The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992. Reviewed by James Booker At the turn of the twentieth century progressive historians denounced that the American Revolution was fought over ideas. They unknowingly advanced the Tories version of events, according to Bernard Bailyn. For instance, the idea of personal gain was promulgated. These progressive historians had great influence until the 1950s. But it was not until the publication of Bailyn’s book in 1967 – The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution – that set the record straight. By studying and referencing over four hundred pamphlets, it became clear that the war for independence had a clear ideological core. And Bailyn’s book is largely based on those pamphlets. Pamphlets were the major way to convey ideas; debate issues, and refine nuances. The pamphlet wars was not new to the colonists; they inherited that tradition from Britain – especially during the English Civil War (1642-1651). Contained in the pamphlets ranged from sermons, to poems, and to political debates. The pamphlet wars revealed three parts of the Revolution: pre-Revolution (1763-1776), after the war started with each state setting up its own constitutions (1776-), and in (1787-1788) the restructuring of state constitutions and establishing a new Constitution. The central focus contained in the pamphlet wars were colonists’ Rights, in light of the British constitution. The British Constitution was the culmination of law ad tradition over many years. It was the envy of the world. British subjects were the freest people in the world at that time. Thus, liberty was connected to it. Moreover, the British Constitution reflected a three level social order: the royalty, the nobility, and the commoners. It was a “mixed” and well balanced constitution. To tinker with the balance of power was to tip the scales of power; threating the liberty of all. Based on this understanding, and others, the colonist saw the British constitution out of balance when Parliament began to interfere with their internal affairs. The pamphlets – along with newspapers, sermons, speeches, and letters – reflected a plethora, and in-depth knowledge of the colonists’ rich cultural heritage and historical literacy. They knew their history. Greek and Roman ideas dripped off the pages. Constitutional issues were debated by laymen. The colonist were proud of being British subjects. They clung to the common law. The ideas of justice and liberty possessed their thinking. Puritan covenant theology helped frame their consciences. There were many intellectual strands that came together to form a clear opposition. Above all, it was the English Civil War that shaped the colonists constitutional understanding, John Locke’s treaties on government, and John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon’s letters, called: Cato’s letters. One major feature Bailyn accomplished, sometimes slight other times obvious, are shifts on the issues. For instance, from 1763 to 1776 (before the publication of Thomas Paine’s book Common Sense) much of the debate focused on Rights within a British Constitutional construct. Of course, the colonist understood Locke’s ideas of Rights being in nature, but once in a civil society laws were constructed to protect certain natural Rights. Therefore, the colonist looked to the British Constitution to establish their Rights as British subjects. But Pain changed this paradigm. He gave the colonist another view of the constitution and liberty. Bailyn’s book is replete with these types of changes and nuances – that untimely carried the debate over issues of liberty, constitutionalism, and Rights to a new level. That eventually culminated to the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1788. One interesting point Bailyn addressed is the issue of social norms. He adamantly rejects the notion that the Founders and most of the founding generation wanted to change societies’ social structure. For the most part, they fought on legal grounds. Constitutionalism is the central key to understanding the minds of the colonists, as established above. They did not set out to change societal norms, however, society was changed none the less. Bailyn is a scholar. And because he is, sometimes he is difficult to follow – although it had a chronological and natural flow. Since it appears he did not use a lot of transitional words, his thoughts kind of flowed into the next – but this is just my opinion. Over all, this was a superb book. Bailyn showed both sides of each debate: whether they were Patriots and Tories or the Federalist and Anti-federalist. He seemed to leave no stone unturned. It ought to be required reading for all undergraduate and graduate American history courses. It should be a classic.

