From Servile Whimper to Liberated Roar

Revolution is a word that appears in nearly every diet pill advertisement these days. It has come to mean anything that is different on even the most trifling scale. Revolution, when applied to a historical event, bears more significance than a dissolvable packet of chemicals. The denotation of the term revolution warrants discussion and clarification on its own. Trevor-Roper defines revolution as a challenge to the whole structure of society,¹ whilst Zagorin defines it as any attempt by subordinate groups using violence to bring about a change in government, its policy, in regime, or of society.² Gordon Wood declares that revolution is a change of social structure and political participation.³ Perhaps the best way to define the term is to denote revolution as an attempt to redefine the relationship between the government and its constituents, either by redistributing or forging a new conceptualization of power. In this sense, one might declare the American Revolution one of the most radical of all revolutions of the eighteenth century.

A review of preceding events and mindsets will aid in understanding how the American Revolution was radical. The court structure that originated in Renaissance was structured in a way that ensured it could yield a bloated, continuously inflating, and yet rigid bureaucracy under which the commoners lived in servitude.⁴ The court was comprised of various offices filled by those who could afford to buy the seat. A few wars were fought during the reign of King Phillip II, all of which caused economic strain upon the government. By filling offices through auction, the crown was able to alleviate the financial burden, and so the amount of offices proliferated exponentially, creating an influx of aristocrats who could exert legal and economic power over local commoners.⁵ By the time of the mid-seventeenth century crisis, the top-heavy political machine was cracking, but wars such as the Thirty Years’ War exasperated that which had previously been manageable.⁶ Because the crown’s plans to generate revenue greatly increased the economic burden placed upon the country, the country revolted against the crown. According to Trevor-Roper, the commoners led the revolts,⁷ but this is an unlikely case. The masses had little sway in government, if any, and no real resources with which to rebel against the crown, who had the military and legislature to defend themselves. The battle was not between court and country, but between Crown and Estate, the latter of which felt its power being drained by the crown. The masses were galvanized to revolt by the landowning gentry, not the reverse.⁸

The masses, by 1620, were infected with Puritanism; they despised the extravagance of the courts, as well as the Church of England and Catholicism. They sought simpler structures than those which pervaded government. Paternalism resurfaces in England, and with magnitude.⁹ For the English, paternalism was a natural order of things. Whether in private or public settings, the English were organised in family units, with a head and with ‘children.’ The latter were dependent upon the former, either in terms of patronage or biology.¹⁰ This relationship extended past the notion of actual, living things; nations and their colonies, too, were seen to be in a filial relationship, with the mainland nation as the father, and the colony as its child. Paternalism was much more than merely an outlook on life; it was a strict moral and social code to be upheld by all denizens of the planet. The colonists were to obey unquestioningly the demands of the monarch, as a child was a parent.¹¹ What, then, instigated the colonists’ rebellion? What characteristic of the English mindset allowed for the American Revolution to occur?

The American Revolution was the culmination of centuries of latent revolutionary thought. It was the child of years of increasing monarchial oppression, individualist spiritual theory, and philosophies deeming scientific and rational thought as the pinnacle and epitome of intellectual prowess. The Protestant Reformation changed the ideological landscape of the West in a way that still affects humanity today.¹² Though the Reformation may not be seen as revolutionary in itself, it carried with it revolutionary thought.¹³ The leaders of the Reformation sought a simpler, more individualist type of worship, to bring Man back to the cosmic equation. No longer could Man merely sit back and pray for God to save his soul. He must actively participate in it; he must exude holiness. No more were the rules of the world arbitrary. No more could one buy their way out of Hell. One must prepare their heart for the illumination offered by God, and to do so, one must not succumb to wanton desires nor extravagance. One must be rational, and persistent. One must live the life of a holy man to become one, not merely hope for it to become so, nor merely act holy on days of worship.

The Enlightenment, too, aided in the construction of the ideological framework in which the American Revolution came about. The Enlightenment did not allow for the irrational or arbitrary to govern mankind. No longer was it acceptable to merely follow the orders of those above one; one must understand why one’s superiors were superior. One must also understand one’s role in the world, as clearly as possible, and then live and perform one’s duty to the fullest.¹⁴ Additionally, during the Enlightenment, one argues against the cold, harsh parenting style paternalism allows. An Enlightenment parent must raise their child with compassion and kindness. They must appeal to reason rather than fear, and of the two, the English monarch appealed to the latter.

The American Revolution completely redefined the relationship between government and the masses, opening up new political possibilities that were impossible beneath the ancien regime. The revolution led to a groundbreaking shift in American society in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, yet without certain attitudes and psychologies, the revolution would have never occurred. Those who immigrated to America were primarily young men who sold themselves into indentured servitude or farming families from the northern counties of Britain or from Scotland.¹⁵ Of course, one must not ignore those escaping for religious reasons, such as Protestants abandoning an excessive and arbitrary court. With these settlers came ideas of reform, of latent rebellion, tucked away beneath veneers of the desire for something greater than what they had in motherland Britain. A few generations pass by, the British observe the colonies with salutary neglect, and the British on the fringe of the Empire grow increasingly clingier to what they perceive as the core values of their culture. Liberty, for example, becomes incredibly important to the Americans; equality in opportunity, too, evolves within their hearts.¹⁶ They have a functioning government of their own by this point in the late 1700s, their own way of handling things.¹⁷ The monarchy is no more than an absent father to the Americans, someone to whom they owe their existence, but not much else. The Americans are financially responsible, trading with faraway countries, even reaching the East. They are essentially an independent country, but wearing the uniform and waving the flag of another.

