The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement

J. Franklin Jameson

• Publisher: Papamoa Press
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781787204164
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de la Grande-Bretagne

This small book, first published in 1926, is comprised of three lectures on the American Revolution considered as a Social Movement, which were delivered by renowned historian and author J. Franklin Jameson in November 1925 on the Louis Clark Vanuxem foundation. In the fourth and final chapter, Jameson sums up and provides thoughts in conclusion.
Proving to be an influential publication, the book expresses themes that Jameson had been developing since the 1890s, and which reflected the "Progressive" historiography. It downplays ideas and political values and stresses that the Revolution was a fight over power among economic interest groups, especially as to who would rule at home.
"This is a small but highly significant book by one of the first scholars of America...A truly notable book, this is, carefully organized, cut with a diamond point to a finish, studded with novel illustrative materials, gleaming with new illumination, serenely engaging in style, and sparingly garnished with genial humor."—CHARLES A. BEARD
"...stands as a landmark in recent American historiography, a slender but unmistakable signpost, pointing a new direction for historical research and interpretation...The influence of this little book with the long title has grown steadily...With the passage of a quarter-century, the book has achieved the standing of a minor classic. One will hardly find a textbook that does not paraphrase or quote Jameson's words, borrow his illustrations, cite him in its bibliography."—FREDERICK B. TOLLES in The American Historical Review
"The scholarship is impeccable, the style is polished, and, above all, the outlook is broad and thoughtful...The author has a keen eye for relationships which might easily be neglected."—ALLAN NEVINS

IV. THOUGHT AND FEELING

THE preceding lectures have concerned themselves solely with the visible or tangible effects which the American Revolution brought about in the social system of America. The imponderable effects which it may have caused in the field of public opinion or popular emotion are not so easily identified or traced. One reason for this rests upon the fundamental fact that in the order of time causes are presumed to precede effects. We cannot satisfy ourselves as to these relations of cause and effect unless we can establish our chronological sequences with some security, and in the realm of popular thought and feeling it is difficult to date most of the phenomena. It is difficult even when a country has an abundant literature, and certainly the United States of 1783 was far from literary. In the main its population was inarticulate, and the few who wrote were as likely to be expressing thoughts which they had found in European books as thoughts which originated or were current among American minds.

Again, many movements which we may trace in American thought and feeling, and which we may ascribe to the influence of the American Revolution on the principle of post hoc, propter hoc, may have been due to causes of worldwide range, operative in Europe quite as much as in America, with effects perceptible in countries that had had nothing to do with the American Revolution. Of the waves of thought and feeling that in past times have disturbed Europe, the most important have not failed to cross the Atlantic, though often they have arrived on these shores so transformed as not to be at once recognized. If, for instance, we compare the European revolutionary movements of 1830 and those of 1848, we perceive that they were strikingly different in character. The animating cause of the revolutions of 1830 was social discontent, that of the revolutions of 1848 was the sentiment of nationalism. Now what do we see on this side of the water? No revolutions, in either year. But in the early ‘thirties we see abundant evidences of social ferment—transcendentalism and socialism, antislavery agitation and Mormonism, passionate advocacy of Graham bread and this or that medical panacea, wild financial as well as philosophical speculation, workingmen’s parties, free love, and a tendency toward riots. Plainly all this constituted the American phase of the revolutionary ferment of 1830.

In 1848, on the other hand, we see in the United States no revolutions indeed, but all the symptoms of heightened nationalism—the war with Mexico, the threat of war with Great Britain, the fervor of annexationism, the proclaiming of “Manifest Destiny,” the height of spread-eagle oratory—all those phenomena, in short, which led the late Professor Dunning to give to his chapter on this period the expressive title of “The Roaring Forties.”

Going further back, I do not think it fantastic to discover an American phase of that modulation of key in the intellectual life of Europe, at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, which we call the Romantic Movement. We should hardly look for many literary manifestations of it, in a land so little literary, but we may rightly see its outcroppings in the religious movements typified in the emotional revivals which in just those years stirred so deeply the forest communities of the West.

We shall, then, in any consideration of the American Revolution as a source of change in American thought and feeling, make large allowance for the working of causes that were nowise confined to the United States, for influences that, in all countries, were in the air during the years in question. Thus, it would be pleasant to think that humane influences playing about the Revolution were the cause of the movement toward prison reform of which the serious beginning may be found in the formation in 1787 of the “Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons.” It is true that the Americans were, as I think they still are, somewhat more humane than most other peoples, and an English historian justly commends in particular the humanity with which they conducted the Revolutionary War. Their criminal code was far less savage than that of England, where when our Revolution opened two hundred offenses were punishable with death; in none of the American colonies did the number exceed twenty, and two states, Virginia and Pennsylvania, considerably softened their penal codes within our period. Four of the states ameliorated their laws respecting the imprisonment of poor debtors, under which half the population of a prison sometimes consisted of that class and a case is recorded where seven of them were kept in prison for debts aggregating less than seven pounds.

