Genesis and Meaning
The American Revolution.

By Thomas Wendel, from the July 23, 1976, issue of National Review
June 30 - July 1, 2001

he American Revolution, John Adams believed, "was effected before the war commenced: the Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people." Adams traced "the radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people" back to the early 1760s when Parliament, under the leadership of George Grenville, promulgated a New Imperial Policy. The newness of the policy consisted in parliament's applying to the colonies as a whole policies that theretofore had been applied only sporadically and locally. In so doing, Parliament brought to fruition that which it most feared and that which the colonies would never have achieved by themselves: an intercolonial bond of union in opposition to its policies.

John Adams, as he looked back on the events in which he had played a leading role, did not suggest that a change of sentiments necessarily entailed the creation of independent states within a federal union. The direction of American history up to the Revolutionary 1760s had been, in fact, toward dominion status for the English continental colonies. It was only in 1766, when Parliament declared its supremacy over the colonial legislatures "in all cases whatsoever," that England began attempting to thwart the colonies' inexorable thrust toward autonomy. For them to have achieved complete self-governance within the Empire in the eighteenth century would have been truly revolutionary. It would have telescoped a century and a half of the British Empire's history into a moment in time; the dominions gained autonomy only with the Statute of Westminster of 1931.

But unable to foresee the future, or comprehend the depth of British commitment to parliamentary supremacy over the Empire, the American patriots originally entertained no idea of independence. One month before Lexington, Benjamin Franklin informed William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, that "he had never heard in any conversation from any person drunk or sober the least expression of a wish for separation or hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America." The men of Lexington and Concord did not confront British troops in the name of an independent Massachusetts, let alone an independent United States of America, which term would first appear in the Great Declaration itself.

What, then, in the early morning of April 19, 1775, was the fighting about? Had there been a colonial Cronkite to interview him, Captain John Parker might have said that he and his men fought for liberty, or the rights of Englishmen — or, more sweepingly, the rights of men. Or he might have admitted to a sense of relief that at last he was able to vent his pent-up anger at the tangible symbol of oppression, the Redcoats, who as a haughty occupying army had for several years been creating a smoldering resentment among Massachusetts' people.

There would be 14 months between Lexington and that Second of July when Congress finally passed the resolution of independence separating America from the mother country. During this most crucial period, the idea of reconciliation on American terms slowly gave way to the idea of independence. Both ideas, however, were but means to the goal of self-government. Of the two, independence was the more chancy; it would mean republican government, an eventuality that many theretofore patriotic Americans would reject. The loyalists included thousands who had originally opposed parliamentary legislation for the colonies but who ultimately acquiesced in order to avoid the republican alternative.

Except through hindsight, nothing that would necessarily lead to independence could be seen in the conflict at Lexington. Independence was the result of the vicissitudes of was. Ideology, however, did play a role in the sense that separation from Britain in the eighteenth century had to mean the demise of monarchy in English America. The task for such polemicists as Paine and Adams, therefore, was to convince a doubting public of the viability of republicanism. In this, the British came to their aid. Britain's every new military action against America further weakened the reconciliationist position.

Following Lexington, the Crown blockaded all colonial shipping, declared the colonies in a state of rebellion, and declared it treasonous to aid them. Britain hired German mercenaries to fight in America and emptied her own jails into her armies; it was appropriate, said George III, remembering that transportation to America was frequently the lot of the convicted criminal, to have convicts fight convicts. The British navy burned Falmouth (now Portsmouth), Maine and Norfolk, Virginia. Governor Dunmore of Virginia offered freedom to slaves who would rise against their masters (hardly endearing the planters to the royal cause). Great battles were fought, most notably the Battle of Bunker Hill.

As the British pressed the war upon America, the everyday decisions necessary for survival (not to speak of the great decision for independence) became the responsibility of the men of the Second Continental Congress who met in Philadelphia shortly after Lexington. This Congress formed the whole of our central government for the next 14 years. Voting by the sixty delegates was by colony, not by head. The delegates were bound by instructions from their constituencies, the assemblies or revolutionary conventions by which they were selected.

