CONSERVATIVES VS LIBERALS: 1775

In my musings over the clash of liberals and conservatives here on Gather it has occurred to me that the positions of conservatives seem to have changed whereas, in general, the positions of liberals has been more nearly constant.  Not being an expert in such things and preferring that people speak for themselves it seems to me that it might be fun to have the conservative and liberal positions at several points in history be set forth to see which of our gather conservatives, liberals, and “independents” would consider themselves to still be of that same type in previous days.

1775, the American colonies of England.

Liberals were a most unhappy crew because they didn’t like what the Crown and the Crown’s representatives in the colonies were doing.

Liberals were against taxation without representation

Liberals were in favor of colonists having the same rights as Englishmen living in England.

Liberals favored keeping the state out of the Churches and keeping the Churches out of government.

Liberals favored freedom of the press.

Liberals did not want the king’s troops to be quartered in the homes of citizens.

Liberals were in favor of declaring independence for the colonies.

At the same time conservatives had other opinions.

Conservatives felt that the king had every right to tax the citizens for the defense of the Crown both in American and in Europe even though there were no members of Parliament representing the colonies.

Conservatives felt that Parliament was justified in restricting the trade options of the colonies to enrich English merchants.

Conservatives felt that the state should control the Church of England and it was only right to tax everyone to support that Church.

Conservatives felt that the Crown had every right to censure what was printed and to prosecute those who printed things offensive to the Crown.

Conservatives felt that the needs of homeland defense justified making demands upon the citizens including quartering troops in homes.

Conservatives were loyal subjects of the king and would strongly oppose any attempt to make the colonies independent of the king.

So what would your politics have been in 1775?  Would you have been conservative or liberal?

Next we try 1850 for our comparison.  Stay tuned.