A Point of No Return in America’s Revolution: The Proclamation of Rebellion

Fred Borch is a lawyer and historian. He served 25 years in the Army as a uniformed attorney. After retiring from active duty, Fred took a job in the U.S. Government as the only career historian whose focus was exclusively on military legal history. He was Professor of Legal History and Leadership for 18 years at The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School located at the University of Virginia.

On August 23, 1775, King George III declared that “many of Our Subjects” in North America were in “open and avowed rebellion” against the British Crown. His Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition was a point of no return in the on-going struggle between the unhappy colonists and London. For the first time, the King declared that the grievances being voiced by Americans were without merit because those who complained were being “misled by dangerous Men.” According to George III, enough was enough, and he called upon all officials in the Empire “to use their utmost endeavors” to crush the revolutionaries and bring traitors to justice. Moreover, all the king’s subjects were tasked with assisting these efforts by reporting anyone engaging in “traitorous Correspondence” against “Us, Our Crown and Dignity.”

Americans living in the colonies in North America in the mid-1770s had a variety of grievances, including the quartering of British troops in their homes, denying trial by jury and the suspension of local legislatures. Their chief complaint, however, was that they were being taxed by Parliament without any say in the matter. This was “taxation without representation” because the colonists had no elected members in Parliament to speak on their behalf. They argued that their rights as Englishmen were being violated because they were being forced to pay money to the Crown without their consent.

The Americans believed that if only King George would hear their grievances, he would intervene on their behalf with Parliament. Consequently, even though George Washington’s Continental Army had fought Redcoats at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, there were still moderates in the Continental Congress who hoped that American grievances could be resolved without more violence.

In the hope of a peaceful resolution to their grievances, the Congress passed the Olive Branch Petition in July and sent it to London. In the Petition, the Americans insisted that they were loyal subjects who eschewed violence and desired only peace and harmony. They hoped that their “humble petition” would result in a negotiated settlement to their grievances. Since it took some time for a messenger to reach the British Isles, however, the Petition did not reach London until September—after the Proclamation of Rebellion had been issued. Even at this date, King George could have accepted the Petition and pushed Parliament toward some type of compromise. But he refused, and consequently his August 23 Proclamation was seen as the answer to the Petition.

Since the British had suffered more than 1,000 casualties at the Battle of Bunker Hill, King George seems to have concluded that stronger measures were required to deal with his disgruntled American subjects. Unfortunately, his Proclamation only served to undermine the moderate members of the Continental Congress who were hoping that American grievances could be solved with a negotiated settlement.

King George only made matters worse when, in a speech made to Parliament in late October 1775, he doubled down on the language in his Proclamation by insisting that the colonial rebels were part of a “desperate conspiracy” who wanted to form an “independent empire” in North America. The king was not going to permit it and he intended to use his armed forces to suppress the rebellion in the American colonies.

As a result, on December 6, 1775, the Continental Congress declared that while the colonies had always been loyal to the King, Parliament had no authority over them because they had no representation in that body. While the Americans hoped to avoid the “calamities” of a “civil war,” they now signaled that they would continue to resist Parliament’s violation of their rights.

The August 1775 Proclamation of Rebellion, the King’s rejection of the Olive Branch Petition, and his October 1775 speech to Parliament was a point of no return since it propelled the revolutionaries toward the idea of full independence from Great Britain. Having established the Continental Army in June 1775, with George Washington in command, the Congress concluded that it had the means to achieve freedom for colonial North America. Perhaps it was now inevitable that, in July 1776, American patriots made the final break with Parliament and the Crown when they signed the Declaration of Independence and announced it to their countrymen and the world.