US Hist Lesson 4 Revolution

Events leading up to the War

THE EASY VERSION

Revolutionary Interpretation:

The two major contemporary historians of the Revolution were David Ramsay of South Carolina and Mercy Otis Warren of Massachusetts. Ramsay, in his The History of the American Revolution (1789), told the story of how virtuous “husbandmen, merchants, mechanics, and fishermen” won independence from the corrupt British. He saw the Revolution as a constitutional crisis brought on by the irreconcilability of Britain’s imperial interests and the colonists’ experience in self-government. The first female historian of the Revolution, Mercy Otis Warren, in her History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution (1805), described the Revolution as a “boon of liberty.” Being the sister of James Otis, Jr. and the wife of Dr. James Warren, she had been personally involved in the coming of the Revolution and saw the actions of the British in the 1760s and 1770s as attempts to establish tyranny over the colonies. Having been participants in the events of which they wrote, both saw their histories as a moral story and warned their readers against eschewing virtue for the vices and corruption of the British.

Michael D. Hattem, Journal of the American Revolution,2013

Loyalist Interpretation:

Prominent Loyalists, too, wrote a number of contemporary histories of the Revolution, though some were only published posthumously including Thomas Hutchinson, the former royal governor of Massachusetts, Jonathan Boucher, Peter Oliver, and Joseph Galloway, a former member of the Continental Congress.[i] Unsurprisingly, these loyalist histories tended to focus on justifying British actions during the imperial crisis. Hutchinson was an exception. He believed that party politics in Britain contributed to the Ministry and Parliament’s discombobulated approach to the colonies. Galloway, however, believed that the disarray of imperial policy came largely from politicians and officials’ unfamiliarity with the colonies, its governments, and its people. All the Loyalist historians tended to agree that the creation of popular anti-British sentiment in the 1760s and early 1770s was the product of demagoguery by a small number of ill-designing men.

Loyalist Interpretation:

Michael D. Hattem, Journal of the American Revolution,2013

Whig Interpretation:

The Whig interpretation is best exemplified by a man whom Edmund Morgan called “the first great historian to deal with [the Revolution],” George Bancroft... In the Whig interpretation, the underlying and unifying theme of American history was a Providential march toward liberty and democracy away from the tyranny and absolutism of the Old World. In the Revolution, “the Americans seized as their peculiar inheritance the traditions of liberty.”[iv] This interpretation held sway through much of the nineteenth century.

Whig Interpretation:

Michael D. Hattem, Journal of the American Revolution,2013

Imperial Interpretation:

In the early part of the twentieth century, a number of historians began looking at the colonial period from the British perspective, or, more accurately, they began to think of colonial history as imperial history. Unlike the Whigs, the imperial historians did not see a tyrannical ministry and Parliament bent on restraining the liberty of the colonists through harsh policies. Rather, historians such as George L. Beer, Charles Andrews, and Lawrence Gipson, studied British colonial policy and saw Britain’s attempts to manage trade and seek revenue from the colonies as reasonable policies, especially considering Britain’s war debt and colonists’ relatively light tax burden.

Imperial Interpretation:

Michael D. Hattem, Journal of the American Revolution,2013

Progressive Interpretation:

Also in the first decades of the twentieth century, a new interpretation arose in direct reaction to the Whig interpretation. The Progressive interpretation attempted to view the Revolution through the lenses of class conflict and economic interests. They also denied the notion that ideas had any real causal power and that the rhetoric of the revolutionaries was largely a cover for their own interests. In 1909, Carl Becker proffered his “dual revolution thesis,” writing, “The first was the question of home rule; the second was the question . . . of who should rule at home.” That is to say, Becker thought that, at the same time as colonists were struggling with Great Britain, there was also a class struggle occurring internally. A few years later, Charles Beard published an extended essay––more ruminative than researched––in which he argued that individual economic and class interests shaped the decisions made by delegates to the Constitutional Convention and the subsequent ratification process. The interpretation reached its apex in the work of Merrill Jensen, a second-generation Progressive, who argued that the American Revolution was “an internal revolution carried on by the masses of the people against the local aristocracy.” Progressives believed that the Revolution of 1776 was a radical, populist uprising and that the Constitutional Convention represented the elites’ attempt at counterrevolution.