Britain, unlike America, was experiencing a potentially destabilizing economic crisis. The Thirty Years’ War has taken its toll upon the country’s finances, along with such wars as the War of Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War, both of the latter of which were fought on American soil. The crown was in need of revenue to pay off the debts these wars accrued. In order to increase revenue, Parliament decided that taxes would be raised for all subjects of the king on various products, so that the financial crisis could be solved swiftly and so that presumably, the debt would be felt on all edges rather than just a few. Perhaps had the British government not yielded to the subjects living on the mainland, and thus not revealed its arbitrary and awkward nature, Americans might not have felt obligated to rebel against the crown.¹⁸ However, the Americans, seeing that Britain favored those closer to its crown both politically and geographically, felt slighted by the crown, and neglected. As any child who feels wounded in this manner, the Americans revolted against the ancien regime, seeking with a vengeance the toppling of this excessive and arbitrary government, yearning to forge from its ashes a just and egalitarian government under which to live. And so the American Revolution occurred, was successful, and the republican government once again arose in the West.

The excessive ancien regime toppled over after growing too top-heavy for it to be effective. It was the tension between merit-based and inherited power that led to the escalation into a full-blown revolution. The Americans felt undeserving of the sudden influx of British presence in their lives after so long an absence. The system constructed over decades was effectively threatened by the insurgence of the crown, and the Americans were in no way pleased. What place does an absent father have in the lives of their children? What place does an aloof monarch have in the politics and social schemes of its largely independent colonies? None whatsoever, would answer the Americans. And so they fought for their right to exist as they had for centuries. They sought to be governed by someone they felt had earned the right, rather than by someone who merely said they had the position.

The ideals of both Reformation and Enlightenment coalesced into the perspective that the intelligent and able must do as they can to maintain liberty for themselves and those incapable of doing so for themselves. The increasingly oppressive and perceptibly arbitrary monarchy of the age was the spark that set aflame the match. It provided the friction necessary to urge men like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and George Washington into full-fledged revolt. The crown did not fit the characteristics understood to befit those of a just and proper leader, nor monarchy and its aloof and extravagant methods of rule a proper system of Enlightened or rational government. The liberal and egalitarian republic, which allowed for all men to be treated as equal, which provided the state of being in which all might ascend into rationality and enlightenment, was the most appropriate option. One can thus see a millenarian streak in the goals of the revolutionaries. They believed themselves capable of altering social and political structures centuries old, a radical notion if there ever was one.

Of course, just because the notion is radical does not necessarily render the event to be. How should one compare the American Revolution to other revolutions and deem it radical? If one goes merely by the violence adjoined to the popular opinion of revolution, the American Revolution seems entirely too tame to fit the category. It is not how violent the revolution is that determines how radical it is, but the character of the society after the revolution.¹⁹ For a revolution to truly be radical, one must determine whether the change the revolution sought to usher in actually occurred. The American patriots sought to eradicate the hierarchy set in place by the monarchy. In this it was successful; with the success of the revolution came more than merely an alleviation of the societal pressures instigated by paternalism and the inherited aristocracy. The American Revolution brought more than class warfare and redistribution; it brought the erasure of class.²⁰ Perhaps the most significant aspect of the patriots’ desired republic is that it never happened. At least, not in the manner they foresaw. The revolution did not only work, but – as one can understand by reviewing the desires outlined in the Founding Fathers’ manuscripts – it workedtoowell, dramatically surpassing the vision Jefferson and his comrades sought to realize.²¹ The sociopolitical ideologies of the American Revolution continued past the revolution itself, leading to the abolition of slavery through the Civil War, and arguably to the development of anarchist movements hundreds of years later. The political infrastructure of not only America, but the world itself changed as a result of the revolution. If that is not radical, what is?

1 H. R. Trevor-Roper, "Discussion of H. R. Trevor-Roper: “The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century.” VII." Past and Present 18, no. 1 (1960): 38.

2 Perez Zagorin, Rebels and Rulers, 1500-1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 17.

3 Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1992), 177.

4 H. R. Trevor-Roper, "The General Crisis of the 17th Century." Past and Present 16, no. 1 (1959): 39.

5 Trevor-Roper, General Crisis, 40-46.

6 Trevor-Roper, General Crisis, 34-35.

7 Trevor-Roper, General Crisis, 50-51.

8 Roland Mousnier, "Discussion of H. R. Trevor-Roper: “The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century.” IV." Past and Present 18, no. 1 (1960): 19-20.

9 Trevor-Roper, General Crisis, 49.

10 Wood, Radicalism, 44-45.

11 Wood, Radicalism, 50.

12 F. H. Hexter, "Discussion of H. R. Trevor-Roper: “The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century.” III." Past and Present 18, no. 1 (1960): 15.

13 Zagorin, Rebels, 141.

14 Wood, Radicalism, 189-192.

15 Bernard Bailyn, The Peopling of British North America: An Introduction. (New York: Knopf, 1986): 12-15.

16 Wood, Radicalism, 12-13.

17 Wood, Radicalism, 77-92.

18 Wood, Radicalism, 13.

19 Wood, Radicalism, 5.

20 Wood, Radicalism, 6.

21 Wood, Radicalism, 368-369.