Essay 4-A: The Battles Of Lexington & Concord and Bunker Hill and the Minutemen

Essay Read by Constituting America Founder, Actress Janine Turner

On the night of April 18, 1775, British General Thomas Gage, the Commander-in-Chief in North America and the royal governor of Massachusetts, sent about 700 elite troops on a secret mission to seize colonial military stores at Concord and, if the opportunity presented itself, arrest rebellious colonial leaders, including Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Gage believed a single sharp blow would cripple what was clearly a growing rebellion. He was wrong. The real problem was not a few troublemakers. Gage and his superiors failed to realize that a series of British actions had destroyed the last remaining trust in royal government and convinced a critical mass of Americans that a systematic and deliberate plan was being executed against them by their own government to steal their rights and liberties. Britain had lost the consent of the governed.

In those days, American patriots drew much of their philosophy from the writings of John Locke, an English Enlightenment philosopher. According to Locke, in the state of nature, individuals are free and equal. However, without a common authority to enforce laws, they are likely to clash over property and other rights, including their lives and liberties. As a remedy, they voluntarily form governments (enter into a “social contract”) to protect their rights, resolve conflicts, and guard against foreign invaders who, of course, would likely abuse those rights. To form a safe society, they consent to the rule of governing authorities, expecting protection in return. Crucially, Locke argued that if a government fails to fulfill its contract and refuses to change, the people have the right to alter or abolish it and form a new one.

While Locke was instrumental in explaining this social contract, the idea of “consent of the governed” had a long pedigree in Europe. Since the time of the Magna Carta (1215), and over the course of hundreds of years, writers such as Thomas Hobbes, Algernon Sidney, Francis Hutcheson, and Thomas Reid had developed the concept. Later thinkers expanded the idea to include the right of the people to resist, or even abolish, a tyrannical government.

Many colonists were familiar with these writings, and radicals quoted them often in pamphlets and speeches. In fact, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon’s Cato’s Letters, which encapsulated these ideas in essay form, were among the most popular political writings in the colonies, often quoted by notables such as Samuel Adams. John Adams later credited Cato’s Letters and similar works with contributing more than anything else to the formation of the American political character.

The crisis facing British authorities reached a breaking point in December 1773 with the Boston Tea Party, and by then, the colonists were intellectually prepared for rebellion. Instead of seeking to repair the breach, Parliament retaliated with punitive laws aimed squarely at Massachusetts—these laws, known to Americans as the Intolerable Acts, convinced many colonists that Parliament was deliberately destroying self-government in America. Instead of protecting their lives and property, the British had become a threat to them. Instead of establishing a fair system of dispute resolution, they abused the colonists for their own benefit. Instead of protecting the citizens from foreign invasion, they had become the invaders. The social contract Locke had discussed had been violated, and the colonists withdrew their consent. By 1775, they were openly defying royal authority, and Patriot political committees were assuming expanded control across Massachusetts.

In response, General Gage received orders to disarm the Massachusetts militia and, if possible, arrest Patriot leaders, including Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were believed to be in Lexington. He planned to march secretly to Concord to seize colonial weapons and gunpowder. On the night of April 18–19, 1775, he put this misguided plan into action. At about 5 a.m. on the 19th, his troops reached Lexington and encountered a small militia force. Someone fired a shot (its origin is still unknown), and the British returned fire, eventually charging with bayonets drawn and scattering the colonists. Eight Americans were killed, and ten were wounded. The British suffered only one minor casualty.

Undeterred, the British continued their march to Concord. Instead of crushing the rebellion, however, they met even stronger resistance. At Concord’s North Bridge, approximately 400 militiamen repelled the British, forcing them to retreat toward Boston.

This first battle of what was to be a long and brutal war was later memorialized in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1837 poem, Concord Hymn. Emerson wrote:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

On that historic day, ordinary farmers put centuries of political theory into practice: when a government violates the purposes for which it was created, the people may withdraw their consent and, if necessary, enforce that withdrawal with force. That “shot heard round the world” was the expression of a revolutionary concept in action. The British had lost the consent of their subjects, who were willing to fight for their liberty. The brave American patriots put the ideas of Hobbes, Locke, and the entire tradition of liberty into action, and in so doing, changed the world forever.

Dr. Jay McConville is a military veteran, management professional, and active civic volunteer, with a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University. 

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