The Purpose of the American Revolution

We explore what is, and what is not, the purpose of the American Revolution.  We hear from Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. 

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The Purpose of the American Revolution

June 2024

“They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power.”

Patrick Henry

“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 show the whole world that a Freeman contending for Liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.”

George Washington

“Our properties within our own territories [should not] be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.”

Thomas Jefferson

“Taxation without representation is tyranny.”

James Otis

In many regards, Twitter (I cannot seem to follow Elon’s lead and call it X) is interesting.  And I mean that in the nature of the old Chinese proverb that said may you live in interesting times, which was meant a curse, not a blessing.  Much of it is an echo chamber affirming one’s belief the same way that older Republicans soak up Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.  There are brief, shining moments where I engage in compelling discourse with a person who does not agree with me, and I come away having learned something new, perhaps even having changed my mind.  And then there are those especially odd moments when you encounter a pseudo-celebrity.  In my case, it was a Twitter stream with the producer of one of my three great bête noires.  The first would be Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.  Zinn was described with unerring accuracy by George Leef as “a lousy historian but a superb propagandist.” Leef added, “Zinn admired Stalin and Mao. An early practitioner of false moral equivalence, he cast their policies as no worse than those of the U.S. He also grasped that there was a load of money to be made selling anti-Americanism.” 

The second is Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen, another revisionist work that essentially says our historical curriculum omits all the nasty parts.  I was teaching history classes in East Central Wisconsin on slavery and Jim Crow 10 years before Loewen’s book came out, but what is that fact against the use of rhetoric to sell books? 

The third is The 1619 Project.  It was one of those moments when I was castigating this very work and who should push back on my comments but Nicole Hannah Jones, the editor of the Project, herself.  Or at least it was her account.  It would not surprise me that someone of Hannah Jones’ prominence and demeanor would staff out the responses to any negativity in social media.  My comments were that the 1619 Project was both inaccurate and, in their provocative and sensational comments, a money-making grift.  It was this latter comment that Hannah Jones (or her surrogate) took umbrage, especially since the school curriculum is free.  

Through books, a Hulu documentary, and personal speaking fees to Hannah Jones that total over $1 million, serious money has been made off the Project.  My “grift” comment emanates from claims within the Project, such as its goal of “reframing history” and dedicating a new “True Founding.” I can contend with these assertions, but later, Hannah Jones noted that “they were journalists, not historians.”  And the True Founding comment was “metaphorical.” Oh. Well, never mind then. 

Other divisive comments were made, such as the equation of the Southern Plantation system with capitalism and that our entire way of life, all American prosperity emanated from slave labor.  And finally, our whole cultural basis comes from African Americans.  Again, years ago, I taught that African Americans created the basis for almost all the music of today, from Jazz to rock and roll to even country.  But everything? There are no contributions from Native Americans, English, Germans, Irish, Italians, Romanians, Mexicans, Cubans, or Puerto Ricans? No specific contributions from Jewish or Arab Americans? It would have been noteworthy if the project had highlighted the many incredible variances of black contributions. Still, without the controversy, the hyperbole, the over-the-top contentions, and the obnoxious rhetoric, it would not have led to the kind of fame that the Project and its editor now command.  Hannah Jones might have taken a place as a respected, left-wing scholar such as John McWhorter.  But, at least to my knowledge, McWhorter does not command $30,000 for a Zoom chat from Northern Illinois University, as does Hannah Jones.  With fame comes money.  

Anyone can write suggestive things, but what is also vexing is the backing off of the comments after the fame has been accrued. The term bait and switch comes to mind.  

I have already mentioned several concepts to contend with, but one of the most onerous is the point of the American Revolution.  “Conveniently left out of our founding mythology is the fact that one of the primary reasons some of the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery.” Contends Hannah Jones.  Note the sly “some” term in the phrase, wiggle room anyone?  Jones wants this to be the point, like the re-reframed history and the metaphorical true founding.  Our Revolution was sullied, and therefore, all that we are is as well.  

Of this contention, James Bovard notes, “The 1619 Project’s most harebrained idea is that the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery. Slavery was barbaric, especially in the more southern states. But there was little slavery in the northern colonies, and they would not have risked their lives for its preservation.”

Bovard goes on to note, “Slavery did help spark the revolution, but it was “slavery by Parliament” — a common derisive phrase in founding-era America. The Declaratory Act of 1766 announced that Parliament “had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever.” 

Northwestern Professor of History Leslie Harris writes, “I vigorously disputed the claim. Although slavery was certainly an issue in the American Revolution, the protection of slavery was not one of the main reasons the 13 Colonies went to war… The United States was not, in fact, founded to protect slavery.” 

I can provide a series of arguments with the Project, including the use of slaves by the British in their West Indian colonies for a generation after the Revolution.  Britain did not end the slave trade until 35 years later.  However, there were members of Parliament who noted the colonist’s use of slavery.  There were also Americans, such as Benjamin Franklin, who opposed slavery and members of Parliament who had little issue with it.  

As Sean Wilentz of Princeton notes, “The colonists had themselves taken decisive steps to end the Atlantic slave trade from 1769 to 1774. During that time, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Rhode Island either outlawed the trade or imposed prohibitive duties on it. Measures to abolish the trade also won approval in Massachusetts, Delaware, New York, and Virginia but were denied by royal officials.”

