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Bernard Bailyn's

The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

Intro

The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

Bailyn's Book

  • Written by American historian Bernard Bailyn.

  • Published in 1968.

  • Neo-Whig (specifically anti-Progressive) historiographical interpretation.

  • One of the most influential books on the American Revolution in the 20th century.

Bernard Bailyn

Contents

1. Note on Historiography

2. Sources and Traditions

3. Power and Liberty

4. Transformation of Ideas:

i. Representation and Consent

ii. Constitution and Rights

iii. Sovereignty

5. The Logic of Rebellion

6. Conclusion

A Note on Historiography

Bailyn as a Neo-Whig

  • Bailyn's text doesn't make many claims which are openly biased towards a Neo-Whig interpretation.

  • However, he is still a Neo-Whig (quotes).

  • Much of Bailyn's work is focused on an analysis of the literature of the time and is (I think) a fairly objective account of the sources of Revolutionary ideas.

  • He doesn't evaluate the value of particular causes, rather he simply describes them.

  • Compare with other authors.

Sources and Traditions

SOURCES

AND

TRADITIONS

  • The ideology of the American Revolution formed from disconnected ideas unified through crisis

  • Four main sources:

Classical Antiquity

Double click to edit

Classical Antiquity

The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment

John Locke

Baron de Montesquieu

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

English Legal Writers

English Law

Sir Edward Coke

Puritanism

Two Key Catalysts...

Catalysts

Glorious Revolution 1688

Fears of Corruption

18th Century Publicists

Where next?

  • John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon

  • Early 18th century English writers

  • Created the image of "Catonic Liberty"

POWER

AND

LIBERTY

WHAT IS 'POWER'?

Power has two main properties:

1. Power is aggressive.

2. Power desires to expand.

What is 'liberty'?

1. Liberty is the 'freedom to do things without interference.

2. Liberty is a 'Natural Right'

3. Liberty is passive.

The Power-Liberty Balance

  • Power and Liberty are opposing but interconnected ideas.
  • Power encroaches on liberty.
  • Too much power leads to despotism (or tyranny).

People constantly feared government grabs for power which would see the loss of their liberty. This explains why the American reaction to seemingly harmless Acts was so dramatic.

Transformation

TRANSFOR-

MATION

The Ideology of the American Revolution was also marked by transformations to three key ideas:

1. Representation

2. Constitution

3. Sovereignty

Representation

The American understanding of representation came to differ from those of the British parliamentarians

Representation

Non-Virtual Representation!

Urbanisation!

Then...

Virtual Representation!

In America...

America

The Result?

Result

"The position that we are bound by no laws to which we have not consented either by ourselves or our representatives is a novel position unsupported by any authoritative record of the British constitution, ancient or modern. It is republican in its very nature, and tends to the utter subversion of the English monarchy" (Samuel Seabury, 1774)

Constitution

Constitution

Ambiguity in the English Constitution would form the basis for the misunderstanding that would lead to the American Revolution

"[The British and the Americans] understood the word 'constitution' not as a written ... design of government and a specification of rights; ... rather as the ... existing arrangement of governmental institutions, laws, and customs together with the principles and goals that animated them"

The Three 'Estates'

Based on this guy's ideas!

Class in England

The Nobility

The Royalty

The Commons

The English Constitution

"Checks and Balances"

If the estates are put in competition with one another, liberty for all will be maintained.

"But if the theory was evident and unanimously agreed on, the mechanics of its operation were not. It was not clear how the three social orders were related to the functioning branches of government" (Bailyn, B. Chapter 3)

Transformation of Ideas

Changes

  • This traditional saw the Constitution as the set of traditions (or precedents) that secured the power of the estates.
  • In America the Constitution came to be viewed as a document that limited the power of parliament.
  • The Constitution was not based on institutions but on Enlightenment principles

"The transition to more advanced ground was forced forward by the continuing need, after 1764, to distinguish fundamentals from instutions and from the actions of government so that they might serve as limits and controls" (Bailyn, B.)

Sovereignty

Sovereignty

Sovereignty refers to the nature and location of the ultimate power in a state.

Monarchism: Absolute but not Arbitrary

Glorious Revolution!

Arbitrary power in some form is necessary, but it is dangerous (particularly in the hands of an individual)

Parliament can minimise arbitrary power

Parliament should be the source of centralised, undivided, final power.

In America

In America...

"The power of taxing ... had been exercised by the representative Assemblies of the various colonies ... The condition of British America by the end of the Seven Years' War was therefore anomalous: extreme decentralisation of authority within an empire presumably ruled by a single, absolute, undivided sovereign" (Bailyn, B.)

This "absolute and arbitrary" sovereignty of parliament was in fact divisible!

Imperium in Imperio...

  • There came to be a difference between internal and external/imperial and regional policy and taxes
  • The idea of having two governments within the same state emerged - federalism.

Monarchism

Parliamentarianism

Imperium in Imperio (Federalism)

The Conspiracy

LOGIC

"[The Colonists] saw in the measures taken by the British government ... something for which their particular inheritance of thought had prepared them only too well ... what appeared to be evidence of nothing less than a deliberate assault launched surreptitiously by plotters against liberty both in England and America" (Chapter 4)

Precedence

Precedent

"Nothing is wanted at home but a precedent, the force of which shall be established by the tacit submission of the colonies" (John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania)

The Conspiracy

Five main causes:

"The beliefs and fears [of the Americans] were [sincere]. The result ... was an escalation of distrust towards a disastrous deadlock"

Why?

The Stamp Act

Infringement on Intellectual Liberties

Stamp

Act

John Wilkes

Wilkes

  • Infamous British politician
  • Ruthlessly satired George III
  • Democratically elected but denied a seat in parliament
  • Belief that the destinies of Wilkes and America were linked

Standing Army

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Army

Other Causes

Two other less-noteworthy causes:

1. Manipulation of Judges (particularly in Admiralty/Navy courts)

2. Restructuring of the American administration

Other

Causes

The Tea Act

The climax of the American conspiracy:

"The Tea Act was passed, not to gain revenue, but ... to provoke a quarrel. The ministry wished "to see America in arms ... because it furnished them with a pretense for declaring us rebels; and persons conquered under that character forfeit their all ... to the crown"

(Chapter 4)

Where next?

Conclusion

Where did the ideas of the Revolution come from?

Unifying Ideological Narrative!

What where those ideas?

1. Representation and Consent

non-virtual vs. virtual representation

2. Constitution and Rights

the constitution as an institution vs. the constitution as a guarantee of rights

3. Sovereignty

all power belonging to parliament vs. imperium in imperio (federalism)

What drove the Americans to Revolution?

How would you feel if you lived in America in the 1770s?

"The details of this new world were not as yet clearly depicted; but faith ran high that a better world than any that had ever been known could be built where authority was distrusted ... It was only where there was this defiance ... that institutions would express human aspirations, not crush them" (Bailyn, B.)

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