Given the extremely varied complexion of the 13 colonial governments, some of these separate assembles or conventions were fairly good mirrors of popular opinion; others were tight oligarchies that reflected little but the will to remain in power. Some of these constituted bodies were bitterly divided between the two poles, and of course their constituents themselves were bitterly divided.

The handiest formula for understanding the responses of the various colonies to the crisis of the day is: those colonies with the more heterogeneous populations and the growing economies were more likely to abjure independence; contrariwise, those colonies with relatively homogeneous populations and declining economies were more inclined to support radical measures.

Basically, that formula differentiates the middle colonies on the one hand from the New England colonies and Virginia on the other. Heterogeneity in ethnic background and religion marked the middle colonies: Pennsylvania, for instance, was one-third Scotch-Irish, one-third German, and one-third English and other. New York was also ethnically and religiously divided, while the Delanceys and Livingstons waged their eternal struggle for control of the very unrepresentative legislature. New Jersey was split between the west, dependent on Philadelphia, and the east, dependent on New York. Her people, also, were constantly involved in interminable disputes over land grants.

Sectional and social divisions in Pennsylvania and New York brought those colonies to the brink of civil war. The Carolinas pitched over the brink into bloody strife. They and Maryland, bitterly divided between east and west, were also similar to the middle colonies in their ethnic makeup. They were similar, too, in the general upsurge of their economies in the 1770s. The leaders of these colonies, particularly those representing the older elites tenacious of power, saw that they had prospered within the Empire, and believed that the imperial connection was needed to keep the lid on the explosive social mix over which they presided.

New England possessed the most homogeneous population of colonial America. Virginia, though ethnically more diversified, experienced at mid-century little of the divisiveness plaguing her neighbors. Her meandering rivers cut deep into the west, effect an intra-colonial communication and unity sadly lacking in the Carolinas and Pennsylvania. New England and Virginia boasted the oldest representative assemblies in English America. However, these colonies experienced a steady economic decline through the Sixties and Seventies. Philadelphia and New York stole away Boston's one-time commercial preeminence. Two-thirds of Virginia's planters were in debt to their business representatives in London and Glasgow.

Social and economic conditions, however, were not the sole determinants of the several colonies' attitudes toward the Empire. Personal and political factors played a role as well. Massachusetts, for example, had a long tradition of independence from England's imperial sway. And when England chose to exercise her powers, it was frequently to detriment of individuals like Sam Adams' father, who lost his fortune when Parliament in 1742 nullified a land-bank scheme in which he was involved. Young Sam remained less than charmed with the imperial connection ever after. As a journalist and the political boss of Boston, he became the rallying cry for the Americans' assertion of their rights. His cousin John, a country lawyer deeply imbued with the Puritan ethic of his forefathers, as early as 1765 could refer to the Crown officials in his colony as missionaries of ignorance, foppery, servility and slavery."

The Adamses were not alone in their personal disenchantment with British governance. James Otis' father, a powerful leader in southern Massachusetts, was denied the Chief Justiceship of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. The office fell instead to his political rival Thomas Hutchinson, who already monopolized many of the colony's public offices. Young James, like young Sam, would become an early and vocal champion of American rights.

Down in Virginia, the conservative old guard was thoroughly discredited as early as 1762, when the colonial treasurer and Speaker of the House, John Robinson, was caught with his hand in the public till. The young bloods Arthur and Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson all thereby enhanced their position in the legislature. But Virginians of all factions were hot for liberty. The aristocratic Richard Henry Lee, not unlike John Adams in Massachusetts, could speak as early as 1765 of England's "infernal crew of hireling Miscreants." During the Stamp Act crisis, he gave vent to the hope that "America can find arms as well as Arts to remove the Demon Slavery far from its borders." And he was not speaking of black slavery.

Pennsylvania's politics, on the other hand, were dominated by the pro-British Joseph Galloway. Galloway's idee fixe was that the crown should take the colony's government out of the hands of its proprietary rulers, the heirs of William Penn. From his powerful position as Speaker, Galloway guided the Pennsylvania Assembly in its struggle with the proprietary family. Pennsylvania sought royalization at the very time that Massachusetts and Virginia, for example, were kicking over the traces. Galloway's erstwhile political mentor, Benjamin Franklin, in England for some 15 years as an agent for several colonial assemblies, broke with his old pupil on this issue. He returned home (he was on the high seas on April 19, 1775) to the Second Continental Congress a flaming patriot — an exception among the general leadership of the middle colonies.