Dan McGlaughn writes, “In fact, at the time, there was more opposition in the American colonies to the slave trade than there was in Britain, which did not ban it until 1807 (the same year it was banned by Congress). Hannah-Jones centers her colonial narrative almost entirely on Virginia, but it escapes her notice that Virginia banned the transatlantic slave trade by statute in 1778, in a bill signed and probably authored by Virginia governor Thomas Jefferson (the same man who signed the federal ban in 1807). It makes no sense whatsoever to say that Americans revolted against something the British were not prepared to do, then did it themselves once British opposition had been removed.

I contend that Hannah Jones sees her history through a particular, uni-causal prism. Almost every great historical event is multi causal but in our case it began with something fairly prominent, money.  Wars are expensive (aren’t you glad you tuned in for that incredible revelation?” The debts incurred from fighting the French in the Seven Years War led Britain to want to get the colonies to pay for King and Parliament believed were in the colony’s best interests, protection.  The fact that the French were largely ejected, and the colonists now outnumbered the native Americans seems to have been lost.  Nevertheless, from the end of the Seven Years War in 1763 to the actual revolt in 1775, a series of Parliamentary acts taxed everything from stamps to tea and confiscated colonist property were enacted for a cash-strapped London government.  

And it was not just taxes or goods.  Britain prohibited Americans from erecting any mill for rolling or slitting iron; British statesman William Pitt exclaimed, “It is forbidden to make even a nail for a horseshoe.” The Declaration of Independence denounced King George for “cutting off our trade with all parts of the world.”

Vermont patriots marched in 1775 against the British Army under a flag depicting a pine tree — a symbol of British tyranny. Because pine was an excellent material for building ships, Parliament banned cutting down any white pine trees, claiming them all for the British crown without compensation. Historian Jonathan Sewall, writing in 1846, claimed the conflict with Britain “began in the forests of Maine in the contests of her lumbermen with the King’s surveyor, as to the right to cut, and the property in white pine trees.” 

And it was not even the conception of taxation that brought the ire of the colonists but that they, as Otis noted in our opening quotes section, without representation.  There was an arbitrariness to the taxation scheme that especially infuriated them.  

Today we remember the most famous line of the Declaration, one of the most famous lines in all of history, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…” And yet though prominently inserted by Jefferson, this was not the primary point of the Declaration, at least not initially.  

The Declaration also stated: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

The Declaration goes on to list a plethora of grievances, of which I have selected a few:

He (the King) has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

Jefferson wrote, “In every stage of these Oppressions, We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

Later, Thomas Pain wrote, “Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.” 

As Gordon S. Wood has observed, when the Declaration was issued, the critical part was the conclusion: the break with England. Only later did the beginning “all men are created equal” take on philosophical and metaphysical significance. “Certainly, no one initially saw the Declaration as a classic statement of political principles,” Wood writes. “Only in the 1790s, with the emergence of the bitter partisan politics between the Federalists and the Jefferson-led Republicans, did the Declaration begin to be celebrated as a great founding document.  And that celebration evolved into sacredness.”

Later, Lincoln took up the concept to form the basis for his Gettysburg Address. This is why Lincoln used the Declaration and not the Constitution as his basis for a “New Birth of Freedom.” The Revolution had come nearly full circle. For obvious reasons, Lincoln wanted to downplay the “break” part and emphasize the humanitarian rights.  

Paine adds, “To see it in our power to make a world happy — to teach mankind the art of being so — to exhibit, on the theatre of the universe, a character hitherto unknown — and to have, as it were, a new creation entrusted to our hands, are honors that command reflection, and can neither be too highly estimated, nor too gratefully received.”

After three decades of commercial and scholarly work, I have noted a certain ossification in my thinking.  I have reversed myself on many issues over my time, from college (used to preach its benefits) to, most recently, a reversal on abortion.  I understand the pro-choice argumentation from a libertarian point of view. Still, after becoming a father and seeing the pre-birth photos, I can no longer reconcile that view with the life of the baby, to me, a living human. But I digress, and my latest change, which was affected just a few weeks ago, is Juneteenth.  

When Juneteenth was created as a national holiday, I thought its inception was in response to the fever affecting the nation in the wake of the George Floyd riots. After all, we have a national Independence Day, and a country needs to universally acknowledge totems, not ones for this group and another for that one.  If African Americans have their own holiday, do we now need one for Mexicans, Asians, and Native Americans? I now think I missed the point. 

In 2021, Jonah Goldberg argued about this newest national holiday. First, he quickly distinguishes between our Independence Day and Juneteenth. If you honestly think that Juneteenth will supplant the Fourth of July as “Independence Day,” I have good news: You’re wrong. People will call Juneteenth … “Juneteenth.”

Later, Goldberg wrote, “Here’s why Juneteenth is a great American holiday: Slavery was very bad… Some take these facts and then imply that the American obsession with slavery is excessive. I think that’s sometimes true. But it also misses a hugely important point: America is different. Slavery in America was different because America is different. America was founded on principles of universal human equality and dignity. China wasn’t. Germany wasn’t. No other country was. And this began with our Revolution. Our Independence began with the concept of liberty and protection of rights and evolved into the protection of rights for all Americans.” 

My distinction today is that Independence Day is the creation of our nation and the inception of the pursuit of these rights; Juneteenth, unlike any other holiday, including Memorial Day or Thanksgiving, is the historical affirmation of those rights.  

In this regard, the two tracks of our Revolution come together.  The Revolution began as an assertion of the people’s right to be governed, not by monarchy but by the people.  Statements were made during the creation of that Revolution, and the concept of natural rights above and beyond that initially sought in the Revolution was captured.  Those rights were not initially secured for all.  Some might argue today that they are still not.  If that is truly the case, and the absence of those rights needs to be secured, that is the point of the American Revolution.