Thomas Kidd presents us with a picture of American colonial activity as 'popular morality' in the face of general British unlawfulness and tyranny. The vulgar and immoral actions of the British Empire were reflective of what minister Stephen Johnson would call "a most venal, covetous and arbitrary spirit of unlawful ambition" (102).

How was America different, in the minds of its inhabitants, from the atrocity of Britain?

Certainly, some colonists believed that the fight for freedom in itself had been allowed by the Almighty, as Kidd notes, "Americans became convinced both that God permitted the conflict because of Americans' immorality and that the trouble also sprang from deep-seated corruption in the British government" (103).

At what point did enough become enough, so to speak, for the colonists?

It would seem that Kidd points to the Stamp Act of 1765, alongside the Intolerable Acts of 1774, in looking for the straw that broke the camel's back.