As Galloway, discredited by the tide of events, sullenly withdrew from Pennsylvania politics (and ultimately from America to head the loyalists in England), his mantle descended upon John Dickinson. Dickinson — a wealthy, conservative lawyer/landholder of Pennsylvania and Delaware — emerged as the leader of the congressional reconciliationists. He had earlier attained international fame at the time of the Townshend Acts. In 1767, Parliament had enacted into law Charles Townshend's plan to impose certain colonial import duties for the purpose of raising a revenue with which to break the colonial legislatures' power of the purse. Dickinson then wrote the famous Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, brilliantly setting forth the colonies' case against parliamentary taxation. But now after Lexington, Dickinson — a true son of the middle colonies — pulled back. He opposed separation and placed his faith in petitioning the Crown; he was the author of the useless Olive Branch Petition, which the King did not so much as look at.

With all of these differing interests to reconcile, it is clear that independence depended upon two factors. First, there would have to emerge in Congress a majority independence faction. Second, a popular pro-independence movement outside Congress would have to bring pressure upon recalcitrant assemblies to instruct their congressional delegates for independence. The story of the 14 months from Lexington to the Declaration is the story of these parallel movements.

In the light of later American history, members of the radical faction in Congress made some odd couples. John Adams, who called for bold measures, found Franklin a pillar of strength; his was, wrote Adams, "a disposition entirely American … He is a great and good man." Adams also thought highly of Thomas Jefferson, whom he inveigled into writing the Great Declaration. Massachusetts and Virginia, in fact, got along splendidly in this period of our history. Adams and Lee agreed that the Dickinson plan to petition gave, as Adams put it, "a silly cast to our whole proceedings." To Adams, Dickinson was a "piddling genius." Arms, not petitions, were the proper remedy.

South Carolina's congressional delegation proved a major stumbling block, dominated as it was by the aristocratic brothers John and Edward Rutledge. These men represented the colony's wealthy oligarchy, entrenched in the South Carolina Commons House of Assembly, who feared the democratic threat to their power inherent in the challenge to British authority. Back-country Carolinians, in fact, so hated the eastern ruling class that Toryism ultimately found many a willing ally among the oligarchy. Carolinian turbulence caused the colony's established leaders to hang back from the precipice of independence.

It has been suggested that John Adams envisioned, from the beginning of the Second Continental Congress, a program leading to independence. If he did, this "Atlas of Independence," as he was called, must have despaired frequently because of congressional timidity. "The Congress," he wrote, "is not so much alarmed as it ought to be. We shall have nothing but deceit, hostility, fire, famine, pestilence and sword from England. Yet the colonies like all bodies of men must and will have their way and their humor and even their whims. You will see a strange oscillation between love and hatred, between war and peace …" Adams's despair is understandable in the light of middle colony resolutions that, as late as January 1776, were claiming that "the reports of Independency are groundless, that the delegates of this colony are to bend their utmost endeavors for obtaining a redress of grievances and for restoring the union between the colonies and Great Britain, and that the said delegates must utterly reject propositions otherwise."

It is conceivable that had Britain withdrawn her troops from American soil and retracted the claim of parliamentary supremacy before the spring of 1776, the American Revolution would have been consummated sans independence. But the Crown doggedly pursued its objective of bringing the colonists to heel by the force of British arms. Franklin foresaw the inevitable result; he wrote in April 1776,

<block>Nothing seems wanting now [for independence] but the "general consent." The novelty of the thing deters some, the doubts of success others, the vain hope of reconciliation, many. But our enemies take continually every proper measure to remove these obstacles, and their endeavors are attended with success, since every day furnishes us with new causes of increasing enmity, and new reasons for wishing an eternal separation, so that there is a rapid increase of the formerly small party, who were for an independent government.

