The Radicalism of the American Revolution*

[Sanguine]

Rodney Dodsworth   July 18, 2016

We Americans like to think of our revolution as not being radical; indeed, most of the time we consider it downright conservative. It certainly does not appear to resemble the revolutions of other nations in which people were killed, property was destroyed, and everything was turned upside down. We can think of Robespierre, Lenin, and Mao Zedong as revolutionaries, but not George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. We cannot quite conceive of revolutionaries in powdered hair and knee breeches.

They made speeches, not bombs; they wrote learned pamphlets, not manifestos. They were not abstract theorists and they were not social levelers. They did not kill one another; they did not devour themselves. The American Revolution does not seem to have the same kinds of causes – the social wrongs, the class conflict, the impoverishment, the grossly inequitable distributions of wealth – that presumably lie behind other revolutions. There were no peasant uprisings, no burning of chateaux, no storming of prisons.

The social conditions that generically are supposed to lie behind all revolutions – poverty, and economic deprivation – were not present in colonial America. American colonists were not oppressed and had no crushing imperial chains to throw off. In fact, the colonists knew they were freer, more equal, more prosperous, and less burdened with cumbersome feudal and monarchical restraints than any other part of mankind in the 18th century.

Precisely because the impulses to revolution in America bear little or no resemblance to the impulses that presumably account for modern social protests and revolutions, we have tended to think of the American Revolution as having no social character, as having virtually nothing to do with the society, as having no social causes and no social consequences....

http://articlevblog.com/2016/07/the-radicalism-of-the-american-revolution/

[geronl]

The author seems insane. There was a long, long list of grievances against the crown. The economic system they saddled the colonies with was pretty oppressive and expensive. Why did imports and exports have to be approved by the crown? Why must all trade have to go through England? Why must England have a monopoly on so many goods? Why do the colonists not deserve political representation? Are they not people?

[goodwithagun]

I've always thought of teh Founders as radical. Plus, they did more than give speeches. They gave blood and treasure to the cause. The final draft of the Declaration, after the preamble and 27 grievances, basically laid out how the colonists had battered wife syndrome from KGIII. This article is really off base, or I'm reading it wrong. I'm willing to accept the latter if respectfully pointed out.

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[Sanguine]

The author seems insane. There was a long, long list of grievances against the crown. The economic system they saddled the colonies with was pretty oppressive and expensive. Why did imports and exports have to be approved by the crown? Why must all trade have to go through England? Why must England have a monopoly on so many goods? Why do the colonists not deserve political representation? Are they not people?

Seen from the times though, the fact that they felt they deserved redress and went so far as to get it, was truly radical.

[goodwithagun]

Seen from the times though, the fact that they felt they deserved redress and went so far as to get it, was truly radical.

I must agree with that. They responded Ina way like no others had. They weren't looking for a fight, they were looking for independence. If a fight is what needed to happen to gain independence, fine. The Founders had a higher purpose than just "getting back" at KGIII because he was mean.