The American Revolution Was Exceptional

We look at four different aspects of four different revolutions (American, French, Chinese, Russian) to learn what makes the American Revolution exceptional.  

Transcript

The American Revolution was Exceptional

June 2024

“The Second day of July 1776 (later moved to the fourth), will be the most memorable Epocha in the History of America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated by succeeding Generations as a great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”

John Adams

'Cause finally, the tables are starting to turn

Talkin' 'bout a revolution

'Cause finally the tables are starting to turn

Talkin' 'bout a revolution, oh no

Tracy Chapman

In this piece, I will discuss the American Revolution in contrast with other subsequent Revolutions, including the French of 1789, the Chinese of 1911, the Russian of 1917, and another Chinese Revolution that Mao led in 1949.  There are four areas of this podcast on which I am going to focus:

1. The type of leaders who took on the reins of the Revolution and formed the Government and the stakes for the participants.
2. Philosophy is the ideas that drove the underpinnings of the revolutions and those embraced by the leaders. One of those concepts was an abiding fear of state power.
3. The nature of the states where these revolutions began and how those ideas permeated those states.  
4. The concept of nations vs ideas 

First off, a definition. Because the word Revolution like other words in today’s political lexicon, such as resistance or democracy, is bent to serve a political, momentary interest, let’s be clear on on this definition: a forcible overthrow of a government or social order in favor of a new system. And yet, we do not talk of a Roman Revolution when Augustus took power or a German one at the advent of Hitler. Augustus cloaked himself as a continuation of the Republic, and Hitler, through several dirty and violent tactics, was formerly appointed as Chancellor.  The operative word here is forcible and all these revolutions. 

What compels a revolution is the desire to want to reorder a government or an entire society.  Our previous podcasts explored the primary motivation, liberty in terms of person and Government, that drove the American Revolution.  In the case of the French, it was poverty and the ineffectual nature of the monarchy.  For the first Chinese, it was similar, and for Mao, it was to impose his vision.  For the Russians, for all of their proclamations about Marxism, it was later to be revealed that naked power was the motivation.

“When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose,” Bob Dylan. The Types of Leaders

“Without Thomas Jefferson and his Declaration of Independence, there would have been no American Revolution that announced universal principles of liberty. Without his participation by the side of the unforgettable Marquis de Lafayette, there would have been no French proclamation of The Rights of Man. Without his brilliant negotiation of the Louisiana Treaty, there would be no United States of America. Without Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, there would have been no Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, and no basis for the most precious clause of our most prized element of our imperishable Bill of Rights - the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.” States Christopher Hitchens.

In 2022, I began a podcast called the “Four Revolutions,” a comparison of the American, French, Chinese, and Russian, with the following.  Christopher Hitchens, the writer and man of letters, stated that the American Revolution was the “only revolution that still resonates.” Hitchens was once a socialist but increasingly became a supporter of the American Republic over the course of his career.  After criticizing other aspects of British colonialism, Hitchens stated, “The transformation of part of the northern part of this continent into “America” inaugurated an early boundless epoch of opportunity and innovation, and thus deserves to be celebrated with great vim and gusto.”

Our Revolution spurred the others. As Becky Little notes, “The American Revolutionary War from 1775 to 1783 was not an isolated incident. Rather, the war was the first in a series of European and American revolutions that lasted into the mid-19th century. The revolutions in the Americas were largely about breaking free from European colonial rule. In Haiti, where 90 percent of the population were slaves on the eve of its revolution, the war for independence was specifically about abolishing slavery along with European colonial rule. In Europe, some of the revolutions concerned breaking away from larger empires. However, many, like the French Revolution, were internal movements that sought to overthrow monarchies.”

What Little does not note is the concept of replacement.  In almost every case in South America, Spanish and Portuguese colonial rule was supplanted by faux republics ruled by strong men or generalissimos, an outcome to be repeated in Africa in the 2nd half of the 20th century.   Certainly, the American Founders wished to exercise power, but many were already powerful men.  Certainly, they wished to create their Government, but they were very wary of too much authority in a single pair of hands.  One of the critical differences between the American and the other revolutions was the stakes for the leaders.  In the French, Chinese, and Russians, the leaders were mostly educated middle-class radicals, all on the outside of real power looking in.  

Maximillian Robespierre was a rising lawyer but not a national figure. It was the Revolution that made his career.  Both Lenin, leader of the Russian Revolution, and Sun Yat Sen spent considerable time in exile after failed coup attempts.  In the case of these figures, only a successful revolution would make their careers.  The only alternatives were obscurity and death.  Washington, Jefferson, and Madison were all prominent Virginian landowners.  John Adams was famous for his defense of British soldiers in the Boston Massacre affair.  Charles Carroll of Maryland was reputed to directly own a 10th of the state of Maryland.  Nathanial Greene, the owner of a foundry.  

