As the eve of the American Revolution approached, colonists from different states began to unite as a country. They soon realized that all of the colonists had one common goal: to fight for their rights and liberties against the British. During this time period (from 1750 to 1756) colonists developed a sense of unity that would later help them fight for their rights against the British. .
Edmund Burke once addressed to parliament that the British had no right to govern the colonists. He argued that the colonists interests could not be taken into account because they were not represented in parliament. He said that the colonies were very different from Britain and that "virtual representation" would not meet the colonists needs. During his speech he also addressed the fact that Britain was thousands of miles away and that if the colonies needed to ask parliament about an important issue that it would take months to get from the colonies to Britain and back. The large distance between the colonies and Britain helped the colonists shape their own identity's as Americans.
Another thing that helped the colonists develop a sense of unity was that as every day passed by they began to realize that they were less and less like the British. The colonists had developed their own culture and society that was completely different from the British. They developed a different type of government, a different economic system, and different social classes than the British. The colonists developed a system of local governments that were primarily representative democracy. In Britain the government was more of an oligarchy and ruled over the nation as a whole. The colonies relied on farming, fishing, and ship building to support their economy while the British relied mainly on manufacturing and trade. In the colonies there was not much of a difference between social classes, most people were in the middle class.