Research on a previous project provided Bernard Bailyn an intellectual treasure trove of over 400 pamphlets, written between 1763 and 1776, from which he crafted his Bancroft and Pulitzer Prize-winning The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992). This work, first published in 1967, remains a standard volume for students of early American studies at all university levels. Bailyn crafted a pointed examination of thoughts of American colonial leaders that culminated into the Revolution. Not only is his analysis wide-ranging, but it explores the depth and fallaciousness of eighteenth-century American revolutionary rationale with force and clarity. Bailyn lays out the basic argument in the book's sixth sentence: "The ideology of the Revolution, derived from many sources, was dominated by a peculiar strand of British political thought" (v). Around this central thought, Bailyn details the convergence of thought that formed the colonists' case for a break from the British empire; he explains the change over time in American thinking on long-held political views; he highlights contemporary issues, i.e. chattel slavery and established religion, that gained argumentative force from the colonials' complaints against the British Parliament; and he illustrates the difficulties that Revolutionary thinking posed for participants of the Constitutional Convention who sought to replace British authority with a central American government. The first part of the book describes the vehicle, voice, and ideological basis of the Revolution. The leaders of the Revolution propagated their thoughts through newspapers, broadsides, and almanacs. The primary writing form of the Revolution, however, was the pamphlet, which allowed polemicists of all different vocations to broaden the political debate. The American revolutionary pamphlets, though a "distinctive literature of the Revolution," had roots in seventeenth-century American sermon publishing and early eighteenth-century English polemical pamphleteering techniques. The Revolutionary crisis did not originate during the crisis period from 1763 to 1776. Elements of the discourse had been long present in the colonies, but the post-1763 turmoil fused the ideas into "a comprehensive view, unique in its moral and intellectual appeal" (22). Bailyn nods to the intellectual influences on colonial leaders from quotations of classical writers, a rather superficial knowledge of the Enlightenment, citations of English common law, and the covenant theology of New England Puritanism. One of Bailyn's significant contributions to the present thinking on eighteenth-century American revolutionary thought is his understanding that "the ultimate origins of the this distinctive ideological strain lay in the radical social and political thought of the English Civil War and of the Commonwealth period" (34). He identifies early eighteenth-century English radical writers, such as John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, as shaping the mind of the American Revolutionary generation more than any other single group. Change in America did not begin to happen only with the Revolution; it began a century before and progressed slowly. Bailyn constructs an intellectual chronology of Revolutionary thought that consists of three phases, beginning with the years of Anglo-American struggle before 1776, the execution of state constitutions from 1776 through the 1780s, and the crafting and ratifying of a national constitution. The final section of the book exquisitely displays the difficulties encountered by participants at the Constitution Convention to form a federal system of government in the wake of the force of argument put forth at the Continental Congress against the encroaching powers of a central government. Bailyn's discussions of imperium in imperio bookend with sheer mastery his understanding of the entangling intellectual obstacles which American colonists laboriously yet successfully maneuvered to produce the Revolution and the Constitution. Throughout the Revolutionary period corruption served as the greatest threat to liberty, and, according the federalist view, a constitution establishing a government endowed with the separation of powers would ensure the existence of virtue, the necessary attribute for the sustenance of liberty within a republic. One area of frustration throughout the book is the use of terms like "corruption" and "virtue" that portrays an almost given denotation of such enigmatic expressions. A true gem within the book is Bailyn's demonstration that the colonial leaders could not contain revolutionary fervor. Opponents of chattel slavery in America and proponents of religious disestablishment used the American leaders' own arguments for freedom from the British Parliament and taxation without representation to assail the continuation of the slave trade and ecclesiastical taxation against religious dissenters. Bailyn's The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution is nothing less than a most persuasive, brilliantly crafted work that will influence the way Americans think about the Revolution for years to come.

I would recommend this book to anyone - most probably a scholar like me - who wants and needs to understando the USA today. It's brillant.

Amazing work going very deep in the reasons and background of the American Revolution. Good book if you are interested in American History or liberism thinking. Someting I would have appreciated a bit more accesibility to the contect. Not recommended if you are looking for an "easy" read.