, whereas everyone knows Manchester is a wretched hive populated by presumptuous self-made men who are proud of their handiwork and the drunken underclass.

Besides, it's not that Mancunians (who met the property qualifications) couldn't vote for Lancashire county MPs, it's just that the city didn't have MPs to itself. Whereas in America they had no Westminster representation at all.

Even Ben Franklin thought giving the colonies representation in British Parliament was kind of a crackpot scheme, though. He did support Galloway's plan of creating an American Parliament in exchange for allowing the British one the right of taxation over the colonies. (not because he thought the British parliament had the right to tax the colonies, but presumably to use it as a bargaining chip to get their own parliament)

 

[EvolvedSaurian]

I'm not sure I buy a distance argument. Was getting from Philadelphia to London in 1776 more difficult than getting from Shetland to London in 1707 (Or from York to London in 1307, for that matter)?

 

[Philadelphus]

...
Also, at the time with the lack of easy transport links between North America and Europe the fact is that people probably wouldn't be that well represented by an MP who can only visit his constituency a few times a year.

That's my first thought about this too. In fact, "a few times a year" might be underestimating the difficulty of travel at the time. Didn't it take two or three months each way? The first American diplomats tended to just stay in Europe for a couple of years. (Written communications were easier, because letters could be sent by any ship, of course, you just couldn't always wait for a reply to letter number 1 before you sent number 2....)

 

[V-J]

I'm not sure I buy a distance argument. Was getting from Philadelphia to London in 1776 more difficult than getting from Shetland to London in 1707 (Or from York to London in 1307, for that matter)?

Yes. I can't remember how long the voyage took, but certainly, a sea trip to America took wayyy longer than even a trip to the remotest parts of the British Isles from London.

But this is largely irrelevant anyway. MPs back in those days didn't have the close connection with their constituencies that MPs today have; they were literally just devices to get into Parliament. You might need to correspond with local worthies on occasion, and especially the owner of the constituency if it was a pocket borough, (and therefore the person who sent you to Parliament and owns your seat) but not much more than that.

As someone said higher up the thread, any hypothetical American MPs would swiftly become absorbed into London society and that wouldn't be particularly satisfactory to the colonies one would imagine.

 

[Claudius]

Representation would have taken a very persuasive British leadership ( William Pitt, perhaps) who was able to persuade the King to do so sometime before the American polity became enraged by the Intolerable Acts, the Stamp Act, etc.

As a POD, George Grenville is not selected as Pitt's successor. King George disliked him, and thought that he had "few opinions...than those of a clerk in a counting house." It was Grenville who immediately began the series of taxes that alienated Americans.

Just after the 7 Years War, even John Adams was intensely patriotic of the British Empire. In his diary, he foresaw a time one hundred years in the future when the capital of the Empire would inevitably be in America. (He understood demographics.) So an enlightened British leadership could have offered men like Franklin, Washington and Hancock seats. As was pointed out above, MPs really did not need to meet with their constituents all that often. Finance and taxation issues would certainly have been easier if sold to the American public by native leaders rather than appointed officials