British actions, as Franklin pointed out, placed the conservatives in an untenable position. For example, the British decision to invade wavering New York from Canada ultimately helped place New York in the independence column — although not until July 19, 1776. Even John Dickinson favored an American pre-emptive strike at Canada, obviously compromising his reconciliationist stand.

If the British added to the conservative dilemma, so too did popular pressure, which everywhere brought influence to bear upon the colonial assemblies and through them the Congress. Tom Paine's Common Sense, published in January 1776, provided the torrential logic that swept all before it, or — to shift metaphors — in the words of Virginia's Edmund Randolph, Common Sense "put the torch to combustibles." In three months' time the pamphlet sold 12,000 copies, comparable to a sale of ten million today. Here was the call to independence for which the radical leaders had been waiting.

The British pressed the war upon the Americans, attacking the Carolinas in the expectation of loyalist support. The American people were increasingly radicalized by such actions and by the efforts of Paine and others, but the congressional delegates — particularly from Pennsylvania, Delaware, South Carolina, Maryland, New York, and New Jersey — still clung to their increasingly chimerical hopes for reconciliation. In April, John Adams sardonically opined that "independency is a hobgoblin, of so frightful a mien, that it would throw a delicate person into fits to look it in the face." But slowly, Congress was forced to take actions tantamount to embracing the hobgoblin. The invasion of Canada was one such action. In March, Congress authorized the fitting out of armed vessels in a proto-American navy; in April, Congress threw open America's ports to the trade of the world, with the exception, of course, of England. In April and May, several colonial assemblies or conventions instructed their delegates for independence.

In May, Richard Henry Lee managed a dramatic resolution through Congress: that the several colonies "where no government sufficient to exigencies of their affairs have been hitherto established" should adopt such government as shall "best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular and America in general." Moderates agreed to the Lee resolution because of the rising threat of anarchy in several colonies. They were dismayed, however, when on May 15 John Adams succeeded in affixing to the resolution a dramatic preamble to the effect that "every kind of authority under the Crown sould be totally suppressed." The preamble was directed at the people of Pennsylvania, who took the hint, overthrew the Assembly, and constituted a new pro-independence revolutionary government, the most democratic of any of the new governments shortly to be established. Delaware and New Jersey followed Pennsylvania's lead. "Every post and every day," Adams crowed, "rolls in upon us independence like a torrent."

In June, Lee offered his resolution for independence. One July 1, John Dickinson made his last stand in a great speech opposing the resolution, a speech the doughty Adams replied to in perhaps his greatest moment. The vote was expected to be so close that post riders were sent that evening eighty miles into Delaware to alert the pro-independence Delaware delegate Cesar Rodney to the crucial vote the next day. At the last moment, in a ride more significant that that of Paul Revere, Rodney arrived to place Delaware in the independence column. Pennsylvania voted yes by 3 to 2 only because James Wilson changed his previous reconciliationist stand at the last minute and Dickinson and Robert Morris boycotted the meeting. South Carolina and Maryland, pressed by popular feeling at home, agreed to go along with the majority. By this tactic, the established leadership in those colonies avoided the Pennsylvania debacle, wherein the establishment went down with the empire. New York abstained, but nonetheless independence was voted on July 2, and the great Declaration was accepted two days later.

John Adams was jubilant. "Thirteen clocks," he wrote, "were made to strike together — a perfection of mechanism which no artist," he modestly added, "had ever before effected." To Abigail he wrote, "The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America … It will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival … It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent from this time forward forever more." He was aware, he informed his wife, of the coming toil and trouble, but "through all the gloom," he wrote, "I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory."

With these uncharacteristically impassioned words, erring only on the date of the annual jubilee — Americans inexplicably memorialize the Declaration rather than the resolution of independence — John Adams proclaimed the crucial point at which the American Revolution became the War for Independence. The vicissitudes of war gave direction to what had been for 14 months after Lexington the inchoate struggle of 13 colonies for self-determination. The vicissitudes of peace would set the conditions for the final act of revolution: the creation of a new instrument of government that would unite the Americans as one people.

At the time this article was written, Thomas Wendel was a professor of history at San Jose State University.