In other words, unlike Robespierre, Sun Yat Sen, or Vladimir Lenin, all of these Americans had a tremendous amount to lose.  When Benjamin Franklin said, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” 

In contrast to the Russian and Chinese, the American Revolution was not perpetuated by exiles and desperate men but rather by existing leaders within the system. The American Revolution was more the barons in 1215 demanding the Magna Carta rather than the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381. By signing the Constitution, all of the founders, from Adams to Franklin, another successful business person to Jefferson and Washington, were essentially signing their death warrants were they to be captured by the British. And no American founder spent as much time near the British military as George Washington did.  

And finally, we get to Washington.  This brings us to the great person thesis, and in this, the character of a single individual, George Washington, stands out. In a piece written in 2019, George Will cites historian Rick Atkinson’s The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777, “One lesson of “The British Are Coming” is the history-shaping power of individuals exercising their agency together: the volition of those who shouldered muskets in opposition to an empire. Another lesson is that the democratic, sentimental idea that cobblers and seamstresses are as much history-makers as generals and politicians is false. A few individuals matter much more than most. Atkinson is clear: No George Washington, no United States.”

I would agree that Washington’s role cannot be understated. His pose as a reluctant patriot was a little forced. In the mini-series John Adams, Benjamin Franklin wryly notes that Washington, and Washington alone, showed up at the Continental Congress wearing a military uniform. But this is not to belittle what Washington was actually doing. He was a very wealthy landowner (through an opportune marriage to Martha Custis) and a competent business person, nearly alone among his Virginian planter contemporaries. I have been to his plantation at Mount Vernon and see that his pose of reluctance to leave such a place was no fiction.  It is gorgeous with its panoramic view of the Potomac.  Washington brought four incredible gifts to the young Republic.  The first was as the stalwart leader in the war at the Continental Convention, which would have probably failed without his presence conferring instant legitimacy, and as the first president.  

The second is that as the first president of a continental-sized Republic, he was not making history with every decision for the United States; he was doing what no one else in history had ever done.  In hindsight, he got so much right, from statecraft to the economy to Congress, that he set the best precedents.  

Third was his incredible decision, almost alone in history, to voluntarily abdicate power.  There are names in history, such as Diocletian and Charles V Habsburg, who gave up control.  But I can count them on one hand.  I would need a hundred hands to name those who did not, and that would include Robespierre, Lenin, and Mao.  

And fourth, we, the American people, got lucky with Washington.  Luckily, he did not have sons who would have formed the nucleus for those with monarchy on the brain, and he was fortunate that he died three years after leaving the presidency.  There are a host of historical figures ranging from Edward III of England to our own Rudy Guiliani, whose untimely demise would have enabled the ruination of their legacies in their dotage. Indeed, after the Adams administration, there would have been a clamor for Washington to reassume power in 1800. Still, he had exited the stage with as much dignity as possible for a historical figure to display.     

Fear of the State

 “Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.” 

“But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted; we could not submit. 

“The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse. 

Quotes from James Madison

Unlike the other Revolutions, there was an abiding respect for the rule of law. Founder James Wilson, former Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and free speech advocate noted, “Without liberty, law loses its nature and name and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name and becomes licentiousness.” 

The very grievances within the declaration for the monarch were really about arbitrary power.  So, when the founders went to work on the Constitution, this permeated the work.  There was a very healthy fear of governmental power on the part of our founders.  The French, Chinese, and Russian Revolutions were highly comfortable with replacing the arbitrary, unchecked power of the Bourbon, Qing, and Romanov rulers with arbitrary, uncontrolled power of their own. They may have used Democratic or Republican titles or cloaked themselves in offices such as President or General Secretary, but they were as royal as the Bourbons.  The point of George Orwell’s Animal Farm is not that Napoleon the Pig, who ousts humans, is setting up a real Republic.  Lenin did not overthrow Kerensky and later executed the Romanovs to then limit his authority with constitutional bindings. Though he would not have seen it that way, he wanted to be the Tsar, just like the ruler of Russia today. 

Although the implementation and justifications for using power varied across the three nations, this concept drove all. The American Revolution was not just rulership by the people but even a wariness of the people themselves, hence the creation of a system of Government of separation of powers and checks and balances. In the other three, the ends justify the means. In the case of Lenin, he was the steward of the people and claimed that as legitimacy to do whatever he wanted.  

