The Radicalism of the American Revolution. by Gordon Wood a short review

 Wood, Gordon. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.

Historians of the American Revolution often view the Revolution against the British through the lenses of the French Revolution. A brief examination of the French Revolution reveals internal struggle, class conflict, peasant uprisings, and violence that bears similarities with many revolutionary struggles. The American Revolution appears conservative when compared to the violence seen in many Revolutions. Gordon Wood in his book, The Radicalism of the American Revolution disputes the idea that the American Revolution was a “conservative affair” centered primarily on politics and constitutional rights and “hardly a revolution at all.” (4) Wood contends that the AmericanRevolution was as “radical and social as any revolution in history, but it was radical and social in a very special eighteenth-century sense.” (5) The American Revolution not only changed the government but transformed the society. The Revolution moved the colonies from a world dominated by hierarchy, kinship, and patronage to a society of egalitarianism and democracy, expanding the growth of republican trends while undermining and eventually destroying traditional monarchial culture. The Revolution further prepared the path for a modern capitalist and liberal democratic society in the early nineteenth century.  The development of democratic culture transformed the United States into “the first society in the modern world to bring ordinary people into the affairs of government.” (243)

            Wood divides his book into three sections with each segment describing the process by which the Revolution transformed American culture and society. The book’s three sections, labeled “Monarchy,” Republicanism,” and “Democracy” illustrate the radical changes seen in American society resulting from the Revolution. In the first section, Wood sets the stage by describing the way the colonies reflected the hierarchy of Britain. While the English on both sides of the Atlantic took pride in their independence, most accepted the fact that not all were equal and that poverty produced virtue within the common people. Patterns of patriarchal patronage prevented true independence and held society together within “intricate networks of personal loyalties, obligations, and quasi-dependencies.” (57) The ability to exercise the power of patronage allowed the wielder to exercise considerable political authority.

            Within his second section, “Republicanism,” Wood further explores the flowering of republican thought and practice within the American states. The American Revolution destroyed many presuppositions of patriarchy and patronage and “brought to the surface the republican tendencies of American life.” (169) The adoption of republicanism removed the vestiges of the monarchy and created relationships built upon republican principles, transforming the society and culture.

            Within his final section, “Democracy,” Wood acknowledges that republican principles led to societal changes that the revolutionaries never intended. But the “Revolution was the source of its own contradictions,” therefore the direction the principles of the Revolution landed were beyond the control of the Founders. (230) At the heart of republicanism lay the idea of equality and all the consequences of egalitarianism. “Republican citizenship implied equality.” (233) Hamilton and other Federalists desired a society that transcended local and party concerns with representatives in power who possessed no occupations or business interests thereby freeing them to pursue the “common good of society.” (254) Yet personal and financial ambitions motivated citizens to pursue business opportunities to enrich themselves. The reality was there were few disinterested gentlemen available to serve the republic. The demands for legislator wages reflected the reality that few could serve as leisurely gentlemen. The engine which propelled the nation towards ever greater democracy was the foundation of republican ideology. Yet many revolutionaries faced disillusionment as the classical republic they envisioned transformed into an egalitarian Jacksonian democracy. The change toward greater democracy became inevitable as the societal changes within America “were driven by the same dynamic forces at work since the middle of the eighteenth century- population growth and movement and commercial expansion.” (308) The democratic social order was not the desire of the revolutionary leaders but the radical principles laid down by the Revolution eventually led to the movement that ended slavery, provided suffrage and a voice for women, and created an entrepreneurial industrial society of individuals chasing their own versions of freedom.

            Wood provides a insightful critique into the development of republican and democracy within the young United States. His explanation for the radical changes within the culture and society ring true as one surveys the early history of the republic. While Wood does acknowledge regional differences, it does appear that more explanation of the working out of these differences between the regions would offer more perspective. Wood hints that the Southern states help onto hierarchical attitudes longer than the Northern states. This is a small matter but worthy of further discussion. On the whole, The Radicalism of the American Revolution is a remarkable book.

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.