The Revolution may have had something to do with such legislation, for the changes of fortune incident to a wildly fluctuating currency and a period of exceptional speculation probably brought into the debtors’ prisons a new class of unfortunates, embracing many persons of whom legislators had personal knowledge, bringing personal compassion. Also, the frequent passage of stay-laws during the war and in the years immediately following it may have caused a more lenient feeling toward debtors to prevail. When, however, we consider how slowly the amelioration of prisons and of the penal code and of the condition of debtors proceeded, and in how few states before the end of the century, it is more reasonable to attribute what progress was made, here as in Europe, rather to the writings of Beccaria and the labors of John Howard, or in general terms to the Zeitgeist, than to any supposed influence of our Revolution.

On the other hand, many immediate influences from the Revolution can be securely traced. In the first place, the mere fact of independence caused the American to think and feel differently about America. Joel Barlow’s Vision of Columbus, or President Stiles’s celebrated election sermon on The United States elevated to Glory and Honor, could not possibly have been written twenty years earlier. Rather oddly to modern apprehension, but naturally enough when the political circumstances of the time are considered, in many cases it is the elevation of his colony to the position of an independent or sovereign state that seems to affect the citizen’s mind with pride, rather than any larger aspect of independence. An evidence of this heightening of state pride may be seen in the fact that—Virginia, Massachusetts, Jamaica, New York, and New Jersey having, to be sure, already provided themselves with good colonial histories—writers in the younger and smaller states proceeded in just these years after the Revolution to prepare excellent histories of their respective states: Belknap’s New Hampshire, Ramsay’s South Carolina, Williamson’s North Carolina, Proud’s Pennsylvania, Trumbull’s Connecticut, and the unfinished and unpublished histories of Rhode Island and of Georgia by Theodore Foster and Edward Langworthy.

Our own generation is abundantly familiar with the legacy which war leaves behind it in the form of what is called post-war psychology. The types of its manifestation are recurrent. The profiteer, the nouveau riche, the Incroyable, the flapper, are found, under varying designations, alike in 1784 or in 1796 or in 1816 or in 1866 or in 1919. Sober Americans of 1784 lamented the spirit of speculation which war and its attendant disturbances had generated, the restlessness of the young, their disrespect for tradition and authority, the increase of crime, the frivolity and extravagance of society.

There were more specific sequelae of warfare. There was the duel, for instance. Before the French and Indian War there had been few instances of it in America. Contact with British officers in that war had shown young American officers that the duel was the hallmark of military sophistication. Contact with French officers during the Revolutionary War fastened in the minds of young American officers, from whom it spread to many others, the belief that, if greatly displeased with the conduct of a fellow-citizen toward you, your proper course was to offer him an opportunity to kill you. This fantastic but not ignoble superstition persisted in many parts of America almost till the Civil War, and its upholders were as certain as Moltke was concerning warfare, that its abandonment would entail the decay of manliness.

A still larger mental effect of the Revolutionary War was the high place of political and social influence accorded, for many years after its successful conclusion, to military men who had taken part in it. Throughout history, this has been one of the stock results of warfare. All will remember our twelve soldier-presidents, and the older among us will remember how, for thirty years after the Civil War, there was no qualification for civil office, or at any rate, no qualification for candidacy, more valuable than a military title derived from that conflict. So it was with the Revolutionary War, and even more so, for, it should be remembered, to the minds of that time our national history began with the Revolution. When one went back beyond the year 1775, he lost himself in the confusion of thirteen separate streams. Therefore the men who had made the Revolutionary War successful were like the eponymous heroes who had founded Grecian cities. They had begun the history of a nation, and were entitled to an exceptional share of military glory.

The circumstances of warfare in those days, it should also be remembered, were such as lent themselves readily to the acquirement of military glory. The weapons were of short range. Battles were fought by daylight. The numbers engaged were so moderate, the field of each battle was so little extended, that the display of individual valor could be frequent and conspicuous. In such respects, the character of military struggles changed little from the time of Hector and Agamemnon till the latter years of the nineteenth century. When Horatius smote down Astur, when Ney led in person the last charge of the Guards at Waterloo, or when Armistead and Garnett at Gettysburg fell at the head of their brigades, whole armies saw and remembered. Throughout all these years military glory was within the grasp of every officer. Now, when armies in trenches and dugouts, or in the darkness of midnight, contend against invisible enemies miles away in front, and the proper post of a general officer is at the telephone instrument, miles in the rear, the opportunity to acquire personal fame in warfare has almost disappeared. The officer who passionately desires the limelight cannot obtain it by visible exploits against the enemy in the open field, but only by attacking his superiors in the front pages of the newspapers.

It would seem too large a digression if one were to discuss at length the effects of this disappearance or almost entire reduction of the soldier’s opportunity for individual fame, but in passing one may draw attention to the powerful aid it brings to the cause of the world’s peace. No one can review in his mind the warlike literature of previous ages, the rhetoric of military proclamations, the animating spirit of war songs and war poems, without perceiving how strong an incitement to warfare has come from the desire and hope of military glory. Under present conditions, that whole motive has practically disappeared from the world, to the world’s great benefit. Of the many noble youths who eight years ago went over to the fields of France, hardly any, I think we should all agree, were influenced by that traditional motive. Did anyone ever hear any of them use the words “glory” or “laurels” or “renown”? They went to war as to an imperative but regrettable duty that must be conscientiously performed, and the scene they saw before them was not a brilliant garden of laurels but an unattractive and prosaic sea of mud.