Only during the Chinese Revolution did Sun Yat Sen leave power, but in his case, he was quickly replaced by another, Chaing Kai Shek, who wielded that power. Later, in 1949, Mao assumed all of the powers of the previous Imperialists in all but name.  Lenin died in his bed, still in power.  From Danton to Robespierre, all of the principal French Revolutions were murdered.  Power is not a means; it is an end. “One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship,” states Orwell.  He was right about the vast number of Revolutions but wrong about our own.

It should be noted that all the founders, ranging from Adams to Franklin to Madison, died in their beds.  Well, not all; how could I forget Hamilton? But if the man had a little more forbearance and less arrogance, he would probably have followed the others to a peaceful end. 

Philosophy

The Enlightenment philosophers manifested their beliefs in the American Revolution through a fundamental distrust of Government and the use of religious morality in its place. In both cases, the decisions necessary to pursue happiness and curb desires to act with malevolence against their fellow man emanated not from the state but from the individual. 

Locke's landmark, Two Treatises of Government, put forth his revolutionary ideas concerning the natural rights of man and the social contract. Both concepts stirred waves in England and impacted the intellectual underpinnings that formed the later American and French revolutions. Locke said that these fundamental natural rights are "life, liberty, and property." Locke believed that the most basic human law of nature is the preservation of humanity. To serve that purpose, he reasoned, individuals have both a right and a duty to preserve their own lives. If these seem familiar, they are direct ancestors of Jefferson’s writing in the Declaration of Independence. The second of Locke’s beliefs was the social contract. This theory says the Government was created through the people's consent to be ruled by the majority “(unless they explicitly agree on some number greater than the majority).” 

“So that, in effect, religion, which should most distinguish us from beasts, and ought most peculiarly to elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts themselves,” states Locke

Contrast this with Jean Jacques Rosseau, the father of communist thinking. “The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, miseries, and horrors would the human race have been spared had someone pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: “Do not listen to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!”

Then, there were Marx and Engels, the progenitors of Socialism and communism. As George F Will notes, “Socialism is the Big Lie of the Twentieth century. While it promised prosperity, equality, and security, it delivered poverty, misery, and tyranny. Equality was achieved only because everyone was equal in their misery. In the same way that a Ponzi scheme or chain letter initially succeeds but eventually collapses, Socialism may show early signs of success. However, any accomplishments quickly fade as the fundamental deficiencies of central planning emerge. An initial illusion of success gives Government intervention its pernicious, seductive appeal. In the long run, Socialism has always proven to be a formula for tyranny and misery.”

Sean Busik, writing for the Imaginative Conservative, has a different take; experience was “the best oracle of wisdom” and “the least fallible guide of human opinions,” wrote Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist. James Madison, his collaborator, concurred. The experience was “the oracle of truth” and “the guide that ought always to be followed whenever it can be found,” wrote Madison.  Experience would help prevent reason from leading them astray.

The French, on the other hand, deified Reason above not only experience but also above religion and divine revelation. Indeed, they even transformed Notre Dame into a Temple of Reason and held pseudo-religious festivals in honor of this new deity. Reason, unrestrained and unguided by history and experience, proved unable to establish a stable Government or to secure liberty in France. Instead, it led them to descend into the Terror, the reign of Napoleon, and, ultimately, to the restoration of the monarchy.

The Idea vs. Nationality

Another unique concept of the American Revolution is that, given the nation's newness, it was divorced from the overweening nationalism prevalent in the other three. As Montesquieu notes, “If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman...because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I, French.”

This is not to say that the founders did not love their nation, nor should we forbear that sentiment, but rather that the idea of the American ideal comes first. It is missing from the nationalist sentiments we see in many political corners today. It is more important to love the ideals that make up America, such as individual liberty, free enterprise, and moral decency, than to love our nation where these ideals are lacking. It is not America that we love, but rather the idea of America.  

Again, contrast those principles that make up the concept of America against this from Lenin: “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” He was not speaking figuratively.  

Former President Barack Obama once stated in 2009, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as the Brits believe in British exceptionalism, and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism..."For which he was castigated by many, including myself.  But I also thought his following comments were insightful, and though he said them, he missed their meaning, “And if you think of our current situation, the United States remains the largest economy in the world. We have an unmatched military capability. And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional.

In this last piece, Obama frames all of the values that he misses in his original point.  British are exceptional in being brits, as opposed to being Greeks.  But that is still nationality.  The United States is exceptional not because of where we live or where we came from but rather because of what we believe.  The French, Chinese, and Russians all once believed in Monarchy and replaced it with something resembling the monarchies they had destroyed.  Even today, the Russians and Chinese cannot escape being Russian and Chinese.  Putin and Xi are not exceptional but historical.  

America is exceptional because we replaced our British monarchy with something very different, something that was very different in 1776 and 1787. It is the idea of the Revolution that made our revolution and our country exceptional today.