The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution By Bernard Bailyn: A Short Review.

 Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967.

 

The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for History. His book remains one of the most influential books regarding the causes of the American Revolution. The following is a short review on this important book.

Pamphlets were one of the most common forms of political expression and communication during the years leading up to the American Revolution. The pamphlet allowed American writers during the eighteenth century to develop arguments in a cost-efficient manner. In his now classic work, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, historian Bernard Bailyn examines the American political pamphlet writing between 1760 and 1776. Bailyn contends that an analysis of pamphlets demonstrates that the American Revolution was primarily “an ideological, constitutional, political struggle” as opposed to a struggle between “social groups undertaken to force changes in the organization of the society or the economy.” (vi)  

More than 400 pamphlets were published but few provide any hint of any issues involving social or economic change. Most historians assume that the writings of the Enlightenment rationalists provided the primary inspiration for shaping the thoughts and ideas of the Revolutionary generation. Bailyn acknowledges the colonial writers quoted generously from Enlightenment critics such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and Beccaria yet the knowledge reflected often proves to be “superficial.” (28) After an examination of the pamphlets, Bailyn discovered another intellectual tradition empowered the writers of the Revolution. ‘The radical social and political thought of the English Civil War and of the Commonwealth period” provided an intellectual framework that informed the writings of the colonial pamphleteers (34). Late seventeenth and early eighteenth writers of the country party united in opposition to the court and ministerial corruption encouraged colonial Americans to reexamine the American relationship with Parliament.

The pamphleteers freely quoted and plagiarized Whig writings found in Cato’s Letters and The Independent Whig. The ideas of natural rights, contractual basis of society and government, along with the exceptional model of the English ‘liberty-preserving “mixed” constitution,’ poured forth from the English Whig writers into American minds. (45) Bailyn contends that these ideas served as an “intellectual switchboard” activating a “set of signals” within the actions of the colonists. (22) Whig influence and ideology contributed to American suspicion and mistrust of British missteps as efforts to sabotage the colonists’ liberty. Americans increasingly began to suspect that British government actions “would be the destruction of the English constitution, with all the rights and privileges embedded in it.” (95)

After 1763, the colonists remained convinced that they faced a conspiracy against liberty. This suspicion fueled the actions of the colonists and drove them towards Revolution. The passage of the 1765 Stamp Act reinforced the idea of conspiracy in the minds of Americans. Even small amounts of taxation caused great concern as the colonists remained convinced that the British government was setting the stage for unlimited and unconstitutional taxation by setting a precedent. Colonists believed that the independence of the judiciary was under threat as colonial judges were refused a lifetime appointment unlike their English counterparts. The treatment of journalist John Wilkes and the continued refusal to allow his seating in parliament also spurred suspicion and convinced colonists that their liberties remained in danger.

As the struggle between the colonies and England intensified, Americans began to rethink the nature of their constitutions and rights. In 1776, eight states drafted and adopted constitutions. Institutions such as slavery and church establishment began to be seen in a new light as Americans challenged the status quo between themselves and England. Bailyn skillfully demonstrates how suspicions learned from Whig writings over power and corruption led to attacks on the British government leading to a need for Americans to build a new form of governance.