Colonial grievances were framed as slavery under arbitrary parliamentary will

Evidence

Most commonwealthmen in the early eighteenth century used the rhetoric of liberty and servitude in celebrating emancipation from Stuart absolutism and in criticizing the domestic machinations of government. It did not matter to the commonwealthman that the government he attacked was Whig; power was always dangerous and power always needed to be watched (Robbins 1959: 120). But as the eighteenth century developed, a new cause of commonwealthman concern came into view: the cause of the American colonies, and in particular their claims against taxation by a government over which they had no control. Here, clearly, were people who lived at the mercy of an alien and potentially arbitrary will: the will of the British Parliament. Here, as the votaries of the tradition saw it, were a people in the chains of slavery, a people unfree. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 179

Categorization

• XREF: Relates to reader’s interest in solidarity forming through shared perceived condition — here shared status as subjects of arbitrary will, a mechanism distinct from enemy-based solidarity. — connects to: Colonial peoples suffered the same dehumanizing treatment as ancient slaves; Using slavery as a metaphor for white grievances blunted abolition as a revolutionary cause — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project: A New American Origin…, 93

Broader Connections

• Using slavery as a metaphor for white grievances blunted abolition as a revolutionary cause #qualifies (0.85) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 93
• Colonial peoples suffered the same dehumanizing treatment as ancient slaves #expands (0.75)