In this concise, path-breaking book, Steve Pincus transforms our understanding of the American Revolution and the imperative of independence. To Pincus, the Declaration of Independence is best understood in the context of the two opposing visions that British political parties held toward colonial economic development. In the Whig Patriot vision, by promoting manufacturing, immigration, and other economic infrastructure, and by rolling back support of slavery, the colonial economy would expand and fuel growth in England through the colonial consumption of English exports. In 1763, however, George III appointed the hard-line Tory, George Grenville, as lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer. The Grenville administration wanted to impose taxes on the colonies to pay down war debts from the Seven Years’ War, constrain colonial trade with Spanish colonies, limit migration from England to the colonies, and reduce the amount spent on the colonies’ protection. In contrast to the prevailing view that the Founders wanted a more limited government, The Heart of the Declaration asserts that “The Declaration of Independence was a call to state formation” (95). However, the revolutionaries wanted a government of a very particular kind: a strong state, capable of delivering patriot policies “that would aim to promote prosperity for the largest number of people” (92).

The revolutionary leaders were inspired by Patriot Whigs on both sides of the Atlantic, such as the naval hero Admiral Edward Vernon, for whom Washington's Mount Vernon was named. To Pincus, patriot politics was rooted in a conception that “economic growth depended on the creative interplay between consumption and production” (26). The linchpin of the Whig Patriot view was conceiving of the colonies as an expanding base of consumers. The government should invest resources in developing markets for colonial agricultural goods because, in turn, colonists would buy British manufactured goods (27). Toward that end, the Whig Patriots were in favor of conquering Cuba and possibly other lucrative Spanish ports to expand trade. Moreover, Whig Patriots favored progressive taxes and state support for the poor, to the end that widely distributed economic growth promoted consumerism. Whig Patriots believed in subsidizing immigration to the colonies, to further expand development and commerce. Finally, Whig Patriots were opposed to slavery, because “slave societies encouraged unhealthy concentrations of wealth that did little to promote mass consumption” (27). According to the Whig Patriot journal Common Sense, “It is certain that as the wealth of the nation runs into few hands … arts, manufactures, and commerce will in proportion decline” (33).

Pincus highlights the early history of Georgia, which began as an implementation of the Patriot Whig vision. The Georgia proprietors subsizided the immigration of low-income English, granted them small plots of land to cultivate, and banned slavery in the colony. The opposition to slavery was rooted both in the moral harm of slavery and also in the belief in the failings of slavery as political economy. Contemporaries wrote that “The use of negroes” would consolidate wealth “into the hands of a few,” and “all the small properties would be swallowed up, as they have been in other places, by the more wealthy planters” (44–45). Moreover, state resources would be directed toward preventing slave rebellions, counter to the goals of more broad-based prosperity. In contrast, the ambition for Georgia was to invest funds upfront to promote the cultivation of lucrative items such as silk, and possibly wine and olive oil, which would promote broad-based economic development and, in turn, further increase wealth by expanding the consumer base for English exports (43).

With the appointment of Grenville, the Tory model of political economy took hold, which is precisely what the colonists opposed. To Pincus, the triggering events of the American Revolution, such as the 1764 Currency Act (which banned paper money throughout the colonies) and the 1765 Stamp Act, enacted under Grenville, followed by the Townshend Acts and the Coercive Acts, enacted by his Tory successors, reflected the relatively recent ascent of the Tory Party. Each of these objectionable laws was “based on austerity and colonial extraction,” contrary to the Whig Patriot model of economic development. Banning paper money reduced liquidity and stifled economic exchange. The Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts imposed the wrong sort of taxes: ones that drained the wealth of the population with no compensating benefits. Pincus emphasizes that Grenville's promotion of austerity was ultimately of Bourbon origination, because of its parallels in French and Spanish imperial policy. The opposition to the Stamp Act operated in parallel with protests against austerity in Madrid, Havana, and Quito, and in Paris, Bourdeaux, and Guadeloupe.

Pincus also directs our attention to the English policy toward Bengal in the 1760s, which represented, to the Americans, the most terrifying example of Tory political economy. The British East India Company gained control over Bengal in the Battle of Plassey in 1757, led by Robert Clive. By 1765, the same year that the Stamp Act was enacted, Robert Clive and the East India Company assumed the diwani, “the superintendency of all the lands and the collection of all the revenues of the provinces of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa” (66). As Pincus notes, “Clive from the first believed his great victory would allow for the extraction of vast wealth that could be deployed to pay down the national debt” (64). The end result of Grenville's Bengal policies was to turn “the most prosperous provinces in Asia into an economic wasteland” (103). Pincus emphasizes that the Americans likely saw consistency across Grenville's colonial policies. Whereas the Whig Patriots “spent lavishly from the British treasury on promoting colonial development, Grenville wanted to tax the colonies to pay down the British national debt” (67).

All of this informs our understanding of the movement for independence and the government that the revolutionaries sought. In sum, “They believed, as had British Patriots for several generations, that the government should promote economic development by opening up markets for American products, thereby gaining currency to lubricate the economy, subsidize and support immigration to foster a stronger consumer base, and put an end to slavery in order to accelerate North America's transformation from a primitive to a civilized society” (150).

The Heart of the Declaration is an essential read for a greater understanding of the movement for independence. American support for slavery perhaps deserved greater attention. Georgia itself reversed its policy and permitted slavery beginning in 1751. Moreover, the details of the policies that promoted wealth distribution throughout the population is thinner than other topics. However, these are mere quibbles. The Heart of the Declaration will likely have tremendous influence on the field for decades to come.