Once started, the progress of revolution could not be confined but spread across the land. Many economic desires and social aspirations were set free by the political struggle and the new intellectual forces changed greatly many aspects of society.
 

After reading hundreds of pamphlets from the revolutionary era, it is evident that the American Revolution was above all else an ideological, constitutional, and political struggle. It was not primarily a controversy between social groups undertaken to force changes in the organization of the society over the economy.
 

Domestic tensions between classes contributed in crucial ways to the development of the Revolutionary movement. The role of rising economic tensions and distress in colonial cities created a climate in which the Revolutionary movement could flourish. The religious and cultural changes in colonial life and the relationship between those changes and class alignments, were at the core of the new political outlook that led to the Revolution. Thus, social and economic concerns were important in shaping the ideology of conflict.