Progressive Interpretation:

Michael D. Hattem, Journal of the American Revolution,2013

Consensus Interpretation:

In the 1940s and 1950s, in reaction to the Progressives’ focus on conflict (and the rise of the Cold War), historians began looking for commonalities or consensus in the past. Louis Hartz found a broad scale consensus among colonists in the political philosophy of John Locke. Other consensus historians, like Daniel Boorstin, stressed the conservative nature of the American Revolution. Meanwhile, a few historians took on Progressive arguments directly including Forrest McDonald, who refuted Beard’s argument regarding economic interest and the Constitution, while Robert Brown tried to dispel the Progressives’ class conflict dynamic by arguing that a “middle-class democracy” had already existed before the Revolution.[viii]

Michael D. Hattem, Journal of the American Revolution,2013

Founders Chic:

“Founders Chic” is not a historiographical school; it is a pejorative term given to a number of popular histories of the founding that began appearing in the 1990s. In that decade, there was an explosion of interest among the general reading public for books about the founding. The works that resonated most––by authors such as David McCullough, Joseph Ellis, Richard Brookhiser, and Ron Chernow, among others––were often biographies or narratives that focused on the so-called “character” of both individual founders and the founding generation. One critic mockingly referred to these works as “Federalist Chic” because they tended to glorify Federalists like John Adams and Alexander Hamilton while portraying Republicans in a much more critical and darker light, particularly Thomas Jefferson.

Founders Chic:

Michael D. Hattem, Journal of the American Revolution,2013

The role of stance

The English historian, E. H. Carr, wrote, “Before you study the history, study the historian” and their own “historical and social environment.” This is true in all fields of history. Nevertheless, each of these interpretations made unique contributions to the ways in which we understand the Revolution today.

Michael D. Hattem, Journal of the American Revolution,2013

Identifying elements

Possible perspectives: historical, geographical, international, military, political, legal, economic, social, ethical, financial, biological, psychological, etc.

Indication of stance: “The Revolutionary War was, tragically, won by the Colonies.”

Indication of opinion: “John Adams probably didn’t expect to win the first battle.”

Indication of a hypothesis: “Judging by the writings of Thomas Hutchinson, Loyalists believed that the British were justified in their actions.”

Howard zINN

The American Revolution—independence from England—was a just cause. Why should the colonists here be occupied by and oppressed by England? But therefore, did we have to go to the Revolutionary War?

How many people died in the Revolutionary War?

Nobody ever knows exactly how many people die in wars, but it’s likely that 25,000 to 50,000 people died in this one. So let’s take the lower figure—25,000 people died out of a population of three million. That would be equivalent today to two and a half million people dying to get England off our backs.

You might consider that worth it, or you might not.

Canada is independent of England, isn’t it? I think so. Not a bad society. Canadians have good health care. They have a lot of things we don’t have. They didn’t fight a bloody revolutionary war. Why do we assume that we had to fight a bloody revolutionary war to get rid of England?

Howard zINN

The musical HAMILTON

Christopher Hitchens

“Without Thomas Jefferson and his Declaration of Independence, there would have been no American revolution that announced universal principles of liberty. Without his participation by the side of the unforgettable Marquis de Lafayette, there would have been no French proclamation of The Rights of Man. Without his brilliant negotiation of the Louisiana treaty, there would be no United States of America. Without Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, there would have been no Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, and no basis for the most precious clause of our most prized element of our imperishable Bill of Rights - the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

GEORGE WASHINGTON

“Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; this is all we can expect - We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die: Our own Country's Honor, all call upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions - The Eyes of all our Countrymen are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings, and praises, if happily we are the instruments of saving them from the Tyranny meditated against them. Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and shew the whole world, that a Freeman contending for Liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.”

Greg grandin

The removal of the British after the American Revolution opened the floodgates of paramilitary ranger power. For instance, in 1786, ranger units, including one that included Daniel Boone, attacked a number of friendly Shawnee towns along the Mad River.