The First American Equality Movement

British arrogance and hubris transformed a movement for equality into a revolution

Jan 19, 2026

The Story of the American Revolution

History must guide the reform of our magnificent democracy

The last class of “The Pursuit of Happiness” drove home two points.

First, equality—and the rule of law enforcing it—is the bedrock of happiness. To the death, that’s what the founders were fighting for two hundred and fifty years ago.

Second, the founders did not launch a militant, bloody revolution in July of 1776. They launched a bloodless, political revolution.

Until then—until the summer of 1776—all they wanted was equality. They wanted to possess the same rights enjoyed by voters living across the ocean on the island of England.

What unleashed bloody warfare?

Unconstitutional tax acts » protest » tyranny » secession » war

A 12-Year Equality Movement

The British tax acts that commenced in 1765 did not spark a revolution. They launched an equality movement.

Americans were denied voting rights in matters of taxation. They were treated as second-class citizens within the imperial caste system of the British Empire.

All the history from the Stamp Act in 1765 to the final break in 1776 was an American equality movement. It was a 12-year period of protest.

In eighteenth-century British political tradition, a “revolution” meant something far different from rebellion, insurrection, revolt, and violent protest in the mode of the Boston Tea Party. It meant a political revolution—a change in government from tyranny and repression to constitutional freedom and the rule of law.

A critical question emerges: How did the Anglo-American struggle of the 1760s and 1770s move from a clash over taxation to civil war between brothers and sisters—and, finally, independence?

Arrogance, Hubris, and an Invincibility Complex

The answer is a psychological one. Chiefly, it was a matter of British arrogance, hubris, and an invincibility complex.

In other words, self-superiority mixed combustibly with groupthink to lead to a wicked case of collective narcissism fostering misjudgment and, as a consequence, the ruin of the empire.

Let’s take a moment to delight in the word “hubris”—an etymological gift handed down to us by ancient Greek playwrights. A student raised her hand and asked me to define it. Here’s a rough definition:

Hubris, as understood in Greek and Shakespearean tragedy, is overweening pride in a king or other ruler that leads to catastrophe and, eventually, the ruler’s downfall.

That’s the leviathan force that triggered both the American equality movement and the movement for independence.

The last straw was the epic, hubristic Coercive Acts of 1774 followed by martial law and commercial lockdown in Boston.

The Coercive Acts included:

The Massachusetts Government Act, turning over control of the colony’s government to a military governor—and imposing martial law.
The Boston Port Act, closing the port to all commerce and therefore the ability to buy and sell needed goods.
The Administration of Justice Act, allowing certain trials to be held elsewhere, violating the constitutional right to be tried locally by a jury of your peers.
And, finally, the Quartering Act, which allowed the military government to lodge soldiers in colonial properties, including homes, without your consent.

Puffed up with arrogance, hubris, and an invincibility complex, the British kept tightening the screws year after year.

What the founders taught is that a self-respecting people should NEVER submit to a regime of despotism, absolutism, lawlessness, persecution, cruelty, savagery, inhumanity, vindictiveness, malice, and murder. The last straw was the hubristic Coercive Acts of 1774.

That’s why in 1776 Americans seceded from the British Empire, declaring for all times—including for the ears of their political descendants living in the 21st century—that they would NEVER live under a regime of despotism, absolutism, lawlessness, persecution, cruelty, savagery, inhumanity, vindictiveness, malice, and murder.

All Americans wanted was the right to vote.

It was, unquestionably, British hubris that brought down the empire and created a nation.

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Eli Merritt is a political historian at Vanderbilt University and the author Disunion Among Ourselves: The Perilous Politics of the American Revolution