Calendar Act Helps Plant The Seeds of a Revolution

by John E Budzinski

©2002

The American Colonies certainly had a garden full of complaints and issues with King George in the 18^th century. Though it wasn’t as important as plundering our seas, ravaging our coasts, and burning our towns, many felt the Calendar Act of 1752 was just another example of the arrogant attitude King George and Parliament held towards the colonies. 

“As I tell my students”, Amy Darty, M.A., Adjunct Instructor, Department of History at Central Florida University explains, “many people of the time felt they had been robbed of 11 days of their lives, as if the government shortened their existence and deliberately created chaos in everyday living.”

In spite of public opinion, many of our forefathers of the revolution readily accepted the change. As Darty explains, “They often felt that a more scientific approach to the universe was needed and that it was time that British citizens (which they considered themselves to be even through the beginnings of the Revolution itself) fell in line with the rest of the European intelligentsia and philosophies.” 

Colonial Jane and Joe in British America were not as enthusiastic and had no interest in “all things natural and orderly.”  

“Some American colonists rejected the notion because they felt that to reject the British calendar was to adopt Continental ways (‘damn those French frogs’ and all that)”, Darty says. “They also viewed the Calendar Act as yet another regulation being imposed on them by Parliament without their “permission.” 

Benjamin Franklin, always ready to explore and buy into new ideas, tried to calm the restless public. "Be not astonished, nor look with scorn, dear reader, at such a deduction of days, nor regret as for the loss of so much time, but take this for your consolation, that your expenses will appear lighter and your mind be more at ease. And what an indulgence is here, for those who love their pillow to lie down in peace on the second of this month and not perhaps awake till the morning of the 14th." 

The colonists would have none of that, even coming from Mr. Franklin himself. Darty explains, “When revolutionary stirrings emerged in the late 1760s, the Calendar Act and the supposed ‘stealing’ of days was pointed out as one more attempt on the part of Parliament to arbitrarily decide their fate and to tyrannize the colonists. Though undoubtedly this was propaganda and untrue, it certainly was a part of the larger body of protest that occurred regarding colonial treatment by their “oppressors”.  

And with King George now dumping even more crop-attacking seeds into an already over-crowded weed infested garden, many colonists became convinced that the time had come to harvest a revolution.