A hundred and fifty years ago, however, military distinction was an attractive and potent reality. Those who had attained it in the Revolutionary War received from their fellow-citizens honors and offices and influence that often were well-deserved and well exercised, but in not a few cases extended much beyond the qualifications for high position or beyond the time when it could suitably be retained.

Other influences from the war sprang from the fact that it was waged with the aid of French allies. Gratitude for French aid made beloved friends of those who fifteen years before had been the enemies of all English America. French officers, usually pleased with America, charmed both American men and American women. French fashions became the vogue, and French manners had their influence. French books, especially those of Voltaire and Raynal, were sold in all the bookshops. French newspapers began a precarious existence. French army surgeons taught the medical fraternity in America much that was useful. The American Philosophical Society admitted many Frenchmen as members, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded at Boston on the model of institutions of similar purpose in France. The need of learning the French language was widely felt. Twenty-six teachers of French in the United States in 1785 are known. The College of William and Mary established a chair of that language, the first in the United States, in 1779. Harvard College the next year gave it the status of a regular though elective subject of instruction, and in 1782 arranged that freshmen and sophomores might take it instead of Hebrew.

What influence, upon education in general the Revolution exercised it would be difficult to say, so various were the conditions, so little systematic the organization. The Duke of La Rochefoucauld notes already in 1794 the habit of speaking of the United States as “the most enlightened nation of the world,” and he notes it with tolerance, admitting a large degree of popular intelligence. Whatever foundation the boast may have had was probably due more largely to the rapid increase of newspapers and other printing which was mentioned in the last lecture, conjoined with the quickness of mind naturally produced by pioneer life and race-mixture, than to any improvements which the period of warfare can have brought to the colonial systems of elementary or secondary education. Inevitably many schools and academies must have been broken up, and though we see evidences of much desire for educational progress, it would need much time for fruition.

In respect to college education, we can see our way somewhat more clearly. When the war opened there were in the colonies nine colleges—Harvard, the College of William and Mary, Yale, the College of New Jersey (Princeton), King’s College (Columbia), the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania), Rhode Island College (now Brown University), Dartmouth and Queen’s College (Rutgers). During the war there was no addition to this list, and indeed some of these suspended operations. But within eight years from the fall of Yorktown, the number of colleges in the country was nearly doubled, by the addition of eight new ones, chiefly founded by those religious denominations which had been actively engaged in the work of perfecting their internal organization. Of the eight, one was planted in Pennsylvania, Dickinson College, then Presbyterian; four in Maryland, Washington College at Chestertown, St. John’s College at Annapolis, the Catholic college at Georgetown, and a Methodist college at Abington, burned down a few years later and never rebuilt; two in Virginia, Washington and Hampden-Sidney; and one at Charleston, South Carolina. In the next decade half-a-dozen more were founded, and, as the century turned, the ambitious American mind, full of pride and hope, began to label its infant institutions with the name of universities.

Before discussing the effects of the American Revolution upon religion, it will be useful to glance for a moment at the state and relations of the various religious bodies in the colonies at the time when the war broke out. Un-American as the idea of religious establishment seems in our day, in nine of the colonies there was in 1770 an established church. But this meant different things in different colonies. In New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut it was the Congregational Church that was established by law and supported by general taxation, and the majority of the people belonged to it, though there were considerable numbers of Baptists, and many Episcopalians in Connecticut, Boston, and Portsmouth. Of the six colonies in which the English Church was established, there was none in which its adherents constituted a majority of the people. In Virginia it included perhaps half, the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and Moravians another half. In Maryland the dissenters were more numerous than the churchmen; in New York, New Jersey, the Carolinas, and Georgia much more numerous. In New York the English Church was established in only a few localities outside of the city, and in New Jersey it cannot properly be said to have been established at all. In all the southern colonies the whole body of the people were called upon to pay taxes for the support of the ministers of the established church, though it was the church of a minority. This was a great grievance, and was bitterly resented.

It is quite true that in the colonies south of Virginia the laws regarding tithes were not strictly regarded, and that in all colonies a practical toleration had been secured, after a long struggle. Yet much remained to make the situation of a dissenter highly uncomfortable. Take North Carolina for example. The witty Colonel Byrd said that it had “a climate where no clergyman can breathe, any more than spiders in Ireland.” At the end of the colonial period, there were but six Episcopal clergymen in the province. The Presbyterians and the Moravians each were as numerous as the Anglicans, and the Quakers more so. Yet all were by law obliged to contribute to the support of the Eng...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• I. THE REVOLUTION AND THE STATUS OF PERSONS
• II. THE REVOLUTION AND THE LAND
• III. INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE
• IV. THOUGHT AND FEELING
• REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER